Kevin Kelly on Excellent Advice for Living, Universal AI Assistants, Time Machines, and The Power of Fully Becoming Yourself (#669)

“Your goal in life is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself.”

— Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) helped launch and edit Wired magazine. He has written for The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications.

He is the author of the new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. Other books by Kevin Kelly include Out of Control, the 1994 classic book on decentralized emergent systems; The Silver Cord, a graphic novel about robots and angels; What Technology Wants, a robust theory of technology; Vanishing Asia, his 50-year project to photograph the disappearing cultures of Asia, and The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, a New York Times bestseller.

Kevin is currently co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, which is building a clock in a mountain that will tick for 10,000 years. He also has a daily blog; a weekly podcast about cool tools; and a weekly newsletter, Recomendo, a free, one-page list of six very brief recommendations of cool stuff. He is also a Senior Maverick at Wired. He lives in Pacifica, California.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 900M+ users, Pique premium pu’er tea crystals, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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Want to hear one of my favorite conversations with Kevin? Listen to this interview (recorded in three short parts), in which we discussed population implosions, The Long Now Foundation, organizational methods for learning, Amish technology assimilation, why you don’t want to be a billionaire, the greatest gift you can give to your child, and much more!

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Erratum: In the interview, Nova Scotia was named as the setting for Anne of Green Gables, whereas the setting is Prince Edward Island.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• Connect with Kevin Kelly:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

• Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier by Kevin Kelly | Amazon
• Six Brief Personal Recommendations of Cool Stuff | Recomendo
• Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World by Kevin Kelly | Amazon
• The Silver Cord by Kevin Kelly and Steve Masseroni | Amazon
• What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly | Amazon
• Vanishing Asia: Three Volume Set: West, Central, and East by Kevin Kelly | Amazon
• Amazon.com: The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future eBook : Kelly, Kevin: Kindle Store
• The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly | Amazon
• Fostering Long-Term Thinking | The Long Now Foundation
• The Latest in Technology, Science, Culture, and Business | Wired
• Interview of Kevin Kelly, Co-Founder of WIRED, Polymath, Most Interesting Man In The World? | The Tim Ferriss Show #25, #26, & #27
• Kevin Kelly on Artificial Intelligence and Designer Babies | The Tim Ferriss Show #96
• Kevin Kelly – AI, Virtual Reality, and The Inevitable | The Tim Ferriss Show #164
• Cool Tools for Travel – Tim Ferriss and Kevin Kelly | The Tim Ferriss Show #247
• By 02060 the Total Population of Humans on Earth Will Be Less than It Is Today. | Long Bets
• Science for a Complex World | Santa Fe Institute
• Manhattan Project National Historical Park | US National Park Service
• Pixar Animation Studios
• Industrial Light & Magic
• Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien | Amazon
• 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly | The Technium
• Bring a Creative Project to Life | Kickstarter
• Best Way for Artists and Creators to Get Sustainable Income and Connect with Fans | Patreon
• Whole Earth Catalog | Wikipedia
• The WELL (The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link)
• Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand by John Markoff | Amazon
• Forrest Gump | Prime Video
• The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich | Amazon
• All Species | The Long Now Foundation
• Free, Instant Bird Identification | Merlin Bird ID
• Open Your Camera and Start Seeking! | Seek by iNaturalist
• Global Access to Knowledge about Life on Earth | Encyclopedia of Life
• Jurassic Park | Prime Video
• Woolly Mammoth Revival | Revive & Restore
• Kevin Kelly: The Future Will Be Shaped by Optimists | TED Talk
• Complex Systems Theory | Santa Fe Institute
• Taking Responsibility for Our Future, Together | B612 Foundation
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | Amazon
• Transforming Societies to Ensure Environmental Justice | Degrowth
• Kevin Kelly on Terminology: Exotropy | Dictionary of Arguments
• How to Start a Fire with a Magnifying Glass | Food Storage and Survival
• Kevin Kelly and the Golden Age of World Travel | Craig Mod
• Coming to America | Prime Video
• What AI-Generated Art Really Means for Human Creativity | Wired
• Why AI Won’t Cause Unemployment | Marc Andreessen Substack
• How DeviantArt Is Navigating the AI Art Minefield | The Verge
• Artists Protest As ArtStation Allows AI-Generated Art On Site | Kotaku
• “Dumbsmarten” | Kevin Kelly, Twitter
• Scale, Explore, and Build Humanist Infrastructure | Midjourney
• Introducing ChatGPT | OpenAI
• Thinkism | The Technium
• How to Unleash the Wisdom of Crowds | The Conversation
• AI as Intern | Austin Kleon
• Ready Player One | Prime Video
• VR Games, Apps, & More | Oculus
• Styrobot Built by Father & Son | Make:
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery | Amazon
• Statue Of Liberty National Monument | US National Park Service
• The #1 Attraction in the US | Empire State Building
• A Guide to Riding San Francisco’s Cable Cars | Visit California
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | Amazon
• Genentech
• DNA Testing Kit for Health and Ancestry | 23andMe
• What is a Sabbatical? | The Sabbatical Guide
• Historical Libraries: The Library of Alexandria | Mid-Continent Public Library
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen | Amazon
• Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government — Saving Privacy in the Digital Age by Steven Levy | Amazon

SHOW NOTES

• [05:51] Is Kevin Kelly the most interesting man in the world?
• [08:37] Kevin’s long bet against the human population.
• [15:00] Out Of Control.
• [19:34] Why did it take 11 years to complete The Silver Cord?
• [24:28] 1,000 True Fans.
• [29:48] Kevin’s failed campaign to discover all the species of life on Earth.
• [31:31] Stewart Brand.
• [36:20] Resurrecting extinct species.
• [39:38] Why Kevin believes optimists shape the future.
• [42:48] Active optimism vs. passive optimism.
• [46:39] What constitutes progress?
• [48:18] Is regression inevitable if we don’t embrace “degrowth?”
• [52:38] Kevin’s $20 time machine.
• [55:27] Will AI take our jobs?
• [1:07:58] The future of AI is dumbsmarten.
• [1:10:50] What’s currently underhyped?
• [1:13:20] Posting an AI picture a day keeps Kevin at play.
• [1:15:29] How Kevin uses AI chatbots to help write first drafts.
• [1:21:40] Potential scenarios for where AI will be going soon.
• [1:24:38] What prompted Kevin to write Excellent Advice for Living?
• [1:28:46] Examples of Kevin’s simple, tweetable advice.
• [1:32:02] Don’t aim to be the best. Be the only.
• [1:35:32] Good uses of time spent with one’s children.
• [1:38:47] Tips for traveling with children.
• [1:42:22] Being a tourist in your own town and troubleshooting advice.
• [1:45:06] What Kevin hopes readers will take away from Excellent Advice for Living.
• [1:46:37] Sabbaticals.
• [1:52:17] How Kevin uses YouTube.
• [1:56:03] Why is Kevin huge in China?
• [1:59:16] Fully becoming yourself and other parting thoughts.

MORE KEVIN KELLY QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“It isn’t as if these mechanical systems are imitating biology. I’m saying they actually have the same dynamics. The dynamics that are powering biology are powering the technium and the technology. It’s the same.”
— Kevin Kelly

“It’s very hard to make good, complicated things work because generally there’s more ways things can fail than they can succeed, and it’s very unlikely that we’re going to make something really good that’s complicated, inadvertently. They’re hard to do. So we have to see it and believe that it can be done, and that is where the optimism comes in, is envisioning something and then believing that you could make it real.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Exotropy is this idea of this increasing order that comes at the cost of increasing entropy.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Tools will get specialized. They will become so embedded that we will cease to think about them.”
— Kevin Kelly

“There’s something I call thinkism, which is this reliance on trying to solve problems by thinking about them.”
— Kevin Kelly

“You can find no better medicine for your family than regular meals together without screens.”
— Kevin Kelly

“What you do on your bad days matters more than what you do on your good days.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Greatness is incompatible with optimizing in the short term.”
— Kevin Kelly

“You don’t marry a person, you marry a family.”
— Kevin Kelly

“If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Don’t aim to have others like you, aim to have them respect you.”
— Kevin Kelly

“A balcony or porch needs to be at least six feet deep or it won’t be used.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Learn to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark with one hand for the rest of your life. You’ll use this knot more times than you could ever believe.”
— Kevin Kelly

“When you feel pressure to pick a choice, don’t forget the choice of not choosing any.”
— Kevin Kelly

“When you’re in your twenties, you should spend a little bit of time doing something that’s sort of crazy, insane, unprofitable, unorthodox, orthogonal, because that’s going to be your touchstone and the foundation of your success later on.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Don’t aim to be the best. Be the only.”
— Kevin Kelly

“You want to be doing something where it’s hard to explain to your mother what it is that you do.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Your enjoyment of travel is inversely proportional to the size of your luggage.”
— Kevin Kelly

“For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should but double the time with them.”
— Kevin Kelly

“A vacation plus a disaster equals an adventure.”
— Kevin Kelly

“If an elementary school student is struggling, first thing, check their eyesight.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Purchase the most recent tourist guidebook to your hometown or region. You’ll learn a lot by playing the tourist once a year.”
— Kevin Kelly

“To signal an emergency, use the rule of three: Three shouts, three horn blasts, or three whistles.”
— Kevin Kelly

“When you’re stuck, explain your problem to others. Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make ‘explaining the problem’ part of your troubleshooting process.”
— Kevin Kelly

“Your goal in life is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself.”
— Kevin Kelly

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