Life is a step-by-step process. And we get stronger as we climb.
I’m reminded that we must constantly guard our minds because, like other forms of illness, it starts with one cell in our bodies or one word in our minds. Processes that develop their own unique routes of internal disruption and destruction.
Guarding our mental and emotional selves requires the same kind of attention we give to structuring our physical diets and fitness programs.
Much like watering plants. We must water our minds with uplifting and inspiring content. A process that becomes our sustainability program, where consistency also matters as well.
Developing and reframing our narratives to influence our thinking and actions to inspire growth.
• Explains the healing and transformational power of intoning the Divine Name
• Teaches how to correctly intone the Divine Name through exercises and audio downloads for maximum vibrational effect
• Reveals how the sacred sound of the Divine Name can be used to promote human and planetary healing
First prohibited and then lost for nearly 2,500 years, the Divine Name, when vocalized, has the ability to shift our vibrations, enabling a hotline to the divine. Intoning this most sacred sound can raise consciousness, invoke spiritual transformation, heal the body, and balance and activate the subtle energy field.
Goldman shares his rediscovery of the Divine Name—the Biblical Tetragrammaton—as being a harmonically related universal sequence of vowels that is non-denominational and can be experienced by everyone. This sacred sound can resonate the physical body, align the chakras, create protection, guidance, and healing, as well as provide a direct link to the higher realms of consciousness. Goldman gives a step-by-step process for effectively intoning the Divine Name with intention and prayer, enabling you to receive vibratory activation and healing.
The book offers links to 60 minutes of audio downloads that will teach you how to properly sound the Divine Name through chakra and biofield resonance. Goldman presents the latest research on the effects of this sacred sound on DNA and water and introduces readers to the Angel of Sound. He reveals how to integrate biofield resonance with universal spiritual teachings to access the ascension harmonics of the Divine Name and bring humankind to the next level of evolution.
Discover the secrets of Ascension Harmonics and experience the sacred resonance of the Divine Name to reconnect to the source of all that is.Show more
Jonathan Goldman is a writer, musician and teacher. He is an authority on sound healing and a pioneer in the field of harmonics. Jonathan is the author of HEALING SOUNDS: THE POWER OF HARMONICS (Inner Traditions), SHIFTING FREQUENCIES (Light Technology) THE LOST CHORD (Spirit Music) and TANTRA OF SOUND (Hampton Road), co-authored with his wife Andi. He has studied with masters of sound from both the scientific and spiritual traditions, including the Dalai Lama’s Chanting Gyuto and Gyume Monks and has been empowered by the Chant Master of the Drepung Loseling Monastery to teach Tibetan Overtone Chanting. Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Film Making from Boston University and a Master’s Degree in the Independent Study on Sound Healing from Lesley College. He is a lecturing member of the International Society for Music and Medicine.
Jonathan is the director of the Sound Healers Association; the original organization dedicated to the education and awareness of sound and music for healing. He is also president of Spirit Music, which produces music for meditation, relaxation and self-transformation. Jonathan has created numerous cutting edge recordings including: “Dolphin Dreams”, “Sacred Gateways: Drumming and Chanting”, “Trance Tara”, “Ultimate Om”, “Holy Harmony” and “Medicine Buddha”; created for H.H., the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Northern California this May, 2001. His overtone chanting is heard on Kitaro’s 2001 Grammy Award winning album. Jonathan’s best selling release “Chakra Chants” won the 1999 Visionary Awards for “Best Healing-Meditation Album” and “Album of the Year”. Jonathan’s highly acclaimed albums: “The Lost Chord”, “The Divine Name” (co-created with Gregg Braden) and “ChakraDance” also won as the Visionary Awards. His latest album are “The Tantra of Sound Harmonizer” and “Reiki Chants”. His collaboration with Tibetan Chant Master Lama Tashi “Tibetan Master Chants” was been nominated for a 2006 Grammy Award for “Best Traditional World Music”.
Jonathan has written numerous articles on the therapeutic and transformational uses of sound and music, which have appeared in many national publications. He has also contributed chapters and interviews to many books, including: MUSICMEDICINE, SONIC ALCHEMY, MUSIC: PHYSICIANS FOR TIMES TO COME and HEALING SPIRITS. Jonathan’s work has been cited in many books, including Julia Cameron’s VEINS OF GOLD. The McGraw-Hill college text, MUSIC IN OUR WORLD, has a chapter on Jonathan’s recording of “Dolphin Dreams”. In DAVINCI DECODED, Jonathan’s CD “Chakra Chants” is listed as the #1 Selection for “Top Ten Spiritual Playlist”.
An internationally acknowledge Master Teacher, Jonathan facilitates Healing Sounds Seminars at universities, hospitals, holistic health centers and expos throughout the United States and Europe. He has appeared on national television and radio, including Art Bell’s “Coast to Coast AM” and has been featured in national periodicals including “USA Today” and “The New York Times”. His annual Healing Sounds Intensive attracts participants from throughout the world.
When stress becomes the background noise of everyday life, it can start to feel like calm is something to “earn” — after everything is finished, after everyone else is taken care of, after the next milestone.
The Tapping World Summit is designed to interrupt that pattern with a simple, grounded practice that can be used in real moments — not just in theory — so the body and mind can return to steadiness.
Across the event, each session supports a more regulated, clearer inner experience, making it easier to respond with intention instead of defaulting to old loops.
The Tapping World Summit is a free, online event created to help people work with the stress patterns that drive anxiety, overthinking, reactivity, and burnout. Across the event, the summit shares 25 guided presentations that teach Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), also known as Tapping, as a practical way to calm the nervous system and create meaningful change in daily life.
Unlike content that stays inspirational but vague, this event is built around doing the technique as it is taught. Many sessions include tap-along guidance and meditations designed to help the body feel the difference — not someday, but in the moment. The schedule spans mental stress loops, big emotions, relationships, money anxiety, physical discomfort, and the practical work of restoring rest and energy.
Over the past 17 years, more than 3 million people have attended the summit, returning because they feel something shift: less anxious, less reactive, and less stuck in the patterns that once felt permanent. The experience is also positioned as “100% content” and “100% free,” with no sales pitches during the presentations, so the focus stays on learning and practicing EFT in a supportive, structured way.
Registration is designed to be simple: reserve a free spot through the official registration page, then use the daily event emails to access each day’s sessions as they unlock. Because the summit is hosted online, participation is available from a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
For best results, register early and save the confirmation email so the daily links are easy to find when the event begins.
Visit the “Register Here for Free” link below and enter your email address
Check for a confirmation email and keep it saved or starred
Whitelist the sender (or check Promotions/Spam) so daily links are not missed
Use the Event Schedule on this page to plan which days are most relevant
Set a daily calendar reminder to watch and tap along
Scientifically Validated Benefits of EFT / Tapping
Tapping (EFT) is presented as a scientifically-backed technique that blends elements of cognitive therapy, exposure techniques, and stimulation of acupressure points. The basic method is straightforward: while focusing on what is bothering you, tapping on specific points on the face and body is described as sending calming signals to the brain and helping rewire the stress response in real time.
One reason EFT has gained attention is the breadth of published research referenced in the summit materials. The event describes tapping as “backed by 300+ scientific studies,” with documented benefits across diverse groups. The framing throughout the summit is practical and body-based: less reactivity to triggers, more regulation in the moment, and more freedom to choose responses that align with values rather than stress reflexes.
The summit also highlights how quickly the practice can feel. For example, users report an average reduction in anxiety of 40% after a single 9-minute session. While experiences vary, the consistent promise is that tapping is meant to be used in the middle of real life — before a difficult conversation, during a spiral of worry, or when the body feels tight and keyed up — as a way to shift from reactive to calmer and more regulated.
Several sessions also connect EFT to emerging science topics featured in the schedule, including the neuroscience of change, memory reconsolidation, and polyvagal-informed regulation. Together, the research framing and the tap-along format create an experience that supports both understanding and application: learning why a pattern exists, and practicing a concrete way to interrupt it.
Here are a few of the most common benefits and outcomes associated with EFT tapping:
Calming the stress response in real time by pairing focused attention with tapping on acupressure points
Reducing anxiety intensity — including an example cited of an average 40% reduction after a single 9-minute session
Interrupting overthinking and negative thought loops so the mind can settle and regain clarity
Less emotional reactivity when triggers arise, making responses feel more intentional
Better nervous system regulation — shifting from “on edge” to steadier, more grounded states
Support for processing big emotions like anxiety, grief, rage, guilt, and self-judgment
Relief from self-sabotage patterns and increased follow-through when old loops loosen
Improved relationship dynamics by reducing trigger-driven reactions and supporting healthier boundaries
Reduced money anxiety and more stability around receiving and abundance-related stress patterns
Support for sleep and rest by lowering nervous system “hyperarousal” and bedtime stress
More stable energy when chronic stress stops draining the system as intensely
Mind-body support for physical discomfort themes discussed in the summit, including inflammation and chronic pain patterns
Support with cravings-related patterns as referenced in the summit’s research framing and topics
Building resilience through change by practicing a repeatable tool that can be used anywhere, anytime
What Is EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Techniques)?
Tapping, also known as EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), is described as a practice that helps reduce anxiety, process emotions, relieve physical discomfort, and create lasting transformation. It combines principles of cognitive therapy and exposure approaches with stimulation of acupressure points on the face and body.
In practice, EFT involves focusing on what is bothering you — a feeling, memory, belief, or physical sensation — while tapping on specific points. The method is described as sending calming signals directly to the brain and helping rewire the stress response, which can make it easier to think clearly and feel steady even when circumstances are challenging.
Because the steps are simple and can be done without special equipment, EFT is positioned as a tool that can be used anywhere, anytime. The goal is not to deny what is happening, but to work with it in a way that helps the body and mind shift from stressed and reactive to calm and regulated within minutes.
How the Tapping World Summit Works (Daily Unlocks + 24-Hour Access)
The summit follows a simple daily rhythm so participation stays manageable. New sessions unlock each day, allowing the learning to build in a clear sequence rather than feeling like an overwhelming library of content.
Each day’s videos are available free for 24 hours after they unlock. This creates a clear window to watch, tap along, and integrate the theme before the next day’s trainings replace it.
Daily unlocks: new sessions are released each day on the summit schedule
24-hour free access: each day’s videos remain available for one day after unlocking
Tap-along format: many sessions include guided tapping and meditations for immediate practice
Watch anywhere: access from a computer, tablet, or smartphone
Best practice: set aside a consistent daily time (even 20–30 minutes) to follow the unlocks
Tapping World Summit 2026 Dates, Time, and Event Length
The Tapping World Summit is presented as a 10-day online event with themed days beginning on Monday, February 23, 2026 and continuing through March 4, 2026, plus a bonus day on March 5, 2026. The event begins at 8PM EST on Monday, February 23, 2026.
For planning, the schedule below shows the day-by-day themes and speakers so it is easy to choose which topics to prioritize.
Start: Monday, February 23, 2026 at 8PM EST
Main event: February 23, 2026 through March 4, 2026
Yes. The summit is promoted as 100% free to attend, and it is also described as 100% content, with no sales pitches during the presentations. This keeps the focus on learning and practicing EFT tapping in a structured, supportive format.
Free access follows the daily release schedule, with each day’s videos available at no cost for a limited viewing window after they unlock.
The Tapping World Summit covers a wide range of real-life challenges, but the schedule is not random — it follows a progression that helps attendees build skill, confidence, and emotional steadiness as the days unfold. Each session is designed to be practical, with tap-along guidance that supports immediate application rather than “someday” insight.
For easy skimming, the summit sessions can be grouped into the overarching themes below. Each theme includes the specific speakers and sessions (with dates) so it is simple to spot what to prioritize and when to tune in.
Mindset Reset: Overthinking, Self-Sabotage, Self-Judgment, and Motivation
This theme focuses on breaking the mental loops and internal patterns that keep progress from sticking — including negative thoughts, self-sabotage, harsh self-judgment, and people-pleasing. It features Nick Ortner (“Finally Stop Negative Thoughts”) and Brad Yates (“Ending Self-Sabotaging Behaviors”) on Day 1 (February 23rd), plus Cheryl Richardson (“Breaking the Self-Judgment Cycle”) and Dr. Claire Hayes (“Releasing the People-Pleasing Pattern”) on Day 4 (February 26th).
It also includes forward-momentum support with Alex Ortner (“Motivation Isn’t Found, It’s Unblocked”) on Day 9 (March 3rd), helping attendees clear what blocks action so change can feel safer and more sustainable.
Nervous System + Emotional Healing: Triggers, Memory, Anxiety Signals, Grief, Rage, and Letting Go
This theme supports nervous system regulation and emotional processing — the work of reducing reactivity, addressing old triggers, and learning how lasting change happens in the brain and body. It includes Dr. David Feinstein (“The Neuroscience of Memory”) and Dr. Arielle Schwartz (“The Polyvagal Path to Growth & Resilience”) on Day 2 (February 24th), along with Dr. Mary Ayers (“Your Brain’s False Alarm”) and Dr. Damon Silas (“Sacred Rage, Holy Grief”) on Day 3 (February 25th).
For release and integration, it also features Dr. Peta Stapleton (“The Science of Letting Go”) on Day 7 (March 1st) and Jessica Ortner (“Personal Peace Procedure”) on Day 11 (March 5th), offering structured guidance for making peace with the past and loosening what the system has been holding.
Health and Stress Reduction: Inflammation, Chronic Pain, Sleep, Energy, Joy, and Cravings
This theme centers on the body side of stress — including inflammation, chronic pain patterns, depleted energy, sleep challenges, and the ways chronic stress can reduce access to joy. It includes Julie Schiffman (“Cool the Fire Within”) and Dr. Kim D’eramo (“Rewiring Chronic Pain”) on Day 5 (February 27th), plus Carol Richard (“The Sleep Secret”) and Gene Monterastelli (“Reigniting Cellular Energy”) on Day 6 (February 28th).
It also includes Dawson Church (“Feeling Good Again”) on Day 10 (March 4th) to support reawakening joy, plus the Bonus Presentation with Dr. Peta Stapleton (“Groundbreaking Research Behind Tapping”) on Day 11 (March 5th), which highlights research themes including brain-scan findings and cravings-related results.
Relationships and Money Stress: Triggers, Boundaries, and Hidden Blocks
This theme supports the everyday reality of being around people and navigating money-related pressure — two areas that can activate stress fast. It includes Dr. Adrianna Popescu (“When Other People Push Your Buttons”) and Carol Look (“The Hidden Money Blocks You Don’t Even Know You Have”) on Day 7 (March 1st).
For attendees, the benefit is direct and practical: clearer emotional boundaries, less automatic reactivity in relationships, and a calmer internal response to money stress so decisions can be made from steadiness rather than panic.
A fearless and urgent chronicle of the tech-authoritarian movement from its early days in San Francisco politics to its current moment on the international stage, exploring the wild and dystopian ambition of the technocrats at its center, and offering a road map to resistance.
When Silicon Valley says it is ‘‘moving fast and breaking things,’’ the world interprets the chaos as a necessary cost of innovation. Gil Durán reveals something far more a decades-long campaign to replace elected governments with corporate rule.
Drawing on insider political experience and new investigations, Durán traces this ideology from its philosophical roots in The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. He introduces its modern apostles—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, and Elon Musk—and shows how the promise of technological liberation has transformed into a global movement for digital feudalism, powered by cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and the algorithmic propaganda of social media.
The Nerd Reich explains the origins, strategies, and ambitions of Silicon Valley’s war on democracy for the first time. From San Francisco’s weaponized elections and secret billionaire projects to the White House, Durán exposes how the world’s richest men are building a new political order.
The Nerd Reich is more than a hidden history, it’s an urgent democracy is being dismantled not by coups or tanks, but by code, capital, and the illusion of innovation. Durán insists there is still time to fight back—if we act now.
We are fortunate to live at an incredible moment in history. In the next few years, people will be able to use superintelligence beyond human capacity to create and discover extraordinary new things, build new businesses, express new ideas, learn new concepts, and advance our health and quality of life. As we get closer to this moment, it is important to develop a philosophy for how we can best use superintelligence to ensure it improves all of our lives, work, communities, freedom and safety.
The defining questions of our age are who will have access to superintelligence and what will we direct it towards. Will it be centralized and restricted to a few institutions, or will it be a tool that empowers everyone?
We propose a philosophy based on individual empowerment as the source of prosperity, invention as the primary purpose of superintelligence, and balance of power as the foundation of safety.
All new technologies create opportunities and challenges. Superintelligence will be among the most important technologies in history, so its opportunities and challenges will likely be greater than any we’ve seen in our lifetimes. We should take this very seriously.
Still, it is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom. I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future. The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic. Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened has not led to safe or positive outcomes.
Humanity has witnessed many transformative advances. Each time there is fear that people will be left behind. But each time humanity has come out with more people sharing greater prosperity, health, and freedom. We believe this will be true with AI as well, and the abundance of the future can be shared by everyone. We also believe that the values that got us to this point — like liberty, open inquiry, free enterprise, and equal opportunity — are also the right values to build a positive future.
Putting power in people’s hands to pursue their own aspirations is how humanity has made the most progress. Novel ideas and major steps forward rarely originate from established institutions alone. They came from the brothers in a bicycle shop who believed people could fly, the bookbinder’s apprentice with no schooling who figured out how to generate electricity, and the kid in a garage who thought personal computers could be for everyone. We believe this will continue to be true. As everyone gains more powerful tools, each person will become more capable of shaping the future, not less.
Invention, not automation, will be the greatest contribution of superintelligence. Early AI could answer questions and do routine work. Soon it will increasingly help discover new knowledge — ranging from discovering new drugs to cure a family member’s disease to finding new ways to improve your business. While the number of questions a person can ask in a day is limited, the number of valuable things superintelligence can invent to help achieve your goals is unlimited.
As intelligence becomes abundant, the most important question will be how we direct it. Some argue that superintelligence itself or a small set of experts who control it should decide what is best for humanity. We disagree. The history of democracy and economics has shown that there is no single objective answer to how people define the best life, and therefore the best approach is letting people decide what matters in their own lives.
We believe that delivering superintelligence to everyone is the way to answer this question. This follows the tradition of putting the power of supercomputers and the internet in everyone’s pockets and on our desks. Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it. This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before.
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To make this more tangible, here are a few specific ways Meta is building personal superintelligence to improve all of our lives:
• Everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about. Your agent will work 24/7 on your behalf to improve your relationships, health, career, finances, home management, hobbies, and more. It will free up time for the things you enjoy, and help you accomplish more than you could otherwise. It will have strong privacy and security options so you can trust it to handle all of your personal content knowing that no one else can access your information, similar to how encryption works on WhatsApp. You’ll be able to interact with your agent through any device, including your glasses to keep you present in the moment with the people you care about.
For example, my agent flags interesting information and helps me prototype ideas. It helps keep me healthy by monitoring my sleep and then watching as I train and giving feedback. My daughter loves to bake so my agent plans personalized recipes for us to make together each weekend, orders the ingredients, and then offers suggestions as we’re baking.
• Everyone will have incredible tools for creation to express your ideas. My 8 year old daughter can already code her ideas and produce videos in an evening that would have either taken me months or been impossible previously. Now we’re designing a robot together. Meanwhile, researchers at Meta are generating novel crystal structures that are ideal for augmented reality glasses, and engineers are creating new apps in a fraction of the time it would have taken before. Everyone will soon have invention superpowers.
• Everyone will have powerful tools to create new businesses and the economy will become more entrepreneurial. People are starting to be able to manifest ideas themselves without having to raise money or build large teams. Many ideas that would have been too hard or expensive to try before will now be possible. This means we’ll see many more ideas and businesses. I predict that this will not only lead to much greater economic growth, but also more employment over time rather than less.
• Everyone will have a personalized tutor and coach with a PhD in every subject and unlimited patience to help you learn anything you want. Students will have extra help in areas they need it that is currently only available to those whose parents can pay. Adults will have a superintelligent learning assistant that knows exactly how to teach you new job skills, new languages, new hobbies, or anything else you’re interested in.
• Everyone will benefit from scientific advances and be able to contribute to scientific progress. For example, Biohub has already shipped open source biological models related to virtual cells and proteins that are helping scientists make new discoveries and design new drugs. When Priscilla and I started this work, our goal was to help scientists cure or prevent all diseases this century, and now with advances in AI we expect this will be possible much sooner.
Since there is a long tail of health conditions and everyone’s biology is different, people’s direct involvement will help unlock personalized therapies and expedite trials to match the pace of invention and enable industry to move beyond focusing disproportionately on common diseases.
Beyond biology, AI will help people advance research in every field by applying the scientific method and working over weeks or months to test and refine hypotheses. Scientific discovery will likely be one of the most valuable forms of invention for society.
• Everyone will have free or affordable access to these tools. For everyone to be part of the future, everyone must have the ability to use superintelligence to improve their lives and shape the world. We will offer free versions that will be accessible to billions of people. For those who want to pay to use more compute, there will be a dynamic auction mechanism that will guarantee that everyone gets the lowest price possible for the intelligence and compute they’re using while also ensuring the capacity is used for whatever people collectively find most valuable. This will ensure the benefits of superintelligence are distributed widely.
These are some of the main efforts that Meta is focused on. Each area advances the values of personal empowerment, and contributes to a future where everyone has a greater role in shaping the world than today. If these efforts succeed, then the future will bring an abundance of personal agency, expression of ideas, deepening of relationships, economic and financial prosperity, improved health, and inventions we cannot imagine today. But most importantly, the future will be created by all of us and a reflection of all of our values and perspectives.
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At the same time, new technologies also bring new risks. There are many important concerns we are focused on addressing — from concerns about job displacement and ensuring local communities benefit from data center builds, to safety concerns around AI misuse related to cybersecurity and biorisk, to avoiding government tyranny and surveillance, ensuring the US and democratic countries lead, and ultimately making sure humanity maintains control over superintelligence so it serves rather than endangers us.
The conventional view is that these concerns are about technology, and that if we take enough time then we can perfect or align the technology to produce a single benevolent superintelligence. I think this view of alignment is fundamentally flawed.
Humanity is not a monoculture. People’s diverse values represent different tradeoffs they would make on important issues. There is no technological solution that can align with everyone’s opposing interests and values at once. Any singular superintelligence would have to prioritize some values over others and in the process would be incapable of being benevolent to everyone.
Instead, we propose that it is more productive to view each of these concerns through the lens of achieving the right balance of power, as western society has in democratic governing institutions. People and institutions with competing interests naturally check and balance each other to lead towards positive outcomes. The best and most realistic path to building a positive AI future is by delivering superintelligence to everyone.
As a thought experiment, imagine only one person had a superintelligent lawyer. They would have an unfair advantage in court — even if they were wrong on the merits. That would lead to a worse society. But now imagine everyone has a superintelligent lawyer. In this case, justice would be carried out much more fairly and efficiently than it is today when there is often an imbalance in skills and resources in litigation.
Similarly, if one person alone had a cybersecurity superintelligence, they could likely break into almost any technical system and the world would be much less secure than today. But if everyone has access to cybersecurity superintelligence, then all of our technical systems would become more secure than today since the widely deployed superintelligence would help harden and update every system.
If only one business had superintelligence, that business would outcompete all others and lead to a less dynamic and broadly prosperous market than we have today. But if everyone has access to superintelligence, then everyone will have the tools to create new things beyond what is possible today, and the economy will be more dynamic and generate more broad-based prosperity.
When people are empowered, they naturally compete and check each other economically, socially, politically, and in all other planes of human interaction. People also check and balance the power of institutions including businesses and governments.
But if the power of superintelligence is held by a small number of individuals, businesses, governments, or AI itself, then that will naturally lead to outcomes that are less favorable for everyone else. This is not a technological principle. It is about the balance of power. There is no such thing as a singular benevolent superintelligence.
Therefore, the key to a positive future for everyone is achieving a balance of power that favors individuals. The solution is to ensure that superintelligence is broadly distributed to empower people.
Meta is the company primarily focused on building personal superintelligence for everyone. Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals. Meta’s mission since our founding has focused on putting power in people’s hands. If our beliefs and principles lead, then the balance of power will favor individuals and a better future for everyone.
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Let’s consider each of the risks mentioned above in more detail:
Job Growth and The Economy
People have an infinite demand for new experiences and have always found new problems to tackle. There is a natural balance in the economy between companies working to serve people’s needs more efficiently through automation and individuals gaining new skills to serve more advanced needs. When there is a healthy balance, overall productivity and innovation increase while employment levels remain high.
People fear that automation will outpace individuals’ capability growth, leading to job displacement followed by a difficult period as people learn new jobs. But there is no rule that AI must increase automation faster than it increases individuals’ capabilities or demand for new skills. Recent statistics suggest it may be more likely that individuals’ capability growth could match or outpace automation, in which case people will gain the ability to do many new things before their current jobs change. This would lead to a healthy balance and potentially even job growth.
Which outcome we get depends on the balance in progress between automation on one side and individual empowerment and invention on the other. If the labs focused on automating knowledge work lead, then I expect people and the economy will have a much harder transition. But if everyone has access to personal superintelligence that expands their capabilities, then that pushes the balance towards empowering individuals and a positive future.
There are several reasons to be optimistic that there will be an abundance of jobs in the future. No matter how intelligent AI becomes, there will always be a finite amount of compute and therefore an opportunity cost for how we use it. If people can use AI to invent incredibly valuable new things, then it will make more sense to allocate it towards that rather than automating existing jobs. The more superintelligence serves as a tool of invention, the more likely that individual capability outpaces automation and the future is better for people.
People also continually come up with new ideas to make our lives better and new jobs to bring those ideas to life. A generation ago there were no app developers, social media creators, electric vehicle technicians, and data center operators. In the near future, there will be new jobs that aren’t common today, like one-person product studios designing custom toys, furniture, or clothes; world builders and experience designers creating games, stories, and adventures; personal biologists using superintelligence to formulate personalized treatments; and much more that we can’t yet conceive.
In many ways this is a continuation of historical trends. Before the industrial revolution, 90% of people were farmers growing food to survive. Advances in technology steadily freed much of humanity to focus less on subsistence and more on the pursuits we choose. At each step, people used our newfound productivity to achieve more than was previously possible, as well as spending more time on creativity, culture, relationships, and enjoying life.
Of course some aspects of the way we work will change — just as it did with computers, the internet, and any new technology. This means people will have to adapt, and this will be challenging. But the more that everyone has a personal agent that is superintelligent at teaching us new skills and helping us adapt to change, the smoother this will be.
Company sizes may shrink — just as they did in the transition from industrial giants to tech companies. But this doesn’t mean fewer jobs overall. It implies a larger number of companies with fewer people each. There are many more valuable companies and services to build than people are able to build today. I expect we will start seeing small numbers of people with personal superintelligence agents able to run companies at significant scale. In the future, small businesses will continue to be the backbone of the economy, but each small business will be able to have a much larger impact.
Jackie Flynn Mogensen , Breaking News Reporter – Scientific America
Stephan: Welcome to climate change, and an Arctic warmer that Seattle Washington. If Americans don’t vote into office a Democrat controlled Congress that impeaches anti-climate change morons like Trump and Vance, after two more years the 2040 civilization altering climate crisis will be an increasing unavoidable certainty.
The Arctic today Credit: Anato l Er / Getty
The Arctic is cooking. Across northern Russia—a region that is famously bitterly cold—temperatures this week have routinely surpassed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius), adding to the mountain of broken heat records this summer has racked up so far.
In recent days, the Selagoncy meteorological station, near the border of the Arctic Circle, recorded 93.0 degrees F (33.9 degrees C); another station, Olenek, logged 90.9 degrees F (32.7 degrees C), according to data collected by weather information service Ogimet and reported by climatologist Maximiliano Herrera. To put that in perspective, these temperatures are on par for Orlando, Fla., at this time of year.
“Studies in recent years have shown that the Arctic is warming much more rapidly than the rest of the planet due to feedback from the loss of sea ice—so it is not surprising that we are seeing these all-time record temperatures at high latitudes,” says independent meteorologist Alan Gerard.
It’s a dangerous feedback loop: as sea ice melts, the Arctic
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer was a German polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. Wikipedia
Ben Elton has written a sweet-natured, melancholy film about the retirement years of someone he’s lately been turning into his specialist subject: William Shakespeare. The great poet is played here with genial sympathy by the film’s director, Kenneth Branagh, sporting a pretty outrageous false nose. Judi Dench is his wife Anne Hathaway, wearied into resilient impassivity by grief, the unfairness of life and an awful secret. Ian McKellen has a colossal, emphatically wigged cameo as the ageing Earl of Southampton.
All Is True is sentimental, theatrical, likable – and unfashionable. There’s a cheekily imagined backstory for Shakespeare’s famous “second-best bed”. It doesn’t go for grand gestures or big subversive laughs, like John Madden’s romance Shakespeare In Love (1998) or Roland Emmerich’s Shakespeare-was-a-fraud caper Anonymous (2011), or in fact Elton’s own rather brilliant and under-recognised TV Bardcom Upstart Crow which features David Mitchell as Shakespeare, Liza Tarbuck as Anne Hathaway and Helen Monks as his stroppy daughter Susanna. Upstart Crow boldly tackled the death of Shakespeare’s son Hamnet at the age of 11 and Elton reopens that wound now, making it the emotional centre of his film. There are certain structural similarities between All Is True and Upstart Crow, although William and Anne are more muted and autumnal here. The stroppiness of the daughter – in this case Judith, sister of Susanna – continues unabated, but is repurposed dramatically. Dench is enigmatic and stoic as Anne; and Kathryn Wilder is an angry and unreconciled Judith. She has some serious issues with her absent patriarch.
Some may prefer Upstart Crow. I found myself thinking of a speech I saw Elton give in the 90s. He was introduced by AN Wilson, who mischievously pointed out that Elton’s uncle was the historian Geoffrey Elton, but claimed that Sir Geoffrey’s studies of Tudor England were far less interesting than Ben Elton and Richard Curtis’s TV series Blackadder in its Elizabethan phase. Elton bounded on stage, saying: “Poor Uncle Geoff. Dead two years and still getting bad reviews.”
All Is True borrows the mysterious alternative title appended to the late play Henry VIII by William Shakespeare (and John Fletcher, not mentioned here). It was the final production at the Globe theatre, which burned down mid-show in 1613 due to a misfiring cannon. The film mixes aspects of the accepted record with some conjectural what-ifs, and stuff that is straightforwardly made up. There is a fictional invention interestingly based on the date of Hamnet’s death.
The film imagines Shakespeare coming home to Stratford for good after the fire, yearning for a prosperous and peaceful retirement but now forced to confront long-suppressed feelings about the death of his son 17 years before. He must deal with the angry, conflicted and still unmarried Judith, and her troubled sister Susanna, married to Dr John Hall – and also his stolidly unimpressed wife Anne. Both daughters create social upset for Shakespeare, who despite his fame is yearning for bourgeois respectability in the provinces. But the awful memory of Hamnet keeps coming back. He angrily disputes ownership of grief with Anne and Judith, pointing out that he feels as deeply as they. But Dench brings an acid rebuke to Anne’s reply that, at the time of his Hamnet’s death, he was writing The Merry Wives of Windsor.
There is a very nice scene in which McKellen’s Earl returns for a chat with Shakespeare, scorning the cringing flattery of the oleaginous MP Sir Thomas Lucy (Alex Macqueen), and preferring only to talk with William himself, who is instantly turned into a blushing subordinate in the presence of the aristocrat whose bygone beautiful youth had inspired his sonnets. Southampton is coolly amused by Shakespeare’s ridiculous striving for social status – and then blandly astonished at Shakespeare apparently continuing to have feelings for him. Shakespeare himself recites his 29th sonnet: “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings” – and makes it sound like an agonised declaration of love. Southampton repeats the lines back to him and changes their meaning entirely with his tone: no longer about fierce love, but about the absurdity of such emotions in the face of art’s greatness. It is an elegantly managed exchange.
Other moments are less sure, and there are a fair number of people turning up to tell Shakespeare how great he is, while he looks down with a rueful, all-knowing smile. He is not exactly Prospero breaking his staff or Lear resenting his daughters; more a hardworking professional who has decided that enough is enough. Opinions may divide about the big reveal, but I liked the long scenes of winter drear, as William and Anne huddle together in a corner of a dark room, flickeringly lit by firelight like a cave.
