#36: Big moments of 2023, look ahead for 2024
Plus, AI and things to read and watch.
We’re at the end of the year and the start of another, again. So what did I learn, read, or do in 2023 that is worth carrying forward?
2023 Big Things I Did That Made a Difference in My Life
Leaving my full-time job of almost 5 years and taking 7 months off.
That April that I spent living in Paris was magical. Immersion in an amazing city, with delicious bread —the best.
Not working for seven months gave me time to focus on the gym, yoga, reading (more than 150 books), cooking, and family and friends.
Moving to a low-carb diet and cutting drastically back on alcohol, sugar, dairy, and most starches.
Lifting weights consistently for a year; my functional fitness is 100% better than the year before.
Going back to work as a consultant, but keeping it part-time.
2024 goals
Stay balanced with self-care, family, friends and work
Get into really good shape, deadlifting 200 pounds, and mastering shoulder stands in yoga.
Take a great summer vacation involving access to water.
Teach generative AI to nonprofits as a focus of my consulting practice.
Be kind and help people I care about.
Stretch goals: Get back into bike riding, Take more public transportation, and walk more.
Something to read, or watch:
Black Cake, Charmaine Wilkerson, Ballantine Books, 2022: As soon as I heard about this novel, I wanted to read it. This expansive family saga traces generations of immigrants who lose touch but then reconnect in deeply satisfying ways. While difficult moments arise, the overall tone is extremely heartwarming. I haven't seen the Hulu adaptation, but Wilkerson's novel is a must-read that will resonate with anyone whose family has been through the trauma of dislocation and finding a new, safe home.
Hestia Strikes A Match, by Christine Grillo, Macmillan, 2023: Once I picked this up, I was hooked. This tale revolves around Hestia, a forty-two-year-old ex-journalist working in a retirement community, and navigating love and life amidst chaos. Set in Baltimore, MD, in a near-future America fractured into two nations embroiled in civil conflict, the story offers sharp political insights into our society's divisions. Hestia's journey, filled with humor and a raw, relatable quest for understanding, turns this novel into a treasure.
Pipe Dreams, The Life and Times of Yahoo Pipes, by Glenn Fleishman offers a fascinating look back at an ahead-of-its-time product from Yahoo! Friends and former colleagues flagged this piece as a great read. I was at Yahoo! when Pipes launched and vividly remember being impressed with how project lead Pasha Sadri protected the team as their prototype immediately got so popular that they immediately struggled with back-end bandwidth issues. For anyone enjoying the recent spate of early 2000s Internet nostalgia essays, Fleishman's article is a must-read. It captures an experimental time when Yahoo! engineers had the bandwidth to build innovative tools like Pipes that let users combine data sources in creative ways, and that influenced much product design yet to come.
We were in a very special place where everything was just, like, clicking, and we were really creating a lot of new things that became the norm on the Internet during that project,” –Pasha Sadri
Refik Anadol, Quantum Memories: A Conversation with Refik Anadol on Creativity and AI by Mira Lane (Google) offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the artist's boundary-pushing data visualizations. I was fortunate to experience Anadol's work installed at MoMA in New York last fall. He's creating some of the most exciting art I've seen in years by collaborating with AI systems in innovative ways. In this interview, Anadol discusses that creative symbiosis. The AI seems to take on a life of its own in generating the dazzling, dreamlike landscapes of Quantum Memories. Yet Anadol maintains tight creative control in selecting and refining the visuals to reflect our collective memories. His commentary provides insight into the possibilities of human-AI collaboration. For everyone interested in what's next for art and technology, it's an engaging conversation:
AI Articles and Links:
I’ve been reading as much as I can about Generative AI, from many sources, and trying to synthesize it all. With so much content out there, I’ve started a Keep to track all the thought-provoking pieces I want to remember. Here are a couple of standouts:
Turning data into gold: 10 exceptional AI marketing campaign examples, Gizem Hekim, Artificial-Intelligence News. This article showcases clever campaigns from Heinz, Nutella, and more that used AI art generation. The creative samples are a visual treat.
2 effective ChatGPT workflows compared: Are you Team Centaur or Team Cyborg? Briana Brownell, Descript, 2023. This article delineates two emerging user workflows - Centaurs who allocate specific tasks to AI versus Cyborgs who have intense back-and-forth dialogues. If you're exploring ways to collaborate with generative tools, Brownell's framework provides a lot to think about.
I also want to share DIY Custom AI: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your Own GPT , which I wrote last week. As a ChatGPT-4 user, I struggled to build my own GPT, but configuring all the moving pieces proved harder than expected. After some trial and error, I got a useful GPT up and running–and then built a second one. If you're interested in rolling your own AI assistant but could use some pointers, read on for the step-by-step walkthrough. This guide is structured with beginners in mind.
Because You Made It This Far
Have you checked out Threads.Net?
I got off Twitter in 2017, and haven’t spent much time chatting anywhere. Somehow, I’ve gotten charmed with the interactions available on Threads, and have been spending time there, reading and interacting. If you’re there and want to connect, please do so! If you’re not, consider giving it a try (unless you hate social media, then just skip it.)
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All best,
Susan