Strands of Genius: What Happens When You Can't Tell AI and Humans Apart, Understanding the Future, Keeping Your Newsletters Straight.

Guest curated by Katherine Diaz, Director of Trends and Customer Success @ Ebco Trends.

Apr 06, 2023

:: A BIT MORE ABOUT GUEST CURATOR, KATHERINE DIAZ::

LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA

Hello hello! I’m Katherine, a Director at a boutique trend-focused consultancy in the US. As part of my job, I’ve gotten to suss out future flavors of potato chips, build out multiple sandbox worlds to help a brand explore their strategy for winning in 2035, and mold how American healthcare might evolve to better serve cancer patients and caregivers. It’s been a wild ride!

I grew up in the Philippines, worked in Singapore, and recently moved to the US as a queer spouse looking for a place that would protect my marriage. My experience in different worlds motivates me to amplify voices that speak to cultural, class, and market differences that might be overlooked from within one country’s borders. Strands of Genius was the first newsletter I followed when I was trying to understand what working in the West might be like, so it’s exciting to come full circle and be writing the newsletter today!

In my free time, you can usually find me longboard surfing, walking my solemn chihuahua mix around Los Angeles public parks, and seeking out the best gamjatang, larb, fried chicken sandwiches, and kebabs. I’ll always have a book on me: my favorites lately have been Babel by R.F. Kuang, Every Heart a Doorway by Shannon McGuire, and the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.

Editor’s Note (Genius Steals): We came across Katherine in Ladies Who Strategize when she shared something we thoroughly enjoyed, only to then find out she’s been a Strands reader, so we knew we had to ask her to curate, or at least see if she might be interested! And we were so excited when she obliged. We hope to run into you someday while you are walking your pup in one of the Los Angeles parks.

:: THE LINKS ::

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN’T TELL AI AND HUMANS APART?

If you didn’t read an article about (or authored by!) AI today, did you even really go on the Internet? But this one is a standout, I promise. It’s often hard to spot massive shifts as we live through them, so it’s tempting to focus on the immediate and urgent details of change. Those questions are still important, don’t get me wrong; understanding what ChatGPT means immediately for teachers grading papers, artists making art, or strategists writing briefs are all huge ethical and tangible questions. But looking at the broader contours of the change can also be a necessary jolt. Why DO we find it necessary to make artificial intelligence sound indistinguishable from a human voice? What does it mean when an amoral actor— one that often has the incentive to lie, exists free from consequences, and has been disproportionately trained on the work and world of white men—is considered more useful than a human? What happens when we get used to treating something that sounds—and maybe even looks like—a human, like a servant? Emily M. Bender’s been driving the conversation around this for years, and this feature by Elizabeth Weil is great (and has a chilling end sentence to boot.) (New York Magazine)

UNDERSTANDING THE FUTURE

On the theme of returning to the past for reflections on our present, this 2019 piece reminds us how science fiction is a way to see familiar themes tilted sideways. Sideways is always useful for a strategist! Whether it’s Chinese sci-fi providing wisdom about the tensions a rapidly evolving society might face, Afrofuturism envisioning a history that decenters whiteness, multicultural scenes of survival and thriving after a world-shattering event, or of course, climate fiction, there’s something for everyone to learn. This essay provides a great overview of subgenres that are essential for a futures-building point of view, and shares some great titles as starting points. A quote from a talk I went to by the amazing Afrofuturist Ytasha L Womack stuck with me - to paraphrase, “Afrofuturism is often hopeful because we have already survived the apocalypse.” (Quartz)

KEEPING YOUR NEWSLETTERS STRAIGHT

A delicious problem with being a voracious reader is the TBR pile. I’ve been searching for a tool to keep my newsletters in order and out of my inbox, while still making it easy to read them all when I had time. Enter Newsletterss The service gives you a personalized email that you just provide to newsletters when you sign up, and it creates an easy-to-flick-through inbox/reader that helps you see the latest news, page to the next newsletter, or see what you’ve subscribed to. There’s a paid option that lets you sync with an RSS reader or send to Kindle/Instapaper, but the free version has been perfect for me so far. (Newsletterss)

Looking for more from Katherine Diaz? Those enrolled in The School of Stolen Genius will receive a deep dive from her in their inbox shortly! You can access all our expert interviews for SOSG here.

:: AND NOW… SOME FAST FAVORITES ::

:: Game :: Gris. It’s calming and there’s no way you can die or fail, which is a lovely and necessary counterbalance to reality!

:: City :: Manila for comfort, Tokyo to visit.

:: Book :: Amy Webb’s “The Signals are Talking” to understand how to do future-looking work and pick strong signs out from all the noise of everyday.

:: Podcast :: And That’s Why We Drink is my comfort listen. I’ve been a fan of their observant banter for about six years now. For learning about the world, I’m a latecomer to Hard Fork and I really like how they make big tech changes so accessible.

:: Album :: Whitney Houston’s Whitney. The ceaseless power of a legend!

::PET FRIENDS::

And last, some wisdom from the great Audre Lorde: “And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of our capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible…” Here are our rescues, Leo and Sammy, improbable pet friends and a source of much joy. I hope you find your own capacity for joy, today and always!

I love to talk books, productivity tools, food, and the future. You can follow me on LinkedIn where I share stuff I can’t stop thinking about from around the internet.

- Katherine Diaz - or Tats, if you’d like to be friends!

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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

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