Upstream #185

trust-less, places, growth, robots, hspd.

Well. How the hell are you? Finally stopped raining for an hour today. Sheesh. I’ve been talking, and running in the ice. Hope you’re all ok. Right, gotta go. I suppose.

btw. I'm looking to speak more this year, so shout if you need some stimulation on culture, brands creativity and technology.

"Whether you're a spy or a teacher or a spouse or a painter or an abuela or an astronaut or a monk or a barista or a board-game designer, the bits that matter are the bits you make matter by putting yourself on the line for them. The unknown is the foundry where you forge your chips. Everything important is uncertain. Sitting with the discomfort of that uncertainty is the hard part, the wedge that can move the world."?

Eliot Peper?

culture // trust-less

Kate-Gate was odd wasn’t it. I mean, it wasn’t really a big deal. But it was. Maybe it’s because we’re scared of the?end of shared reality.?Maybe the?semantic apocalypse?is here. Where reality and meaning collapse under a deluge of synthetic AI slop. I mean, if nice Kate does it, who the f¨ck, can we trust anymore??We’re already dealing with the?“enshittification”?of the internet, and?the slow decay of platforms (begin helping people, then screw them to help businesses, then finally screw businesses to help themselves). Add to that an explosion of?made for ads?websites designed for clicks, it starts to feel like?the internet is getting murdered by AI. We’re even serving AI up to toddlers on YouTube channels?with nearly 12m subs, while others think in 3-5 years TV soaps could be made by AI. Little wonder that Edelman's 2024 trust barometer?shows a rising distrust of AI. It feels out of control. Which doesn’t feel nice.

brands // places

Great places are amazing. Full of meaning and meaningful experiences. They create value for the people who inhabit, and surround them. Good ones, have a nice core community. And good passing trade. Great ones, shape and transform space into something magnetic (Highline in NYC). Something with soul and character. That’s why?brands should think like place makers. Good places understand local people, local culture, local behaviour. They’re real. All the senses are engaged.?In this blurry digital and physical world, thinking like a place-maker is a good way to think about long term value creation and community building for brands. And “in the war for attention, relevance and cut-through, ‘place’ can be a powerful domain for making meaningful and lasting relationships with audiences".

creativity // growth

Rick Rubin is a huge creative thinker. Bit mad to some, messiah to others. In this piece?he talks about how to grow creatively. How living in an artful way, making each choice count, avoids sleep walking through the day, and repeating yesterday. How rules establish average behaviours, but creating something special, comes from breaking them. He also talks about how the audience should come last. How, the process of making something for someone else, undermines it, and how being true to your own vision, serves the audience best.?MadameWeb (just out) is another Marvel flop. The star Dakota Johnson opened up about the failure of it, saying “decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee..You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms". Feels like this is becoming a thing.

technology // robots

Sometime in the 1920s, American author Zora Neale Hurston wrote ?“There are years that ask questions and years that answer”. She was referring to race and identity. Feels perfect for AI now though. Lots of questions getting answered.?For starters?the collaboration between robotics company Figure (only emerged from stealth last year) and OpenAI just launched Figure 01, "the world's first commercially viable general purpose humanoid robot".?Its scarily?advanced. And if that’s not scary enough,?South Korea are?deploying around 7,000 AI-robot dolls to seniors and dementia patients?to tackle loneliness and remind patients to take medication.?Studies found that depression levels reduced, medicine intake improved and the inbuilt?web monitoring platform helped caretakers monitor remotely.?Humanoid robots were the stuff of sci-fi. Not anymore.

five random (ish) things:

1. This is mad. Fandom is blind ??.
2. Good 2024 Tech Trends report ??.
3. I wrote about?AI and stuff ??.?
4. Dune Trump?is soooo accurate ??.?
5. High expectations = low resilience ????.

watching // hspd

If you haven’t seen this, it’s very nice. Uplifting stuff. Enjoy the weekend ???? ??.