Nonexistent persons
Wow. Click here before you read any further (I promise, no spam, or viruses).
The person you saw when you clicked (like the woman above) doesn’t exist. No, they’re not an artistic render, a photoshopped image or a hyper-real illustration. They are an artificial-intelligence creation. Built each time you click, a new person is created using algorithms that characterise ‘normal’ humans.
I can’t tell them apart from people you’d see in the street.
This technology synthesizes artificial samples, such as celebrity photo images and then generates ‘similar’ images, building up details that are indistinguishable from authentic images.
And, if you want renders of yourself that don’t exist, there are even AI engines like Lensa that will create ‘artistic’ versions of yourself (or anyone) simply by uploading 10 - 20 photos. This is way more than photo retouching. According to the company, "These AI avatars are generated from scratch but with your face in mind," the company explains, promising "hundreds of artworks created by #artificialintelligence for you!"
Imagine when this is able to be done using video. Oh wait, it has - take a look here:
Question: What higher standards of verification will we require in future to determine ‘truth’?
Shocking
Your organisation, like many today, may be suffering severe workforce shortages, but here’s a story that will shock you. Back in the 1960s, the US’s war in Vietnam required huge manpower and Secretary of State Robert McNamara had to find a way to fulfil this demand.
He noted that the military’s ‘repetitive training and remedial efforts’ often turned otherwise unsuitable applicants into capable soldiers, so he wanted to see how far he could stretch that concept.
McNamara’s Operation 100,000 aimed, publicly, to address ‘appalling and tragic poverty’ in the US, by enlisting physically — and mentally — unsuitable men. 92% of these ‘New Standards Men’ fell far below the mental standards required of regular soldiers, with most having numerical and verbal skills at a Year 6 school level. Many were classified, in the language of the time, as ‘borderline retarded’.
By 1969, 250,000 such men were recruited, or more than 10% of all recruits between 1966 - 1969. They were ineligible for technical training, so more than the average number saw front-line duty, where they were three times as likely to be killed in action. As for the stated aim of releasing these men from poverty through training — one follow-up study revealed they earned $16k a year less than their peers.
Question: Is there any ostensibly positive intent that your organisation works towards, but which may have unintended consequences?
Are you really you?
Decades ago, a teacher asked me a question that fried my brain: “When you wake up each morning, how do you remember to be you?”
The author of “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”, Joe Dispenza, writes extensively on the answer to this, which is best summed up in this simple quote: “Nerve cells that fire together, wire together.”
As I repeat my activities, my brain’s pathways are wired to repeat that activity, and so it becomes even more difficult to change. Repetition reinforces brain behavior, and by, say, age 35, our identity becomes a set of memorized behaviors. Dispenza’s visualisation and meditation techniques centre on imagining a future as vividly as you do the past, so you become drawn to new patterns, not old ones. Note that Dispenza’s ideas are deeply polarising, attracting criticism from many scientific and therapeutic disciplines, but I believe that he’s onto something, when I reflect that my most successful strategy clients do truly shift focus from their past and present (and an emphasis on what’s lacking) and instead deeply immerse themselves into a desired future.
Question: What questions, discussions and mental tools do you use to immerse your decision-makers into a future state, not a past state?
This is 2022’s last 5MSM. I love writing these, and I love your comments, ‘hearts’ and emails. Keep them coming.
Over the Australian summer, 5MSM will still be here, but the bots will calculate which were 2022’s most popular segments and feed you three each week. Fresh content will be back from late January, once I’ve returned from a family trip to Mexico’s incredible Yucatan Peninsula.
See you on the other side,
Andrew
Thank you, Andrew, for a wonderful year of sparking my imagination, poking my curiosity and enriching my world through opening up avenues to ways of thinking and content I do not receive anywhere else. I very much appreciate your content and frequently forward onto my clients. Many have subscribed and now feedback to me commentary. Great discussions follow. Have a wonderful long break. Nicole
Thanks so much Andrew. Enjoy your holiday! Wishing you a wonderful 2023 and keep writing- it is so good!!!