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Today, the artistic prompt typed into a chatbot is itself becoming a form of expression. The difference between a clunky query and an inspired one is
As artist and AI collaborator Refik Anadol says, “This is pure collaboration , imagination with a machine.”
In fact, I’d like to propose something that sounds almost heretical in certain artistic circles: Prompt engineering, the act of crafting input to coax
“Well, actually, the important part is the creation of the system”. The constraints of the system that produce infinite media are where the action hap
Creator platforms algorithmically incentivize us to create at the pace Wall Street and the market demand. This is why we’re pushed to create more and
At one point I was struggling to connect the dots and our moderator, the science fiction scholar Sherryl Vint, made the very astute observation that w
The canonical example of the 2010s was probably the trend-forecasting agency K-HOLE, which was formed by four art-school friends who, while grifting f
Ugh, I can’t believe I had to live/work through the deaths of both print media AND online media and now possibly television and film too?? Can I just
The problem in media isn’t the business model. The problem is that most of the content sucks.
the answer for publishers in the age of AI is no different than it was in the age of Aggregators: build a direct connection with readers. This, by ext
pretty clear that collecting cultural ephemera is a new consumer behavior that’s going to become a core part of life on the internet
Books you read are sending you input. Your friends modeling behaviors for you. Newspapers. Tools. People you follow on Twitter. The architecture of a
The dream isn’t just to show all of ourselves unfiltered to the world. It’s to find a character that we feel comfortable being, that we deeply resonat
If Twitter had to start over without its graph, on the other hand, it would be dead (which speaks to why Twitter clones like BlueSky which are just Tw
Twitter became about arguing, Instagram became about showing off, Facebook became about people you went to school with saying weird things. The most
Social media has also proven to simply not be that efficient in terms of matching high quality content with a relevant audience. Just because people c
people think the solution to the web becoming a big performance stage is to have lots of fragmented smaller communities. But finding the right communi
Contribute your skills to an existing effort – make it possible. Build the website, raise the funds, recruit the talent, plan the events. As Bill McKi
They're blind to a simple truth: complex minds can't develop on their own. If they could, feral children would be like any other. And minds don't grow
Our society’s individualism, largely driven by technological advances and the illusion of endless progress, will no longer be sustainable – will not b
The main problem with Burning Man — and with the current psychedelic renaissance — is the lack of a meaningful systems-level critique. Such a critique
Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third-story window. Psychedelics are illegal because
Spirituality is experiencing who you are beyond small mental definitions, rituals, relationships. For this reason it renders traditional religion impo
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” — Søren Kierkegaard
The subscription model means content providers are paid regularly no matter the quality and quantity of the product. Makes sense – being paid on a reg
What tradition or practice from another culture or era do you think we should widely adopt?I wish patronage were widely adopted as an explicit social
Media and Machines.
See beyond yourself whenever possible. See what happens when you de-center your own singular life and show up for the pains and joys of other people.
hanging out as a way to reclaim time as something other than a raw ingredient to be converted into productivity
Our fates, whether we like it or not, acknowledge it or not, are intermingled. Though it is not immediately legible, we sink or swim together. Still,
So we all know that the hard boundary we place between ourselves and the world is somewhat artificial. Sure, on one level you are a separate being, di
If we give them the room to breathe, creative works can live multiple lives. The works will stay online for years, decades even. It will make someone
What they don’t see, and what we continue to experience, is that while collaborating can be hard, it’s also a more rewarding, fruitful, and uplifting
I’ve been thinking about the enduring, perhaps increasing currency of personal recommendations (practically artisanal craft now if you think about it!
Knowing where to go and what to do is the currency that, in the modern aspiration economy, makes curators more important than influencers. They guide
Curation leads to expertise. Through curation, you better understand yourself, history, and unlikely connections across fields. Increasingly, we will
we’ve always been influenced in what we find beautiful or valuable or important, of course, but what’s new is the speed at which one is inundated with
You can use algorithms to surface new things. But algorithms are not nearly as good as human curators yet. Whatever pattern matching is going on insid
If there's any kind of lesson in all this, it's mostly some advice I want to give myself. The lesson is simply: speak up. It's OK to slip into advocac
look at how the word “community” itself has been warped in recent years into a cynical marketing cliché to rival “storyteller” — annexed as the torche
to be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
The five principles of prompting I developed work equally well as management techniques for humans: Give direction. Describe the desired style in de
People who are good at solving poorly defined problems don't get the same kind of kudos. They don’t get any special titles or clubs. There is no test
2) Clear Roles & Decision Rights Without clear swim lanes and decision rights, individuals on teams feel disempowered and projects tend to stall out.
Create ownership in everything. Revenue shares in projects. Equity in micro-companies. Stakes in outcomes. The Old Game keeps you permanently renting
When individual entry is impossible, collective entry becomes optimal. When traditional financing fails, alternative structures win. The groups doing