Let's Create a More Human Future Together

What an interesting time we are living in! AI technologies continue to dazzle while AI companies like OpenAI attempt to recreate science fiction cautionary tales like the movie Her.

Perhaps you are finding all of this a bit confusing or disconcerting. Perhaps you feel sidelined. I understand—I’m feeling it too. Among other things, the AI narratives coming out of Silicon Valley are raising all sorts of philosophical questions.

Fortuitously, I just completed my masters in philosophy, cosmology and consciousness at CIIS. This is why you haven’t heard much from me in the past year—I was almost entirely absorbed by my studies and a few speaking engagements about AI hype and mythology.

The personal thesis I developed in my two years in the masters program centers around the intersection of artificial intelligence, philosophy, spirituality, and humanity. Inspired most deeply by the depth psychology and archetypal cosmology of Carl Jung and the pioneering work in consciousness of Stan Grof, I have arrived at the conclusion that much of technological innovation and its underlying ideologies are overly disembodied, gnostic, unconscious, and out-of-touch, not to mention a form of neo-eugenics, as shown by Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres.

So, alongside the explosion of the so-called AI age 18 months ago, I also returned to my AI roots as an AI researcher in the 1990s and studied the philosophical implications of AI, including a skeptical eye toward the immense hype and mythology being built up around it by those with a vested interest.

My Thoughts on AI Hype, Cyborgian Ideologies

I have recently become obsessed with understanding what technology leaders in Silicon Valley believe. When you look closely, it’s really bizarre. And almost nobody is talking about it. You can watch a preview of my exploration into what I’m calling cyborgian ideologies in the video below. And I will have more to say about all of this soon. You can offer your own thoughts and reactions in this very short survey, or by simply replying to this email.

My Mission

It is my mission to help create a more human future through creating technologies that elevate and celebrate the human, rather than diminishing and rejecting the human. There is so much more to being human than cognitive intelligence, including imagination, intuition, emotional intelligence, consciousness, wisdom, and the capacity to love. Not only that but AI developers are nowhere near creating true human-level intelligence, let alone surpassing it with superintelligence, despite all the hype.

Instead of waiting for some far-off, science-fiction superintelligence to solve all the problems we face as a humanity, we need to leverage today’s technology—including today’s AI—as a tool and human connector to solve these problems.

Furthermore, our technology reflects the mindset of the people creating it. So we need to understand their ideologies, and we need to be more thoughtful about who is creating it, and how.

Our culture — our possibilities and limitations — is being shaped more by technology than government policies today, at least in the U.S. Technologists are the new thought leaders. But few of them have philosophical training. They are not wise elders—far from it. Where are our wise elders?

AI is raising philosophical questions that require wisdom and diverse perspectives. I am doing my part to attempt to answer some of those questions from a grounded, holistic, and human perspective.

I am also working on a book and a course about all of this. But I need your input to help shape that. Please take this one-minute survey to answer a few questions.

Becoming More Human Course Highlights

In the course I am designing, we will step beyond the limitations of the AI narrative and explore the profound depths of human consciousness.

Through embodied practices, ancient wisdom, and explorations of the imaginal, we will uncover the power of intuition, imagination, creativity, empathy, and a deep connection with ourselves and the natural world.

Through experiential practices, numinous philosophies, and community connection, we cultivate calm, clarity, clear vision, deeper resilience, a renewed relationship with technology, and a newfound appreciation for what it is to be human!

The course will weave together: Himalayan yoga, meditation, breath work, kriya, dancing, sacred rituals, talks, group discussions, journaling and more.

I am planning to offer it online in six modules over six weeks:

1. Arriving, grounding, embodiment, presence
2. Deconstructing AI Myths & Metaphors
3. Worldviews and Joanna's Macy's Great Turning
4. Exploring the Wonder of Being Human
5. Consciousness
6. Going Forth, Imagining a More Human Future & New Ideas about Utopia

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Remember, the future will be very human, if we decide it is!

Warmly,

Chad