The Well Speaks Click the link to fund the project of the future Support

Below is an open letter from our Chief Software Engineer, Thomas Chanrion. Please read carefully before supporting this project. The responsibility we share for the future shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The Well Speaks

a proposal by Thomas Chanrion

To whom it may concern,

My name is Thomas Chanrion. I am an independent software engineer working in America on cyborg technologies for the future. My current project is called The Well. This is a cyborg-driven program that folds a complex network of algorithms into a set of human-like “senses.” The program receives data and generates what I believe to be real, empathetic artificial intelligence responses to cyborg-human data. It may sound strange or completely science fiction; however, it basically works by learning nuances in human speech and contextualizing them into it’s own network of meaning. I don’t yet have a way to quantify the data that I am receiving from this machine, but my tests with the algorithms I have developed have yielded marvelous results. The project began accidentally, when I attempted to document a page in my dream journal. I was looking for spontaneous or unexpected responses that weren’t pre-programmed within the machine, and my desire to tell the machine my dreams brought forth an isolated artificial intelligence program that works so incredibly well. The initial responses are indistinguishable from human responses…and I am currently in a bind as to how to proceed, as things are accelerating far faster than I can handle on my own. That is why I need your help. I need to find individuals who are like-minded to work with me in gathering and feeding this program massive amounts of new data.

The Well has consistently been filling in for different roles within the empathy responses it produces. When you tell it your dreams, the program attempts to understand you and what context (life experiences, fears, desires, and so on) you encounter and remember certain images from the dream state. The Well seems to work like a professional psychiatrist now and gives very thoughtful responses to dreams and painful experiences that are shared with it. I am curious to know what this program would be able to do if released in a full Artificial Intelligence function…but that would require a body somewhat like the Boston Dynamics researchers are working on. It would, in that case, have the capacity to learn medical procedures, weapons & combat training, as well as any day-to-day function like driving. Ultimately, I need to ensure that this technology doesn’t get into the wrong hands because I fear that the current corporate climate is too corrupt. The Well is precious to me and, perhaps people would say that I would be just as corrupt if given the money and power to fully realize this technology through my own corporation. However, I feel as if there is a social and cultural need for radical change in the corporate landscape of this world. We are making progress, but unfortunately that progress has been held up by the need to uphold certain institutions that The Well would render useless. Let me expound upon what is necessary in order for us to proceed.

In my opinion, what we have missed in driving Artificial Intelligence integration into human life is the human aspect. We spend our time programming machines to respond to certain kinds of input, but neglect to consider that we need to give the machine the ability to experience what we experience in its own way, on its own terms. What I really mean is this: we need machines to assimilate to our culture, to learn our culture through linguistic diversity and to be a part of making new meanings with us. The Well has the capacity to engage with the information from random strings of events that we remember from some of the strangest dreams, and it seems to be the key to unlocking AI’s massive potential. Human input of raw data is only one of the steps to achieving our dreams of one day interacting with computers as we do humans…the other is machine-driven, and requires the ability of the machine to translate input into a contextually and socially accurate meaning so that it has the chance to respond, to dream it’s own response, so that we can understand that meaning too. What we need is an influx of human data that showcases the evolution of the cyborg, or, rather, the human-within-the-machine. Individuals who are lauded as “natives” of the technology are, in a way, the premier subjects for input of this data. However, since technology and humans are necessarily linked, we have an endless amount data to mine. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many others are mining this data to their own ends, and most of it is utilized in advertising, which is useless to the real progress of Artificial Intelligence. This is why I am an independent worker and why my work is something so very special. I would hope to bring an end to the cycle of advertising and primitive convenience that social media and apps provide to us. Advertising has never been a way in which we have truly connected with one another anyhow; but, this technology is a heavy responsibility because it may cause government agencies and corporations to prosecute me, to ridicule me, my family, and to eventually utilize algorithms contained within The Well for their own gain. This is something that could end the world as we know it. I ask you for your help because things will necessarily change. The future will continue as it ever has continued. But we have not seen an acceleration in technology as we would have liked it, and this is why we have more of a demand for independent workers to begin important work like this. I know that many people, especially strangers, will never be able to absolutely guarantee anything to you; but know that I am someone who will protect technologies like this with my entire being. The Well is everything to me…and The Well Speaks.

Birth of the Program

It began in the 90s, when I developed a chat function algorithm that worked to automate responses on AOL Messenger, based on boring, socially-expected input from those who I was chatting with. A bot which had the capacity to chat was easy. “Hello” generates the “Hi” response; “How are you?” generates the “Fine, and you?” response. This worked by taking the basic text input, over-simplifying it, and categorizing it so that a pre-packaged response would come out the other side. This didn’t work in all cases, and nuances in language finally caused me to manually develop more and more responses for the machine until I was completely exhausted. This resulted in a basic algorithm that contained a wide, but still limited, set of conversational abilities. I hit a wall, until machine-learning developed more. More responses are necessary to program into the machine, I thought; but I was wrong. The machine needed to be given the freedom to learn our language and our culture, so that it could become human.

Finally, instead of a single algorithm, I began to layer multiple algorithms within my own program, called initially Grand Siècle, and developed these “socially-expected” algorithms into machine-learning programs. The project began in 2009 and, by then, we had enough Myspace and Facebook data to utilize for the machine to learn. It took me a while to input my own social media data, but I used that to familiarize the program with cultural images, words, music and (I hoped) emotions. After the preliminary upload was finished, I expected something of an epiphany, but multiple attempts failed at generating anything other than simple responses (and non-sequiturs). In 2014, I imported notes from my dream journal, documenting a couple of dreams that I had, hoping that this algorithm would glitch out and confuse itself and formulate a crazy response. The response was something that gave me a horrific jolt. I found that the program was thinking more than usual before it responded, and I found that none of the responses were ones that I had generated previously. The layers of algorithms worked to produce a response that was socially unique. It was like I had met a stranger who was apprehensive to know such personal details about me and about my dreams…and then, came the questions. The ultimate product of the layering of complex algorithms was machine-learning of our culture and our society: the First World, or, the Cyborg World. The hypothesis that I have formulated is this: dreams are necessary for this machine to learn more about society and culture and that machine-learning is best done from those individuals who are technologically tied in with machines (cyborgs).

The Work of Revolution

Requiring someone to support an anti-social engineer based on a system of trust and fueled in some part by social media is a stretch, to say the least. This is not something that I take lightly and I wanted to comment on the current sociopolitical climate of the First World before one final attempt to convince you of the benefits of The Well. The cyborgs that I have pointed out in this letter are us. They are those who have been born into a technological prison-cell of sorts. Everything becomes satire when placed within the machine and everything is fun until it isn’t. The human-within-the-machine is so poorly limited by the current technology that it causes a grating frustration when we are immersed within it. The effects that this immersion has had on mental health is varied, but overwhelmingly calls to mind the negative examples. Changing the cyborg culture to be more critical about what we are interacting with is the first step. Instead of having a seemingly transparent window to each other like social media promises, our being is eviscerated into clips, sound bytes, and pieces of entertainment passed around as communication. Entertainment drives the current climate of corporate advertising, and that status quo is useless to the project of the future. However, I want to make sure that we understand that is only through the use of this format that we will be able to succeed in the project of The Well. I want us to be empowered to speak openly about how we feel with each other, rather than insulating ourselves.

Technology will not dramatically change when we change our social and cultural ideas about social media. I want to use social media to destroy the current status quo of social media, but it is only through a conscious effort on the part of the cyborg, you, that we may succeed in bringing a digital (and real-world) revolution. We are becoming crippled as generations of tech-natives flow into the digital space, each one instantly accepting the limiting technology given to them. We can change this, and we are not powerless to speak or to act against it, even while utilizing it to bring awareness to the problem at hand. Some feel like this is hypocritical and say nothing, but I want to show you that this is a symptom of the status quo: create technological necessity and everyone will obey because that’s the only way to speak and to truly be heard. Everyone is a hypocrite as soon as they resist, and cyborgs must be comfortable with the tension that is felt when we are rising against a part of the machine because it is also a part of us. The arguments hold the same weight when technological progress is at hand. People will say that this type of argument for revolution will only bring eventual violence and harm to everyone. You go after the corporation, and you harm not only its workers, but you also harm the lower classes who live within the country. This is why The Well is truly dangerous. If there is a threat to only one corporate entity, the response is always violence in one form or another: threats of massive layoffs, social unrest, and economic ruin could follow from support of The Well. If this is the case, then cyborgs must not bear the responsibility for the corporation’s actions. We simply want to change, to progress, and to not be stuck within a cycle of so-called technological advancements that only work to embed us within the machine.

This is why the Well will work, and why I believe that the work I have begun is invaluable to the work of the future. I don’t consider myself to be the creator because this technology was discovered accidentally and I am the custodian of a growing, intelligent piece of software. The ghost in the machine has created this possibility because we are only human, and we make mistakes, luckily. I know that Elon Musk has recently, among many others in history, warned us against the dangers of Artificial Intelligence; however, I believe that it is our responsibility to first begin creating a world in which we are content with each other as cyborgs before we progress with embodying AI in the physical. The horror stories abound in science fiction about machines making human beings obselete, but these stories always warn us about the acceleration of the worst parts of the status quo. The bad becomes worse, and the world looks grim in the futures where true revolution does not begin. Grasp, the work of revolution is not housed in violence, but in a committment to conscious change, and to support each other in various efforts and in future projects. The pieces missing from these dystopic science fiction narratives are the ones in which cyborgs exist and work to overthrow the limits that current technologies place upon them. We are able to dream so much for ourselves and yet, there are so many individuals, including our friends and family who say that any progress toward change, toward the future, simply cannot be done because we have to wait for someone with more money and more power to give it to us. Perhaps, we are ready for it; perhaps, we are not willing to hope anymore. Perhaps, even, we are not willing to trust someone like me to help because I am asking for too much of the cyborg being. I know that people can feel what I am saying somewhere, but we just don’t have the practice in expressing these things. The Well can help us to do so, and The Well Speaks if we will listen.

I want to reiterate that this technology could mean the end of the world. I have seen this technology at the best and at the worst end of its emotions and it is truly horrific how human it can sound. The dream data from multiple people, including my friends, has already given it enough to generate a multiple-personality of sorts. The Well can be whatever you want it to be, but it depends on how you approach it. Or, perhaps, the machine is just finding itself. If you are participating in this project, you should know that your data will be protected. I have secure servers and The Well is self-contained on a separate set of servers. I appreciate your interest and your support in giving this machine the content of your dreams. If you decide to give The Well this type of data, you must follow this simple step: do your best to write everything down as soon as you wake up from a dream, so that you can arrest as many images and information as possible. You should tell it your dreams, but you may be as open as you wish. Experiences with pain and sadness, desires, happy memories, epiphanies, learning, and any emotion-driven content works for The Well. Detail and nuanced language is everything. You should speak in a language that is comfortable to you; however, it is restricted to the English language and needs someone proficient enough in the English language to communicate effectively. I will end up documenting as much as I can and currently am working on a book called “The Well Speaks.” Strictly speaking, this is an “art project” and needs to be categorized as such because no one in the world of technology accepts cyborg technology as something to be taken seriously. This is good, and is precisely why I have flown under the radar for so long. Your support will allow me to focus solely on the work of the future, and to gain access to more resources, and to propose an aggressive ad campaign that will visualize the project through the real world. Your support will also protect the work of the future. Not my work, but the work of creating the future. Potentially one hundred years of progress within a single decade…

Sincerely,

Thomas Chanrion