Technormal: Web3 for Normal People

Since I can remember, I've had a few times when new technology has blown my mind. I will never forget my dad calling me down to his basement "office" and showing me bulletin boards, saying: these are conversations with people all over the world. Mind blown. I remember 2008-2010 and the true birth of global social media. CNN did a hashtag CTA during a show. I tweeted using the hashtag and when they came back from break, there was my tweet onscreen, where the anchors discussed it. Mind blown.

For over a decade, nothing has blown my mind. I wondered if I was too jaded. Then OpenAI released the large language model they have been training for a decade, building ChatGPT on the front end, much like Google sits in front of the computer queries we use to search. I touched it and got it immediately. Forget the previous technologies...THIS is the most mind-blowing tech of our lifetimes.

You guys are smart people who consume the news - so there's no way you haven't heard of ChatGPT. We see the scary pieces being published in the news, with GPT supposedly falling in love with reporters, threatening to kill the world, etc. But I'm finding that the large majority of friends, family, and my non-tech contacts haven't yet played with it. I get it. Over the past decade, Silicon Valley has been very insular, often developing apps and products and platforms for other software engineers or wealthy users in urban places.

ChatGPT is nothing like any startup, product, or platform. Ever. I feel so. passionately that generative AI is for ALL of us that I morphed my blog and am tailoring it specifically for NON-tech-industry people. I hope to write every couple of weeks about a topic for us normal people, living normal lives, working normal jobs. This tech innovation is for all of us.

Growing up, I was drawn to reading, writing, and big ideas. I consider myself a creative mind. I love big pictures. I love understanding people and our behavior in groups and alone and online. I love understanding the self we present to the world and the self we really are. I was called "right-brained" and encouraged towards creative jobs. I was discouraged from STEM (which we called 'math') and engineering. Working in tech as an adult has been a real adjustment in my self-definition, my understanding of who I am and what is / isn't possible for me to do.

I've thought a lot about the blogs or online personalities and what I like about them. I love brainstormers, big-picture thinkers, connect-the-dotters. BUT I also need tangible, concrete advice and education. Don't just tell me "AI is the future" or "use GPT". Tell me what to do, where to go. Challenge me. Educate me without talking down to me. And above all, let me get hands-on and apply new tech to my life.

Whether you're curious about generative AI and large-language models, looking to get hands-on and learn how to write ChatGPT prompts, or needing an tech ethical conversation, we will do that here. My examples and lessons aim to focus on real, normal people with careers, part-time jobs, or school commitments. I will talk TO you in normal-person language. I will never condescend to you.

If that sounds good, please follow and share this blog with people you know looking for the non-techhie's guide to web3 (starting with ChatGPT).

And if you're looking for my OG blog, A Metaverse Manifesto, click my head below!