New Year!

It Happened. Embrace it.

Hi Friends,

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you are starting things off brilliantly. I'm delaying my New Year rituals until this weekend—counting today and tomorrow as part of last year. It happens. I have a plan. I just haven't started it yet.

Calendars are basically arbitrary, anyway.

I have been reading some Sci-Fi lately. One was recommended by New Scientist book reviews, Annie Bot, which I didn't really enjoy because it was basically a domestic fiction novel where one of the characters just happened to be an AI in a turbulent relationship. Not really what I would consider science fiction, since technology actually had no bearing on the story.

I really got into the another one, Mal Goes to War, where sentient AIs live in a future of pure humans, augmented humans, and smart things. It was slick, easy to read, and humorous. Kinda like my books—Proteus Unbound and Accelerate The Metaverse(both available on Amazon, Kindle Unlimited, and a bunch of other places).

And, because it's the beginning of a new year, there have been a lot of articles about the future of technology. Artificial Intelligence, specifically, since it had a real moment in 2024. The end of last year saw the release of extremely advanced AI models that could do amazing things. Given this, it appears as if we are on the cusp of some more remarkable computer advances in 2025.

Unfortunately, AI's success might just lead to its downfall. As a prevailing observation, AI is eating itself.

Because the internet is the primary source for AI training data (the stuff that AI uses to get smarter) and since so many content producers are lazily using AI to create content (AI generated text and images can be created way faster and cheaper than human created material), the Internet has become a cesspool of bad information.

This condition even has its own name and acronym, Model Autophagy Disorder (MAD).

AI's using AI generated data to get smarter is a real problem. This could actually lead to a collapse.

For me, the Internet has gotten so bad that I don't actually trust anything I read on it—not that I should, anyway. But, the primary sources, the secondary sources, and even the tertiary sources have become so soiled with generated garbage, advertisements, and deep faked crap, that the Web is basically useless.

Doom and gloom in the new year…

He knows changes aren't permanent—but change is.

Rush-Tom Sawyer

Rather, as one article put it—grab some popcorn and watch what happens. If you've been at this game called life long enough, you know that nothing lasts forever. The AI revolution was thrust upon us, as was AI anticipated layoffs and stock market speculations.

There are a lot of people who want to tell you what you should be concerned with in the effort to line their own pockets with gold (er, including me).

There are going to be some awesome things coming out of artificial intelligent tools this year—advances that will truly help humanity.

New starts offer unlimited possibilities. New books to read, new technologies to embrace, new friends to meet.

This year, I'm focusing on what I can control—what and how often I write, who I hang out with, what I put in my body.

I wish you all a happy, prosperous, enjoyable 2025.

Happy writing and happy reading.

David