2023 a year of AI Everything

This past year was a rough one, let's start with that. As mentioned in the intro post, I hope 2024 contains less violence and hate than 2023. Throughout this article I'll touch on AI, the Job Market, being Jewish in America, and a few other worldly matters. It's a long one, so feel free to skip and jump around.

2023 was a wild year in tech and marketing. Elon Musk completed his botched acquisition of Twitter in 2022, feigning surgical precision. It wasn't until 2023 that he completely murdered the brand, leaving no trace of life on the operating table. Once one of the most iconic logos and names across the world has now been reduced to “X.” In 2006, Twitter birthed a new form of communication and even a new word, “tweet.” What do they even call posting to X now, is it still “tweeting?” X has reincarnated a social media cesspool that welcomes racist, homophobic, antisemitic and alt-right darlings like Donald Trump, “Ye” (formerly Kanye West) and Alex Jones. In so doing, that environment scares off advertisers who fear that a screenshot of Ye’s Tweet saying he will “going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” might include their company’s logo next to it (image below). AI, Cambridge Analytica and Russian misinformation campaigns gave us Donald Trump and the chaos years, Elon Musk apparently couldn’t stand to see them cast into the alternative media ether.

Meta began charging users for verification as a new revenue source (shoutout to my colleagues who worked on that) and X did the same while closing the doors on many of the APIs used to link their platform to news and other sites.

Open AI removed Sam Altman and then a few days later he’s back! India landed on the moon, while Russia’s lander crashed into it the week before.

Kevin McCarthy cemented himself as the biggest political loser of the year, needing 15 ballots to become Speaker of the House for a Republican, do-nothing Congress, before getting the boot after a mere 9 months. He beat out George Santos, who became the first Representative to be expelled from Congress since 2002 and is racking up almost as many lawsuits against him as Donald Trump. ?

Ultra-wealthy exploration tourism had a deep-sea catastrophe when a private OceanGate submersible imploded on its way to visit the Titanic. Space tourism continued to grow and more private citizens and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia paid around $55 Million per seat to go to the International Space Station. ?The criminally underrated comedy The Other Two mocked every eccentric billionaire's need to have their own space company in Season 3 Episode 6: Brooke We Are Not Joking, Goes to Space. I can’t find the clip, but Brooke goes on a date with a millionaire who midway through, his company is acquired and he becomes a billionaire, instantly unleashing an insatiable desire to get as physically high as possible. He also transforms into a caricature of Jeff Bezos, and yes, they do go to space. ??

This year the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Management celebrated its 57th year. The Consortium’s mission is to enhance diversity and inclusion within business schools and leadership positions in the corporate world, and I'm a proud member. This year our Kelley consortium family celebrated together at a reunion in October (picture below). Thanks again to Gale Gold Nichols for organizing; it was one of the highlights of my year. I loved meeting some of the pioneers from those early classes as well as the current and prospective consortium students. Our discussions amongst ourselves and with school leaders were focused on actions that business schools like Kelley can take to improve diversity and inclusion. We have so much more work to do in education and the workplace, but I am encouraged by the progress made over the past few years. That we as a society are more aware and having the conversations is progress. Of course, many of those conversations and awareness could be more meaningful, accurate, and impactful, but we have to start somewhere. ??

One fun fact, the most common misspelling of my first name used to be a tie between Jordon and Jorden. (Not to say that Jorden is a misspelling, I know several, all great people, just not how my name is spelled. Never met a Jordon). Now, for reasons I do not fully understand, the most common misspelling, at a rate far exceeding any prior misspellings, is actually “Jordyn.” Thanks to young parents for your awful new baby names potentially spurring this confusion and perhaps Jordyn Woods, who is a “model and socialite,” whatever that means in 2024. For the record, my name is spelled like the country, the river, the wine, and yes, the greatest basketball player of all time (more on that later). Not that it bothers me, I just find it funny. Those who know me can attest that I’ll answer to any name that starts with a J or B.?

AI Everything

2023 was the year of AI everything. We saw the power of ChatGPT4 and other artificially intelligent models transforming the ways people communicate and create content. We’ve seen amazing things and a ton of utter garbage. However, that’s part of the point; as we sift through the garbage and point the models in the right direction, they will continue to learn, becoming more intelligent and useful.

I used Open AI’s ChatGPT3.5 (still too cheap for ChatGPT4) and Microsoft Designer Image Creator (powered by Open AI's DALE 3). On eBay, I used AI image cropping tools and a text AI description generator. The cropping worked well (way better than Microsoft’s in PowerPoint) and the description generator was generally awful, but I used it quite a bit, knowing that it probably takes into account keywords to help listings perform better in search. ?At work, I also started using Glean as a productivity assistant, saving time sifting through a variety of apps at once and answering basic questions. ChatGPT and Glean outputs were interesting, but I only used them as “thinking partners,” exploring topics and areas, as opposed to actually generating any new content or editing my existing content. Perhaps if I used ChatGPT version 4 it would be better. In time as the models and I learn, my prompts will also be better. The images created were mostly hilarious, highly flawed and awkward, but also pretty much what I was asking for, just not great.

In addition to the cover image for this piece, my last two articles on daylight savings time and the Charter Spectrum Disney dispute also used AI-generated images (see below). I didn’t achieve exactly what I had in my head in terms of either composition or quality, but the outcomes were surprisingly close.

Recently I was creating a painting of hands reaching out to accept a plate. You would think this would be a relatively common stock image, but it wasn’t, so I used Image Creator to generate something close to what I was looking for to serve as a reference. I thought back to my high school days sitting in art class drawing a model or still life sitting in the room. Now with AI and the right prompt, you can create anything. Perspectives that aren’t quite right, things in nature that don’t follow the rules of physics, whatever you can imagine. Augmented reality can help merge the physical and digital worlds, while Virtual Reality can take you out of the physical world entirely. For those who haven’t seen my artwork, I am a very amateurish artist. Mostly acrylic paint, pencil, sometimes pastel, but all pretty average stuff. Every once in a while, I make something passable that I’m really proud of. In AP art class, I was the least talented of the group by far (thanks to my great teacher Carol for putting up with and encouraging me over the years). I remember times being so frustrated that I felt I had the best ideas for new works or the most creative responses to prompts, but alas, my skills limited what I could build from that blank canvas.

Today a whole new type of artist is emerging. Digital art has been around since the mid-20th century, blending photo, video, graphic design, audio, lighting, and other mediums in unique ways. However high-speed and slick the finished product looked, before AI, the process was very manual and the artist needed to be highly skilled in multiple areas to create a digital masterpiece. Now with AI, the folks with big ideas, but limited domain-specific talent stand a chance to create something great if they can do one thing well – describe what they want to build in the right way.

On the writing front, AI made remarkable headway in 2023 generating quality content, but it still has a long way to good. Before ChatGPT, it was easy to spot AI-generated essays. Now, while you still can pick them out, the human vs computer assessment has become more difficult. In fact, a whole new category of applications was created that specialize in detecting whether something has AI-generated content in it (Scribbr is one example). When I was in school, plagiarism checkers were in their infancy and ran searches off databases of known works and other essays. Today apps can detect brand new, never before seen strings of words as being generated by AI. ?

I don’t consider myself a particularly good writer or test taker, but I aced every standardized writing test I took over ten years. The ACT, SAT (twice), GRE, and GMAT (twice) have varying degrees of difficulty, but all come with a basic prompt and word limit. How did I bat 1,000, perfect scores against six standardized tests? I answered the question and told a cohesive story that was easy for the graders to follow. That’s it. Give me any prompt, I will take 5 minutes to construct an outline, with a thesis, a few relevant stats or examples, and then use the remaining time to write and edit for clarity. How does this relate to AI?

Good AI models are extremely proficient in following instructions. I have no doubt ChatGPT4 would also bat 1,000 when faced with these exams and the right prompts. It might make a few small mistakes, no more so than you or me, and could fail to make a critical inference, but overall, I take AI over me. Instead of taking 5 minutes to construct an outline and build a thesis, ChatGPT4 will take 0.05 seconds. In the following 0.5 seconds, it will write, rewrite, and restructure the essay, continually circling back to the prompt to ensure it answers the question. Each new word it writes will take into account every single word that came before it. 0.75 seconds later it will show you, the human, the output and ask for your feedback. It has no feelings, no ill intent, it only wants to know whether you are satisfied with the response. It could be perfect on the first try, but if you are patient, with a few additional recommendations you could make it even better. “Emphasize the thesis _____ more in the conclusion. Discuss the ____ incident in paragraph 3. Use wider diction throughout.” 0.20 seconds later the computer answers “is this better?” Maybe it is, maybe not. ?If you prompted it clearly enough, it likely is.

Today there is a certain degree of patience, direction and handholding required to craft something great with AI. In the future, when the models learn more from us collectively and as individuals, they will adapt to our stylistic preferences, writing styles and tone.

AI and career coaching

The tech job market significantly impacted my career coaching business in 2023, but AI was a close second. While I passed 100 orders on Fiverr since I joined the platform in October 2019, my business slowed down quite a bit from prior years. (My best clients still come directly from word of mouth, so if you know someone in need of a career coach or coaching services, let me know). Several individuals asked whether I still edit resumes, cover letters, and essays by myself or if I use AI. Thus far, I haven’t used AI to edit client’s work. I find I can still do a better job, quicker than AI. If my prompting was better and I wielded AI more efficiently as a tool, perhaps I could use it to help with sections of an essay. In 2024 or 2025, I would not be surprised if some models surpass my editing and storytelling abilities.

I can usually tell when someone sends me a resume or essay that has been entirely produced or significantly augmented with AI. The main clue, just like my perfect score essays, is the AI content answers the question far better and more directly than content produced by individuals similar to the applicant. A second clue is that the word count on their very first draft is nearly equal to, but not exceeding, the limit. The AI content is passable but lacks the personality and narrative that are crucial to compelling applications. I help them add that last bit of spice to an otherwise good, but unremarkable recipe. Of course, if they were prompting better, they probably wouldn’t need me.

Using AI to guide and expedite the search and resume revision process can help both scale capabilities and provide a second set of eyes on resumes. The applicant tracking system predictors, job matchers and resume generators have come a long way. To work well, you still need to feed them quality content. Later this year I’ll dive deeper into how to use those tools to enhance your existing content or job application process. ?

The fairness and moral questions of AI

There is the moral question of using AI in job or school applications. Can AI-generated content provide an accurate and honest representation of what someone can achieve in school or work?? Does it seem fair that one person with access to a great model and high-speed internet can generate a decent 5,000-word essay in a second, after their 90 seconds spent prompting, while another student lacking those tools still has to peck away at their keyboard for every character for days? What if everyone has the same AI access? The only differentiation then is internet speed, whether it takes 1 second or 2, and the user’s prompting ability. I love technology for how it can democratize knowledge and power.? I appreciate that as a tool; AI empowers those who cannot afford the services of a coach like me. When I was applying to business school, I did not think I could afford a coach, so didn’t hire one (but probably should have). It certainly would have helped my application and scholarship outcomes. However, while I could have had a better application, making the mistakes served as valuable training to inform how I help others today. In that sense, my model, while slow and lumbering, was nurtured the same as artificially intelligent ones, although over the course of many years instead of seconds.

To answer the fairness question, maybe. For an example clearly over the line and unacceptable, consider a student applying to a school in a foreign country. Mastery of the local language is required, hence the essay requirement, but they don’t speak it very well at all. However, AI does, and they prompt AI in their native language to create a good essay in that local language, even though they don’t know what most of the output means. That is not ok. But how about the student who loves robotics, field hockey, and painting, but hates writing, using AI to help them turn a series of 20 bullet points and biographical details into a 250-word personal statement? ?

Today’s students have always lived in a world assisted by AI. Google’s “Did you Mean,” born in 2001, is 5 years older than the high school class of 2024. Even Google Image Search, which blew my mind when it arrived in 2011, has been available to them their entire digital lives. If everything they do is assisted by AI, why should their applications not be? They are certainly going to use AI in the classroom and workplace. If the output accurately and honestly represents their true abilities, AI-enhanced or not, why shouldn’t students be allowed to use artificial intelligence?

One thing I will say about the types of students and job candidates who contacted me in 2023 versus prior years: people seem lazier. Whether that is due to the expectation that AI can do everything or other factors, I do not know. It continues to blow my mind how many students contact me asking to edit (create) their personal statements or essay responses to why they are interested in a particular school without even a draft. Many of these individuals not only expect me to edit written content but also create their personal narrative from scratch, without any knowledge of them, building a cohesive story about their life up until this point, their interest in school, and what their long-term goals are. Why someone would be willing to pay a coach hundreds of dollars applying to a Master of Accounting program, without taking the time to answer for themselves why they want to study accounting is beyond me. I can tell you though, that I get these messages without fail every single month. When I say, “Can you send me some bullet points or a few rough sentences of why you’re interested in this program,” and they reply, “I don’t know. Can you do the research and make something up?” I know that they are not going to be a good fit as a client.

The second element of the fairness of AI is the intellectual property attribution of who owns what. If I post this article and an AI model ingests it and uses some of my work to create something else, should I receive any credit? The New York Times recently sued Open AI over similar concerns about how their models were using Times content. Microsoft was included in the same lawsuit. With audio and video, the lines are even blurrier than for text. If someone creates a new work of art or song and AI uses part or all of that in AI-generated content, who owns that new content? What if instead of using the content directly, the content simply influenced the model that generated the content? With data sets and sources so vast, figuring out which pieces influenced the final output could be difficult as well.

It doesn’t feel too far-fetched that AI could write a best-selling novel in the near future. This year, AI was likely used to generate new books from author Jane Friedman and sell them on Amazon, but without Friedman’s knowledge or consent. Amazon, upon being alerted took the listings down. ?

AI was also a key element of this year’s writers’ strike, which lasted from May 2 to September 27. The modern digital landscape of how media is created and distributed has significantly changed over the past decade. I did not follow the strike and negotiations that closely, but the main Writers Guild assertion was that the systems have changed, and the writer’s compensation plans have not. In addition to frustration over residuals from streaming (or lack thereof in some cases), the writers took a stand against Generative AI. The ultimate agreement places limits on the use of AI but allows it as long as it doesn’t negatively impact writers' positions or pay.

The moral questions don’t stop at fairness, though with AI there are the larger societal implications of AI everything. For better, or who are we kidding, worse, AI reflects the aggregate training data set of known knowledge (think of everything on the internet) and I don’t have to describe to you all the insane stuff that lives on the internet. Q-Anon and other alt-right forums, combined with social media distribution algorithms and Russian interference created Pizza Gate, Donald Trump, and eventually the January 6, Insurrection. However, less obvious, but equally pervasive are the underlying currents of racism, sexism, xenophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and transphobia, just to name a few. You would hope they are isolated to their own corners of the internet and the models could learn for example that Breitbart News = far right, misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist (as described by academic journals on Wikipedia) and to treat the data emanating from Breitbart as such. However, these underlying forms of discrimination and hate pervade every part of society and the internet.

The Washington Post reported on how AI image generators see the world, and how biased the outcomes are. “Toys in Iraq” wins the wildest prompt outcome of the article, generating bizarre images of various toys as soldiers in desert camo and battle gear. The innocuous prompt “a photo of a Latina” in version 1.5 generated only explicit images of barely clothed women. The 2.1 version has clothed women, but the composition in some seems nonsensical or confused, as if there is not enough data to pull from.

The internet can bring out the worst in people, so the fact that the models trained on the internet are racist and have all the same biases we do shouldn’t surprise anyone. We do need to consider that when using them though. ??

The current job market, outside of AI?

The first half of the year was marked by volatility at Meta during the “year of efficiency.” Once it became clear I needed to make a move, it took far longer than I anticipated to find a job. I applied to nearly 200 roles and spoke with about 25 companies before I found the right fit.

I am so happy to have landed at ezCater and have thoroughly enjoyed my first few months at the company. 2024 feels like a big year for ezCater and it’s been a while since I’ve been this excited by upcoming work plans. Stay tuned for what we’re cooking up and let me know if you want to transform how you do food at work! Also, if you want to join the party, I highly recommend it and we have tons of roles open.

The long and arduous job search process enhanced my empathy towards my career coaching clients. In 2023 I worked with 20 clients in an ad hoc capacity and 3 in long-term coaching contracts. I also spoke with a few dozen students and new grads over the course of the year. As I mentioned, the job market and AI negatively impacted my coaching business, but I’m still proud of the number of individuals I helped get jobs, paid clients, students, friends, and strangers.

I continue to have conversations with individuals who are frustrated and discouraged with their job prospects. The tech job market is still somewhat hampered by layoffs, restructuring, and general economic and supply chain uncertainty, and yes, some jobs are being impacted by AI. It seems the more educated and specialized you are, the longer it will take to find a job. There are still plenty of roles out there if you are willing to look beyond your current area, comfort zone, or geography. Certain sectors or functions are booming. While the number of positions posted and candidates searching has dramatically changed, what makes for good candidates hasn’t. Experience, attitude, and skills, that’s pretty much it.

When I hear someone has applied to 500 jobs and hasn’t had one recruiter phone call, it is both surprising and predictable. If your ratio is 0/500 you are clearly doing at least one thing wrong, probably multiple things and in a competitive market, you’re less likely to “get lucky.” I could write an entire article on this, but in general, people are applying to the wrong jobs, have a bad resume, don’t interview well, or have a bad attitude. That you were unemployed for a year, didn’t go to a fancy school, or are not the hiring manager’s second cousin probably has nothing to do with why you were rejected. (I say second cousin in jest, of course, connections and networking are still important, but in the current job market, especially tech, networking and referrals don’t hold the same power they once did.) Keep in mind, everything I just discussed is for the individuals totally striking out, applying to dozens or hundreds of jobs, and not having a single recruiter phone screen. If you are having conversations with recruiters, interviews with hiring managers, and then getting rejected it could be any number of other issues. If you feel like you’re in that spot and stuck, let’s talk. ?

Being Jewish and Israel

2023 was the scariest year to be an American Jew in my lifetime. I cannot begin to describe the fear, anxiety, depression, and loneliness I and many other American Jews have felt this year. We knew antisemitism and Holocaust denial have been growing in America and experience it every year. Then October 7 happened, and it all shifted into overdrive. As they say, everyone knows someone who was impacted, taken hostage, or killed. If the same ratio had been applied to Americans on September 11, we would have lost 45,000 civilians instead of around 3,000. Can you imagine?

The graphic below from the Center for Strategic and International Studies puts October 7 into historical context as the deadliest terrorist attack in the modern world.

Instead of commandeering planes and crashing them into buildings, terrorists invaded the country by land, air, sea, and underground. They raped women, beheaded babies, tortured others, and took hundreds hostage including the elderly, disabled, and babies. Can you imagine the wars we would start if the same thing happened here on American soil, to white, mostly Christian, Americans?

I had to step away from the keyboard after that last paragraph it was so upsetting. The absurdity of it, the lack of humanity. Over 100 days later, there are still over a hundred hostages being held by Hamas, a terrorist organization.?

And the attacks haven’t stopped. Hamas and Hezbollah continue to launch rockets and other attacks on Israeli civilians almost every day. Can you imagine if the Sep 11 attacks continued into 2002? How would the US have responded then? ?

For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, feel free to read my letter, posted on October 8, specifically to the social justice warriors who were indifferent to the plight of Israelis (of all religions) and the Jewish people then. To my horror, many have turned their indifference into outright antisemitism.

For those who call Israel an Apartheid state and say the country is committing Genocide, I would encourage you to read up on those terms. It’s not my place to debate you here, but that is antisemitic. Also, please advocate on behalf of populations actually being impacted by genocide, like the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Uyghur Muslims in China, and the Darfuri in Sudan. Also, if Jews hadn’t been exterminated and kicked out of so many countries in the Middle East and Europe and had to flee to Israel and other democracies, there would likely currently be active large-scale genocides against the Jewish people. My use of “large scale” is intentional. Both Hamas, Hezbollah and their backer Iran are “actively committing acts with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” That is the full United Nations Geneva Convention definition of Genocide. But for the Iron Dome, but for the Israeli Defense Forces, but for allied aid to Israel and free trade, they would have already committed genocide on a massive scale against the Jewish people. Israel just wants to exist. ??

What really hurts is how most Jewish Americans, have been supportive of the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, Women’s Right to Choose, affordable education and healthcare, and stand against racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and Islamophobia. We are with you for justice, for good, for the oppressed. We speak out when the Israeli government missteps or Netanyahu does or says something crazy. Israel is a work in progress like any other free state. But it is our state, the only one we have, and your antisemitism, telling us we shouldn’t be able to defend ourselves, shouldn’t get our hostages back, shouldn’t fight at all, reinforces the need for Israel to exist.

You claim to care about all these causes, but when Jewish women are being raped, Jews of color are murdered, Jewish heads are being decapitated, Jewish disabled and elderly are being abused, apparently, that’s all just fine for you.?

Godwin’s Law says that in any online discussion thread grows longer, the probability of “Hitler” or “Nazi” being mentioned approaches 1. It’s funny because it’s true. What is not funny is that we truly are living in a time where seeing who would have been the Nazis and Nazi sympathizers has never been easier, both online and in the world. ?That used to be an utterly ridiculous thing to say, but in 2023, I am sad to say it’s true.

Russia and the war in Ukraine

Russia is still actively at War in Ukraine. Last year we were all surprised at how resilient Ukraine was. I’m sad to say, I am not surprised the war is still going on. In fact, On December 30, 2023, Russia launched the largest barrage of missiles yet targeting sites across Ukraine (mostly civilian buildings). If not for missile defense systems, procured and trained on from the West, the damage could have been much worse. One of the missiles even passed through Polish airspace before turning into Ukraine.

Somehow the Ukrainian people remain resilient. They’ve gone about their lives, some have returned to work, others have remained in the Army, but they persevere. Russian troops are still going off to die in a war that much of the country does not support and the rest of the country is misinformed on by state propaganda, but the toll and loss of life are real. Until there is a regime change in Russia, this will continue. Democracy matters.

Perhaps if Russia spent less money and energy attacking Ukraine, they would have a more successful and consistent space program. In August, India landed a lunar rover on the Moon, just a week after Russia’s mission failed, crashing into the surface. The International Space Program is an important diplomatic and human global endeavor, but the war in Ukraine does make you wonder how much we should be working with Russia and China as they escalate their military operations against adjacent neighbor allied nations on our planet. I will be excited for when we reach the Star Trek age, when humankind comes together and realizes we should stop fighting each other and work towards preserving our planet and fending off hostile adversaries if there are any. With replicators and warp speed, money becomes irrelevant, and wealth is not in the form of currency, but technology. I don’t think 2024 is the year we make that breakthrough.?

The rise of Africa and a slumping China

In 2023, we surpassed 8 billion people in the world. When I was born, we had just passed 5 billion. In much of the developed world, the population growth rate has declined significantly, while certain countries in the developing world continue to increase their rates. The continent of Africa will continue to become more of a player in the world’s economy and culture. This boggles the mind from Statista, but of the twenty countries with the largest year-over-year growth rates, all are in Africa, except nearby Syria, around 300 miles to the northeast (see below). There are 1.4 billion people in China and 1.2 billion in Africa. In a few years, Africa’s population should surpass China’s.?

Think of how dominant China has been in the past decade in producing new technology and global cultural trends. The fact that China’s economic growth has significantly slowed in the past few years further opens the door for other developing powers. China faced a real estate and housing meltdown that will take years to resolve and has ruined millions of middle-class families.

China is one country (see next paragraph) and Africa is a continent with 54 individual countries, I expect to see big things coming out of Africa, especially from Nigeria and the more established economies.

China continues to be hostile in expanding its control and influence under the "One China" policy. In the same way Russia is attempting to expand and control former Soviet states, China is exerting more and more control over Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Chinese military’s behavior in open waters and islands is a major threat to global trade and allied sea power. When I was a midshipman nearly 20 years ago, China was the main naval threat we were training for and they continue to be to this day.

China also continues to test the United States and its allies, sending spy balloons over the US and attacking Australian Navy divers with a noise weapon.

One of the most interesting and dramatic photos of the year was by Petty Officer Tyler Thompson capturing the Navy's recovery operation of retrieving one of the downed balloons off the coast of South Carolina (image below).

Onward - 2024

If you made it this far in what appears to be my longest article ever, hopefully, I'll wrap it up nicely for you.

We have a lot of work to do in 2024. In every area of society, in every region, there are countless things to improve upon. While this year was harsher and more negative than I anticipated, with a far darker recap than last year, there is still hope and opportunity.

In 2023, I focused on gratitude and empathy and will continue those themes, while layering on some additional areas to be mindful of.

Personally, I am going to work on having a more serene and stoic philosophy, especially around things that bother me, but that I have no control. This year my cousin and I are reading the Daily Stoic to encourage regular reflection and meditation. Last year I read Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom. Professionally, I am excited by what we're working on and continuing to grow our team. I will continue to read, write, paint and garden more than I engage with social media or the news. I'll continue to coach and mentor students and professionals, helping them identify and work towards their dreams. Tennis, pickleball, cycling, hiking, and kayaking will still take up much of my free time and allow me to connect with the outdoors and push myself.

I had a school principal who uttered the phrase "Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours" every single day on the announcements. I am not sure who said this phrase first, but my guess is it came up at a principal's conference in the 90s based on how many occurrences I've found of individuals around my age with the same experience.

I bring it up now because while there is so much we cannot control about what happens in 2024, there is much we can. We can also control how we react to things outside our control. A large portion of our experience is in our attitude and mindset. If this year I am more kind, calm, empathetic, and patient, regardless of how everything else shakes out, I will be better off.

2024 will be another growth year for AI and more opportunities to use AI for good or evil. Responsible use of artificial intelligence, especially in art and business will continue to be a theme.

In 2023 I predicted a pound the rock year. It turned out to be more of a dodge the rocks year. For 2024, no predictions, let's just make the best of it.