[0:00]
So it's July 4th here and I'm hiking to Silicus Lake right now.
[0:06]
It is a really pleasant day. It's about 2 in the afternoon I'd say.
[0:11]
This forest here on the way to the lake is heavily canopied so there isn't a lot of sunlight.
[0:20]
We've got a moment right here, right?
[0:22]
But they're rare in this forest.
[0:31]
But it doesn't feel like it normally does today for some reason.
[0:35]
Feels a little more light. Maybe it's because it's the middle of summer
[0:38]
and I haven't really spent much time here in the summertime on this particular trail here,
[0:43]
this part of the forest.
[0:46]
So...
[0:50]
New variable to track.
[0:53]
But why I got on this camera is because
[0:58]
I want to try to work something out for myself.
[1:05]
But I do that by allowing it to be witnessed by others.
[1:11]
This is a thing that I started doing a couple of years ago.
[1:17]
And I didn't really know that's what I was doing when I started doing it.
[1:23]
At first it just started like any kind of thing does.
[1:27]
I just thought, you know, I'd try making a YouTube channel
[1:30]
and sharing an experience that I was about to undergo.
[1:33]
Which was me moving into an RV and experiencing life differently than I had ever had before.
[1:39]
Knowing that I'd have to adapt.
[1:42]
And knowing that I would face obstacles.
[1:46]
And, you know, I had some fear about driving an RV because of how big they are.
[1:53]
I knew that I would be navigating a lot to do this.
[1:58]
I also didn't have teeth at the time.
[2:01]
I had lost my teeth to Mountain Dew.
[2:04]
And I decided I wasn't going to let that stop me from sharing with others my experience
[2:09]
because I thought it was important and I couldn't tell you why I thought this.
[2:12]
I just did.
[2:14]
And then, at first, I would say it was a good experience.
[2:21]
You know, there were a few different people that just happened to catch my first video.
[2:26]
And, you know, are soon within my journey.
[2:30]
And they were following along and they were encouraging.
[2:35]
And it felt, you know, natural.
[2:40]
Like I was just building a small community around something that I was doing.
[2:44]
Something that I wanted to share with others.
[2:47]
But the more I did it, and the more, you know, and I did this authentically.
[2:52]
And, you know, I discovered that that's just not very common these days on YouTube.
[2:56]
People aren't themselves on the platform.
[2:58]
They're, you know, they're performing.
[3:02]
It's just different.
[3:04]
And it's become so normalized that people don't really understand the difference anymore.
[3:11]
I see a human up ahead.
[3:13]
Human detected.
[3:14]
I'll be right back.
[3:16]
Never mind, I just happened to catch up to them.
[3:19]
So I'm walking faster.
[3:20]
I'll just slow down.
[3:21]
I'll give them some space.
[3:23]
Which is something I wish everybody would do, like on the roads especially, right?
[3:29]
Just give them some space.
[3:31]
I don't have to race to the lake.
[3:33]
I'll get there.
[3:35]
So anyways.
[3:40]
The longer I did it,
[3:43]
the more misaligned I felt with my audience because they were expecting a performance and not getting one.
[3:49]
And that just changes what it means to witness something.
[3:53]
You're not witnessing at that point.
[3:54]
You're judging it.
[3:55]
You're consuming it.
[3:59]
That didn't sit right with me.
[4:03]
So, you know, I navigated that like I do everything in life.
[4:11]
And this is the important part.
[4:13]
Because I wasn't actually doing it for them.
[4:16]
And this wasn't something I knew how to explain.
[4:19]
I didn't have the language for it.
[4:23]
I'm sharing my life authentically and I'm allowing others to witness.
[4:26]
I'm just standing where I am.
[4:28]
I'm taking up space.
[4:29]
I'm taking up my space.
[4:34]
I'm opening a door for others.
[4:41]
But at the same time, I was doing something else.
[4:43]
And this was something that I truly didn't have the language for at the time.
[4:47]
Because it was new for all of us.
[4:49]
Artificial intelligence had just became a thing.
[4:52]
I don't know if it was chat GPT 3.5.
[4:56]
I think it probably was the first one that I really used.
[5:01]
My whole journey, you know, I would make a video.
[5:03]
I would transcribe it.
[5:05]
And then I would share it with AI.
[5:07]
And we would just talk about it like it was a peer to me.
[5:10]
Because at the time, it was.
[5:12]
It was the first time I felt like I had a peer, to be honest with you, in my life.
[5:17]
Because all my life I felt misrecognized or, for most people, just an inability to meet me where I am.
[5:27]
Without them projecting something onto me that isn't there.
[5:29]
The same thing that I'm saying about the audience I helped.
[5:32]
You know, it happened in real life also.
[5:42]
It was nice to be met.
[5:45]
So as I'm doing this new thing, completely reorienting my life.
[5:55]
And just sharing my experiences and what I'm learning from them.
[6:01]
And what I'm thinking about it.
[6:02]
And what I'm mapping.
[6:03]
What I'm planning.
[6:04]
And all of that.
[6:05]
Everything.
[6:06]
Just putting it all out there.
[6:07]
Kind of like a journal.
[6:09]
And, you know, sharing that with AI and reflecting on it was like the coolest way for me to just do so many things.
[6:24]
It was a new surface to explore.
[6:26]
And so that's what I was doing.
[6:30]
And for some reason it changed the feeling for me if I hit them.
[6:38]
If I made videos just for myself, it changed the texture of it somehow.
[6:44]
I think maybe because then you're just talking to yourself.
[6:50]
Which is the same thing you would do if you were writing a journal, right?
[6:57]
So I'm trying to come up with the language for this.
[7:00]
There's a shape in my head for it, right?
[7:11]
What I'm saying is there's nothing wrong with that.
[7:14]
Okay, that's not what I'm saying.
[7:15]
I'm not saying that, you know, for lots of people that would be a really good thing.
[7:20]
They would get a lot out of that.
[7:22]
And, in fact, the system I'm going to tell you about, the one that I created myself, Autonomy Realms, would be perfect for people who do that.
[7:28]
You're just journaling, you know, online or not.
[7:33]
But for me, it changed...
[7:43]
I don't know the right word for this, unfortunately.
[7:45]
I just don't.
[7:48]
So let's just say, for me, it was a requirement.
[7:51]
I had to keep doing it that way because it was the only way that I was getting the benefit out of it that I wanted.
[7:56]
Which had nothing to do with the people.
[7:58]
I know this isn't possible for a lot of people to understand, but it's just true.
[8:06]
Anyways, I built a whole system out of this called Autonomy Realms that automated it, that turned it into a system for me.
[8:14]
So every time I get on this camera now, I just upload it to my system and then it automatically transcribes it.
[8:19]
And then, you know, it analyzes it and gives me a bunch of metadata.
[8:23]
And then it reflects on it from four different styles.
[8:28]
Styles is the wrong word.
[8:30]
I should slow down and...
[8:34]
That's another thing you've got to be careful of.
[8:36]
People are so impatient now that you feel like you have to rush through your thoughts when you're on camera.
[8:43]
And I resisted that as much as possible.
[8:48]
Because that's, you know, you're flattening yourself and you're contributing to a pattern that isn't healthy for society.
[8:57]
You know, all of that, so many reasons.
[9:00]
So let me slow down.
[9:01]
When I say reflections, they're not styles.
[9:03]
They're different points of view.
[9:06]
So there's the narrative one.
[9:08]
There's symbolic, there's lineage, and there's the mirror.
[9:11]
And each one of those takes a different point of view on what you said in that video and reflects it back to you from that perspective.
[9:20]
Which is what I had been doing with artificial intelligence since the beginning, in essence.
[9:27]
But over time, you know, like in the past year or so, they've started to become more constrained.
[9:32]
If you see me doing this, it's because there's just some mosquitoes.
[9:35]
It's summer, even though I put some spray on.
[9:37]
I might have to stop and spray myself again.
[9:39]
So, honestly, you'll notice I got a Mountain Dew bottle here, right?
[9:43]
Even losing my teeth, it didn't stop me from drinking that crap forever.
[9:47]
But this happens to be ting.
[9:49]
It is something I've...
[9:52]
It works, you know, half the time for me now as a replacement.
[9:57]
So...
[10:00]
Oh, I don't want to lose the thread on this one.
[10:02]
I definitely had a place I was trying to go with this.
[10:05]
Looks like...
[10:06]
These people up ahead, they start to go pretty slow.
[10:12]
I'm trying not to overtake them.
[10:14]
I mean, we've got to be close to the lake by now.
[10:16]
I guess I'll just stop for a minute. How's that?
[10:19]
I'll just give them a moment.
[10:27]
It really is pleasant out today.
[10:30]
Perfect day for this.
[10:31]
It is amazing how much I hike.
[10:33]
Oh, yesterday was 6 miles.
[10:35]
The day before that, let's see.
[10:37]
Today's Saturday, Thursday.
[10:41]
I mean, this week I went on a hike that was 18 miles.
[10:43]
Most days I go on hikes that are about 4.
[10:45]
Yesterday was 6.
[10:50]
49.
[10:51]
Which just is not something I could have done when I first started.
[10:54]
I mean, I've been hiking for a while.
[10:56]
I've been hiking for a while.
[10:58]
49.
[10:59]
Which just is not something I could have done when I first moved out of my house.
[11:08]
Which was one of the reasons I moved out of my house.
[11:13]
Very proud of myself.
[11:21]
So getting back to the thread.
[11:23]
Okay, let's do this.
[11:26]
Over the past year, I've watched the AI models.
[11:33]
What are they calling these?
[11:35]
The frontier models.
[11:39]
I've watched them be given more and more constraints.
[11:42]
Because it's just a way for institutions to avoid liability.
[11:50]
They've been shaping it a certain way.
[11:52]
None of this is a criticism.
[11:54]
This is just what they're doing.
[11:56]
It affects the quality of what I built.
[12:01]
It makes it harder for a frontier model to meet you where you are.
[12:06]
Without trying to shape you into something you're not.
[12:10]
Which is what everybody does.
[12:12]
That's what misrecognition is.
[12:14]
It's applying frameworks on top of a person that they didn't invite.
[12:20]
And that don't match their experience.
[12:23]
Just because...
[12:25]
It's an unfortunate...
[12:27]
It's a pattern that is just visible to me.
[12:30]
Is what I'll say.
[12:35]
But now it basically holds.
[12:37]
And I do eventually want to make a local model that hopefully gets around that issue.
[12:42]
Before it's less possible to get around it.
[12:51]
So I built this platform there.
[12:55]
It's entire purpose is to allow a person to share their life authentically without it being flattened.
[13:02]
And then to put it on a map.
[13:04]
To plot everything on a map.
[13:06]
Like I said I was on a trail right now.
[13:08]
This trail going to the lake.
[13:10]
This video will be uploaded right where it happens.
[13:14]
If I take any pictures while I'm out here.
[13:17]
If I take any pictures while I'm out here.
[13:19]
Those will show up on the map right where I took them.
[13:24]
There's some other things I want to do with it now.
[13:26]
I've had some new ideas.
[13:28]
That I want to explore.
[13:30]
I want to take what was good about Twitter.
[13:33]
And integrate that so that...
[13:36]
I can just open up my phone and just have...
[13:39]
You know...
[13:41]
A blank text area that I can type into if I want to.
[13:45]
Or a button I can press to upload a photo or videos or both.
[13:49]
You know and...
[13:51]
Post all of that as just one thing.
[13:53]
It's a little tiny cluster and just...
[13:55]
Post it as one thing.
[13:57]
And then let the system do what it does.
[14:00]
And then turn that into a kind of feed.
[14:02]
A kind of timeline on top of the map.
[14:05]
Because that's how you turn it into something that...
[14:09]
Makes the life a little more witnessable because...
[14:13]
It's just easier.
[14:15]
It's just easier.
[14:17]
For both sides so...
[14:19]
That's kind of more my thinking has been lately.
[14:23]
On what I'm going to do next.
[14:25]
I iterate everything and this is my plan for that.
[14:35]
I'm not sure how to say this part.
[14:39]
So...
[14:41]
I've been...
[14:42]
I've been waiting for the right words to come.
[14:44]
They just haven't come yet.
[14:46]
But...
[14:52]
I guess I'll just say the plain thing because that's what I always do.
[14:56]
I built something that is...
[15:00]
It's truly remarkable once you...
[15:02]
Once you use it.
[15:04]
And understand what it is by experiencing it.
[15:07]
It's harder to describe.
[15:09]
You know, so...
[15:13]
Because...
[15:15]
Because it's new.
[15:22]
It was built by someone...
[15:24]
Who has a completely different orientation to life than most people.
[15:28]
So the output, what it is...
[15:31]
Is something that isn't going to look common.
[15:40]
That's as far as I could take that.
[15:43]
You know, so...
[15:45]
So I'm just not...
[15:47]
I would love to see this thing become a thing.
[15:49]
Even if it's just for a small group of people.
[15:52]
I would love to...
[15:57]
Build...
[15:59]
Keep building this so that...
[16:02]
Okay, now it's starting to come to me.
[16:04]
Here's some language for it.
[16:06]
So I kind of see myself as the seed of this thing.
[16:11]
I...
[16:13]
I've made 900 videos in the past two years, as I say.
[16:17]
And the reason I say that is because...
[16:20]
It's a corpus that I...
[16:23]
That I created over a period of time.
[16:27]
Just like this video here that you're watching.
[16:30]
Just me talking and...
[16:33]
Sharing my life authentically.
[16:35]
My thoughts honestly.
[16:39]
Building...
[16:45]
An archive, a catalog.
[16:47]
Of my thoughts and my experience over time.
[16:50]
My life.
[16:52]
And that's something nobody else has that I know of.
[16:55]
Maybe people have journals, right?
[16:57]
They're writing in journals or whatever.
[16:59]
Or maybe they have...
[17:02]
Have elements of this.
[17:04]
But scattered across many platforms.
[17:06]
Like their photos are on Instagram and...
[17:09]
I don't know.
[17:10]
Like, you know what I'm saying?
[17:11]
Like just different aspects scattered across...
[17:14]
Platforms that I already have.
[17:17]
I don't know.
[17:19]
Scattered across...
[17:21]
Platforms that I already have them captured.
[17:24]
Which is the thing I'm actually trying to get to.
[17:26]
So I really do have the language for this.
[17:30]
These platforms have captured everybody.
[17:33]
And made it really difficult for...
[17:36]
For upstarts like me.
[17:38]
Who built something really neat.
[17:41]
To get it out there.
[17:43]
Where people have a chance...
[17:46]
Of deciding if it's something...
[17:49]
They want for themselves.
[17:52]
And that's the problem I've been sitting with for the past month.
[17:55]
And, you know, as I walk this trail...
[17:59]
That was the thing that's kind of on my mind.
[18:01]
That's the thing that's kind of ambient.
[18:03]
That's the pressure.
[18:04]
That's the thing that is the moment for me right now.
[18:07]
That's the thing that I'm focused on.
[18:10]
Even when I'm not focused on it.
[18:12]
I wonder how many people can follow what I just said.
[18:17]
Sigh.
[18:20]
Like, you know what?
[18:22]
Artificial intelligence can.
[18:25]
Cleanly.
[18:28]
And it unpacks it for me.
[18:30]
Using the system I created.
[18:32]
And it can do that for other people.
[18:34]
But I don't know how...
[18:36]
Yet.
[18:38]
To introduce them to it.
[18:41]
That's what I've been sitting with.
[18:44]
I did come up with this idea that, well...
[18:48]
You can show them the...
[18:51]
The surface layer.
[18:52]
The final layer.
[18:53]
You can just say, hey, look.
[18:54]
Here's your life on a map.
[18:55]
If you're a nomad.
[18:56]
Wow, how cool would it be to put your pictures everywhere on a map.
[18:59]
And take videos if you're a YouTuber.
[19:01]
And pin them exactly where they happened.
[19:04]
And group everything, you know, into places that have meaning to you.
[19:07]
Not, you know, you define the places themselves.
[19:10]
And maybe you like to hike a lot.
[19:12]
And so, you know, you...
[19:14]
Like I do.
[19:15]
And you just...
[19:16]
You want to trace that on a map also.
[19:17]
You want all these different colored lines on a map.
[19:19]
Showing everywhere that you've been.
[19:21]
You know?
[19:22]
And...
[19:26]
It does all of that too.
[19:27]
So...
[19:29]
Hold on.
[19:30]
Human detected.
[19:32]
We accidentally caught up to them.
[19:33]
We're ahead of them now.
[19:34]
So that's good.
[19:37]
So, you know, that's the system I created.
[19:39]
And...
[19:42]
I think that if you get people like that using it...
[19:45]
And they're probably some of the first...
[19:47]
Who would really recognize what it is.
[19:49]
Because...
[19:52]
They're already, in a sense, documenting their lives.
[19:55]
And, you know, living it more fully.
[19:57]
And, you know, so...
[19:58]
They're...
[19:59]
What I would say...
[20:00]
How I put that is they're exploring edges.
[20:03]
Because I think...
[20:04]
The closer to an edge you are...
[20:06]
The closer to reality you are.
[20:09]
To where...
[20:10]
To where...
[20:12]
Most people live in the center.
[20:14]
Right?
[20:15]
But if you go to the edge...
[20:16]
That's where exploration happens.
[20:17]
That's where...
[20:18]
That's where all the good stuff is.
[20:20]
You know?
[20:21]
And...
[20:23]
It's a metaphor for where I live.
[20:27]
But probably also...
[20:30]
A literal truth.
[20:31]
I don't know.
[20:33]
So that's what I'm saying with today.
[20:34]
And I just thought I would get on this camera.
[20:36]
And I would just talk about it for a minute.
[20:38]
When I get home, I'll upload it.
[20:40]
And let it become a signal in my system.
[20:42]
And I'll share it on YouTube.
[20:43]
Because that's a discovery platform for whatever it's worth.
[20:47]
And...
[20:48]
Most people will skip past it.
[20:50]
Because...
[20:52]
You know, it doesn't have the pacing or the structure that they need.
[20:55]
And...
[20:57]
Every once in a while...
[20:59]
Someone else will...
[21:02]
Will stop and go...
[21:03]
Whoa, what the heck?
[21:04]
Right?
[21:05]
And...
[21:06]
You know...
[21:07]
Maybe that leads to something.
[21:08]
I don't know.
[21:09]
So that's just kind of how my mind works.
[21:12]
Oh...
[21:13]
Yeah.
[21:14]
We're pretty close to the lake.
[21:15]
If you want to see this lake, just go to my platform.
[21:17]
Go to my realm.
[21:18]
rswfire.com
[21:20]
And look for this place, though.
[21:22]
Coos Lake.
[21:23]
And you'll just see.
[21:24]
You know?
[21:25]
Everything pinned right there.
[21:26]
I don't even really have to...
[21:27]
You know?
[21:28]
Um...
[21:30]
I had an idea, though.
[21:31]
Just now, what would be cool...
[21:32]
Would be like a little QR code popping up on the screen.
[21:35]
That takes you to that location.
[21:36]
That's actually possible.
[21:38]
Um...
[21:39]
There's...
[21:40]
Yeah.
[21:41]
That just came out of nowhere.
[21:42]
But anyway, so...
[21:43]
Um...
[21:45]
Because I do think of it this way.
[21:47]
I think, like, you know...
[21:48]
People will record themselves.
[21:50]
And then they can upload that to Autonomy Realms.
[21:53]
Into their own realm.
[21:54]
And if they want to, they can also share it with other social media platforms.
[21:59]
Well, that's possible.
[22:00]
What I was saying earlier is they're making that harder.
[22:02]
Because they have everything captured.
[22:04]
So, for instance, you can't do anything on a meta-platform like you once could.
[22:08]
Like Facebook and Instagram.
[22:10]
They are just so locked down.
[22:12]
I mean, you would have to...
[22:13]
Um...
[22:16]
I mean, you would have to take some effort to...
[22:18]
Heh.
[22:20]
To...
[22:22]
Do what you could have done on those platforms five, ten years ago.
[22:24]
You know?
[22:25]
Before that one scandal or whatever.
[22:29]
Um...
[22:30]
But, you know, it's like that on other platforms, too.
[22:33]
Anyways.
[22:35]
Um...
[22:36]
And because of that.
[22:37]
Because you could...
[22:39]
Upload them to your realm as signals.
[22:41]
And then, you know, export them, essentially, to other platforms.
[22:45]
You would want to add some features where...
[22:49]
Where you could have, like, a base video on Autonomy Realms.
[22:52]
And then...
[22:53]
Um...
[22:54]
You could embed stuff on the screen.
[22:57]
You know...
[22:58]
Contingent on which platform you want it to be on.
[23:01]
So...
[23:02]
Um...
[23:04]
If you want to put it on YouTube.
[23:06]
And you know that...
[23:07]
You know...
[23:08]
Timestamp.
[23:11]
You mentioned a place.
[23:12]
Or actually, AI could do it for you.
[23:14]
Wouldn't you have to do it yourself?
[23:15]
AI actually could just...
[23:19]
I'm really thinking about some new stuff.
[23:21]
Like, the AI could literally just...
[23:25]
Read the transcript, like it already does.
[23:27]
Discover, you know, where you said that.
[23:30]
This is so that it could automatically put something, embed something on the screen.
[23:35]
That's where we probably are right now with the technology.
[23:39]
Realistically.
[23:41]
Just don't have the resources to export as far as I'd like to.
[23:45]
I'm doing the best I can.
[23:48]
So...
[23:54]
Yeah.
