'Blurring The Lines' was sent as part of 📝The Journey To One on June 1, 2019.
Newsletter
Hey Legend,
"You will cease to feel isolated when you recognize, for example, that you do not have a sensation of the sky, 📝you _are_ that sensation. For all purposes of feeling, your sensation of the sky is the sky and there is no You apart from what you sense, feel, and know." ~ 📝Alan Watts
Last weekend, having missed a friend's birthday party, I stopped by her place to share my well-wishes and drop off her gift. Our short sync turned into a longer adventure when she—a software developer at a notable technology platform—shared that she'd not yet watched 📝Bandersnatch; the 📝Black Mirror film* which Netflix released in 2018 as an 📝Interactive Television experience.
Bandersnatch is brilliant in numerous dimensions. The story seems structured with 📝Hermetic Principles and, its use of interactive technology, seems a kind of 📝Metamodernism; sincerity communicated through an insincere distancing.
The interactivity of Bandersnatch creates a form of 📝Direct Experience. It questions the nature of free will, a singular reality, and the illusion of 📝time.
This was my fifth time experiencing Bandersnatch and, each time, I've found new opportunities to appreciate the richness of its interlinking. It is as if every shot and each line of dialogue has compounding layers of meaning.
If 📝McLuhan, the philosopher who popularized the phrase "📝The Medium Is The Message", was alive, he'd probably find it 📝terrifying and impressive.
Later, I went to answer to a 'no response' in Brian.bot and realized the "Yes, I do assume [Brian can be defined as separate from the bot]" was identical to Emily's response to the same; documented in 📝Brian or Bot (newsletter).
So, I opened 📝Dialogflow (the core of 📝Brian .bot's brain) and started adding new tiers for his responses to that intent. Simply writing a few ways that I might respond to someone in this particular "you or the bot" conversation.
Here's how it looked...
When I train Brian.bot like this, I have no idea when—or if—he will use these responses in a dialogue. So, it was 📝horrifying and magnificent when—twelve hours later—it was used in conversation to hilarious effect.
The day before, I'd told 📝Alex Silkin that Brian.bot responds to the question "Is this you or the bot?" with "You assume we can be defined as separate." So, receiving an errant response from Brian.bot, he triggered it on purpose. What he didn't know, or expect, was that I'd added new layers to the conversation...
At no point in the conversation above was I, humanBrian, present.
Unlike other AI which is architected in advance of engagement with humans, Brian.bot is only "trained" by real, human-to-human conversations.
Who's really building Brian.bot? Is it me or it the friends playfully prompting him with conversation to try and distinguish Brian from bot?
The answer is... blurry.
More and more I find myself questioning the existence of "I". As 📝John Zdanowski once said in a group chat, "📝we are the universe talking to itself."
There is no 'me' without 'you', your sensation of me is me.
There is no 'Us' without each other, my sensation of you is you.
We are 📝One.
📝Build cool shit and change the world.
📝Brian Swichkow, Chief 📝Manifestor at 📝One, Inc.
Let's 📝Elevate The Human Frequency, join the 📝Journey To One.
Sent with 📝Contextual Augmentation.
P.S. Your responses to these emails and your reflections of their ideas mean the world to me. I am so happy and grateful for every word (and emoji) shared.