Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

We can Get at Truth When we Stop Searching for Answers and Start Asking More Questions

“As the body assimilates what is homogeneous to it, so will a man retain what interests him; in other words, what coincides with his system of thought or suits his ends.” Schopenhauer argued the world is a representation, Vorstellung. His work followed Kant's claim that our knowledge and experience of the world is always indirect. Everything that exists, said Schopenhauer in 1818, exists as an object in relation to a subject. Fast forward to 1986, the year archie first came on the scene. Part ingenuity, part serendipity, Peter Deutsch and Alan Emtage ended up working their way up the Internet... Read more →

Is the Internet a Significant Break from the Past?

And if so, how should we think about what we do with it? Innovation is not a single thing, a eureka (Greek for I have found) moment. There are many factors that go into taking a discovery to making an impact. Bringing something new to the world means standing on the shoulders of giants across generations and working with many people. Rather, innovation is a process where you match the right kinds of questions and the right strategies or resolve. But we should not confuse the objectives with the issues we're actually ready to tackle. As it often happens when... Read more →

Does the World Need New Storytelling?

“If all you offer is money, all you get are mercenaries,” says Frederik Gieschen. Incentives shape behavior. Wall Street may indeed need new storytelling.# Michael Lewis says the system is stale and needs a breath of new imagination. When a story gets stale, the business attached to it is stuck. Perhaps Wall Street's story is stale. But “the game of markets is as interesting, challenging, and alive as it has ever been.” The “work has become more challenging and interesting because the world is more complex and the game much more competitive.” Perhaps its the whole narrative that is stale.... Read more →

Is Intelligence Artificial?

“Intelligence is the ability to recognize patterns, recognize relationships, reason about it and make a prediction or plan an action. That’s what intelligence is. It has nothing to do with general intelligence, intelligence is just solving problems.” That's Jensen Huang's definition of the word. Huang is CEO of Nvdia Corporation, an American multinational technology company incorporated in Delaware and based in Santa Clara, California. He would say that, the company invented the GPU, which uses Artificial Intelligence Computing to create interactive graphics. A definition is an instrument of purpose. Huang's definition of intelligence reveals his purpose. His hypothesis is that... Read more →

Technology's Impact on Narrative and Culture

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents will pull information for us on the basis of parameters we establish and control. They will deliver it to the social networks that exist inside our own data network. Web 3.0 is the true era of conversation, where the real dialogue begins.” I wrote those words here in 2007. Was I wrong! And late to the game; the hype started in 2004. Facebook was just at the beginning of what would become a long string of betrayals al the altar of the algorithm. Web 2.0 became disappointing quickly, offering the same 'exchange value' model in new... Read more →

The Art of Crap-Detection

Neil Postman delivered his speech, “Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection” at the National Convention for the Teachers of English [NCTE], November 28, 1969, in Washington, D.C. [This below is the full transcript with no additions or comments on my part. After having read Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology and other books by Postman and listened to surviving interviews, I wanted to have a reference to point to for his thinking.] With a title like this, I think I ought to dispense with the rhetorical amenities and come straight to the point. For those of you who do... Read more →

Meta Dissonance

Peripheral vision is where we sense and notice, the human instinct alive. Enter the Metaverse to take that away. Facebook just went Meta. It's consistent with the idea that the algorithm and information management supersede human experience. Aristotle wrote the blockbuster book Physics. His students titled his second work Metaphysics. The Greek prefix—for “after,” “beyond”—meant the second book had come after the first. How did a word that had such interesting origins end up becoming so self referential? Since the topic of Aristotle's second book was what lies beyond physical reality, people took the current meaning to be: “Beyond physics.”... Read more →

What to do About Platform Sameness

Current subscribers will remember at some point I was looking into platforms (see tools) for the future of the letter. Things I'm considering are: fees per number of subscribers, ease of use and communication, community component. To that list I'm adding easy ways to pay. It still feels like many of the platforms I looked into are in flux. When/if you consider a move from one platform to the other, think about the back-end, too. Anne Libby made a few, and she can tell you to watch out for integrations. If you ever wondered about the role of integrators: painkiller.... Read more →

Innovation-Speak

Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell wrote a book that draws a distinction between “innovation-speak” and innovation and creativity (I added imagination because it's step one). Spoiler-alert, the book is really about the critical role of maintenance in enduring work. Can you guess why we don't we talk more about that? Because repairing and routines are not as exciting as innovating and inventing. Imagine two profiles. One says, reliable and steady. The other, trailblazing and surprising. Which one do you pick? Hence, an under investment in repairing corporations, communities, conversations, and even consciousness. It's an interesting phenomenon that happens in communication.... Read more →

Why How we Work Shifts What and Who has Power

In a recent conversation with Cal Newport, Jason Fried explains how email has ushered in a world where conversations happen out of context. The trouble this mechanism creates has a cumulative negative effects on how we work. And you're not going to solve it with hacks. There's no hacking human nature. Conversation is important because it's an emotional tool we use to negotiate meaning. Lack of conversation means decreased empathy, which is the root of the characteristically human qualities we need to succeed in the future. Email is a technology created to accelerate efficiency in the transmission of information. But... Read more →