2025 Resolutions
In case the centre cannot hold
In the spirit of my 2022, 2023, and 2024 resolutions:
Resolutions
This last year, I had a singular goal: Finish my novel. This year I have more goals, but cumulatively they're much easier. They have to be, because I'm getting married this summer!
1. Become conversational in Spanish
My fiancée's family speaks Spanish, and I want to be able to talk to them easily. I've worked on this before and have a smattering, but I really want to push on this before we're married! Some things I'm going to do:
Return to my dear friend, Duolingo.
Read books I'm familiar with, in Spanish (Harry Potter, Borges's stories).
Choose to talk in Spanish over English whenever reasonably possible.
Put Spanish subtitles on movies.
More?
2. Work out regularly
I did this in 2023 and it was very good for me. Then, I had a goal of hitting 135 pounds. This time, my goal is merely to work out ten times a month (3 times a week with some monthly leniency).
3. Write AI stories
I wouldn't be surprised if we hit transformative AI (TAI) in a year and I wouldn't be surprised if we hit it in 40 years. This means (that I’m a coward of a forecaster) that it would be sensible for me to prepare for different futures. Outside of work, I'm currently basically living as though I have long timelines: I wrote a novel, am seeking an agent, and my investments are conventional. Niel Bowerman gave me the idea that one needs to also balance the possibility that TAI is coming within the next few years.
All of which is to say: I think that if TAI comes that soon, writing short speculative fiction on AI in the meantime can be relatively impactful, by helping us think through just how weird the future could be. There are some huge and neglected questions, including:
What the world would be like if we think AI agents have a kind of sentience and moral worth.
What the world would be like if we aren't sure if AI agents have sentience and moral worth!
What the world would be like with a million AI agents for every human.
What the world would be like with technological progress many times faster than our current rate.
How to deal with the nature of humanity changing rapidly.
I think there's a space for speculative fiction to help here, but novels take a very long time to write and to publish. Thus: my creative project this year is to have 12 weird short stories about AI written and submitted to publishers this year. "Have" instead of "write" because two are already written.
Other plans for the year
Marry the love of my life.
Keep releasing music with Peter Sanfilippo (album soon!)
Don't get bird flu!
You
I hope that you have some resolutions that are achievable and fun. I hope you dream big and surprise yourself this year. I hope you stay sane in this crazy world. And lastly, if you see me in person, I hope you say hi!
Conor