Shifting at the frontier

Since leaving the frontier my mind has had more space, my mood has improved and I generally feel lighter. A sense of stress and doom has lessened and I am finally able to reset my nervous system as I try to figure out a new rhythm to my day.

It helps to have new opportunities like a new job, and two upcoming fairs this fall: Burnaway 2 in Atlanta and Pittsburgh Art Book Fair. My idle time is filling up with new ideas and the excitement that I get to build and experiment again. There’s so much to do and I want to take a swing at everything. Nothing feels too ambitious for a few hours of focus now.

Though, from time to time I feel regretful about leaving the frontier. Things that I wish I could have done and learned; just now realizing the type of access and information I was privileged to. Sometimes it weighs on me and I feel foolish. But I can’t weigh that against the fact that for now at least, I’m happier. Let’s revisit this in the future.

The thing that strikes me is the opportunity to build alternative futures out here. The exploration of many frontiers instead of a singular progress marker that the big ai labs control the narrative about. From open-source models to orchestrating and engineering with non-SOTA models there is so much to learn and think about. So many smaller, personalized and ultimately sustainable frontiers to explore.

My hope is that over the next 6 months I find a way to expand my practice to publicly communicate all of this. Right now all of my language model work is scattered across one-off tools, experiments and these emails. I have a bigger container in the works but the idea is to build a future that feels fun and undeniable. The public hates ai and who can blame them but I wonder if demystifying the hyper object can create room for critical engagement.

Once we learn how these models work it opens avenues to discuss alternatives. No technology is inevitable or forever. And no technology should be treated as a monolith. I imagine a future that is interwoven and collaborative that puts the public at the front and each person’s needs first. In the second half of this year I want to start building towards that.

-Mello