Somewhat Neolithic
The Ant and the Grasshopper
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Friends,
Perhaps I’m a little lackadaisical when I talk of equivalent times in human history to the one we are experiencing now. The obvious period to shift back to is the advent of electricity, the Industrial Revolution or other quasi-modern day halo events.
In reading about the shift from hunter-gatherer to an agricultural-based society, I think the shift we are seeing now - the age we are seeing now - is as transformative as then. And it pains my heart a little to hear of naysayers, of those who don’t want to engage or who rubbish the very concept.
It takes a minute to sign up for chatGPT - and 5 minutes to experience it. The basic version is free and you just need to know English to play around a little, ask questions and see what you get to. Or if you keep saying GTP, download anything vaguely AI-related and have a play. See what the fuss is about. I spoke with a handful of people last year who pretended to know but just hadn’t had a play. It’s OK to get lost. Have a play, go step by step, and ask the dumb question of your techier friend. As I said last week - it’s better to have tried than to pretend. To fail is to learn.
But perhaps I (and a few others) are wrong that the AI that is dominating our daily life is not going to change the world. I think we are past that. However, I don’t think we can dispute that we are indeed in an era of remarkable change. Of a faster life. Of a different world to the turn of the century.
This is why we must look to Neolithic time - 6000 years ago - to when humans experienced shifts similar to what we are seeing. Underlying technological change is a societal change, a shift from the West, a period of global instability, and a time of turmoil.
Society now is similar to the shifts from the Neolithic era. Nomads, who had moved constantly in search of food created permanent settlements and grouped together creating what we know today as a community. Growing agriculture supported food, which also spurred population growth, and created social organisation and hierarchy. These hierarchies were often based on control of land and resources. Leaders or elite classes who owned or controlled these resources gained power, leading to more stratified societies.
I spell this out because what happened from these societal changes was a shift in how people worked - changing from hunting to farming. People began to specialize in particular tasks such as tool-making, pottery, weaving, and construction, leading to the development of different crafts and trades. Innovation continued in these areas to create more efficiently - irrigation, domestication of animals, sustainable farming and storing of surplus production. This surplus allowed societies to support individuals not directly involved in food production, such as leaders, craftsmen, and religious figures. It also provided a cushion against bad harvests. Next, you would see trade with exchanges and communication occurring between different communities, and more technological advancement - and critical inventions for society - the invention of the wheel, the development of pottery and writing.
I’m no anthropologist, nor a historian - but we are seeing global power shifts. Tell me if see this: economic shifts, technological shifts and military ones. It’s in front of our very eyes. What will happen as we move forward is that we will continue to see further gaps in wealth and political power. You may not be able to shift politics from your desk - but you can jump on the adoption of technology - no matter how much of a laggard you perceive yourself to be.
What we believe to be the norm now - is shifting. We are in the middle of turmoil. And by understanding patterns in history, you can understand patterns ahead. It’s why trends are important. It’s why we must build for the future. It’s why we must own the technological power that we have at our fingertips.
It’s why we must heed the moral of The Ant and the Grasshopper
Stay Curious - and don’t forget to be amazing,
PS. For my friends in education in London this week, see you here. If you know, you know.
Here are my recommendations for this week:
Now
These Words Make it Obvious That Your Text is Written By AI
These 7 words are painfully obvious. They make me cringe. They will make your reader cringe: Transformative, Foster, tapestry, this is about, think of x as, it’s like, not only..but also - Related: CEOs say generative AI will result in job cuts in 2024
As if We Didn’t Have Enough to Frighten Us … The globe is already pockmarked with crises, and here may be another: North Korea is acting in highly unusual ways, leading some veteran analysts to fear it is preparing a surprise attack on South Korea and perhaps on Japan and Guam as well.
The best advice we got in 2023: always a good reminder - all about connection, reflection, checking in, resisting, learning, apologising, being purposeful, and having permission - pls give this article 3 minutes of your time today.
The Henley Passport Index is the original, authoritative ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. The index is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) - France top, Afghanistan bottom.
When You Want to Be Hybrid, But Your Boss Wants You in the Office: Workplace flexibility ranks as the most important element to workers today, second to salary. Hybrid work schedules, where individuals split time working from home and from the office, help put work in its rightful place allowing people to prioritize personal goals like physical activity and spend more time with their family. Beyond the personal benefits, workplace flexibility is also good for workplace diversity. Women and younger generations are more likely to seek flexible work, making it an attractive offering for employers seeking to recruit a diverse workforce and improve workplace equity and well-being. Yet, amidst the uptick in return-to-office mandates, hybrid work schedules can be an emotional and complex topic.
Next
‘Medicine is going personalised’: Moderna’s UK boss on the coming vaccine revolution: “The flexibility of the messenger RNA platform means that within about 100 days of any mutation, we can have a vaccine reformulated and on the market ready for vaccination into people. That’s a lot quicker than a traditional vaccine platform.”
AI wearable contraption gives you superhuman strength: A new way to experience adventure and challenge your limits - Hypershell, a robot startup from Y-Combinator China, has created the Hypershell ProX, an all-terrain exoskeleton that is like a second skin that fits over your legs and boosts your strength, speed and endurance.
Astronomers spotted something perplexing near the beginning of time: Monsters lurk in the background of James Webb Space Telescope images. Scientists are scrambling to make sense of them.
OpenAI launches first university partnership with Arizona State: Arizona State University will become the first-ever higher education institution to partner with OpenAI, allowing the school full use of the company's flagship product, ChatGPT. - part of a growing trend this year no doubt.
How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse: the Fediverse is an alternative social networking concept aimed at creating decentralized, interoperable platforms not owned by any single company. Exemplified by projects like Mastodon, it allows users from different networks to interact seamlessly using protocols like ActivityPub or with other decentralized models, based on crypto/blockchain technology, where users maintain complete control over their identities. This democratic alternative to single-company-owned social networks, provides freedom from algorithmic content curation and corporate-driven speech regulation. However, there are obstacles like user-friendliness and financial sustainability, given how small this is currently. Interestingly, Meta's recent foray into the Fediverse with Threads, which aims to integrate into this decentralized network. Worth a read! Related: Mark Zuckerberg’s new goal is creating artificial general intelligence: “One hypothesis was that coding isn’t that important because it’s not like a lot of people are going to ask coding questions in WhatsApp,” he says. “It turns out that coding is actually really important structurally for having the LLMs be able to understand the rigor and hierarchical structure of knowledge, and just generally have more of an intuitive sense of logic.”: Related: Sam Altman Says AI Using Too Much Energy, Will Require Breakthrough Energy Source
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Just because we can doesn't mean we SHOULD! Some things are not "toys" we should ever play with; this 1 has eternal spiritual consequences not being considered!