The Digital Doppelganger a Dream or Dilemma

Welcome to wake up with AI, the podcast where human powered meets AI assisted. Join your hosts, Chris Carillon, Niko Lofakas, and George b Thomas as we dive deep into the world of artificial intelligence. From the latest AI news to cutting edge tools and skill sets, we are here to help business owners, marketers, and everyday individuals unlock their full potential with the power of AI. Let's get started.

Good morning. It's time to wake up with AI on December 3, 2024. Happy Tuesday, George and Nico. How are you guys doing today?

Doing well. Yet another day, another adventure, and, another very interesting topic.

I love the idea of an adventure. I'm an adventurous kinda guy, so I'm super curious to see where we're gonna head today. I just I hate to be that guy, but I just can't believe it's December. And that's a lot of days waking up, and, hopefully, I get many, many more. But, wow, where did 2024 go?

Holy anyway, Chris, how are you doing?

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I think AI had something to do with where 2024 went, but just wait for 2025. Like, oh, man. Especially, when I see this post from Nico.

How tech is breaking the rules of biology. Tell me what's going on here.

So it's kind of a a multi part thing for me. And this one hits home a little bit. So I, wish I would say I apologize, but I don't. Not really at the end

of the day. It was

sorry not sorry.

Sorry not sorry.

Yeah. So a while back, if you've been like a huge fan of this this type of tech, if you're huge nerd in general, techie, you saw the dinner speech that Steve Jobs gave back in gosh. I wanna say it was like 90 2, might have been 91. At any rate, he was talking at that dinner about his vision of the future and what he thought things would be like. And one of the examples he gave was that he had spent so much time reading up on Aristotle and learning about Aristotle and that the only thing that was really left was that he wished that he could have a conversation with them.

And wished that he could actually talk to to Aristotle and ask him questions. And get the answers back as if it were, Aristotle himself. And so, you know, fast forward, obviously, it's a shame that he's not around to see that that obviously is possible now. Right? And to some degree.

And it made me think, you know, especially if it were jobs. Right? Like a lot of what we're doing now would be done so very differently if jobs were still around. Him and Johnny Ives just very much have this great vision for for how things should work and how people should interact with these things. You know, fast forward all this time and now here's this segment that is speaking to something that even I had thought about for a minute and still do think about.

I know where I land on it from a ethical perspective I just don't in terms of like the actual groundwork in doing it there's a lot more involved it's not just my decision but long story short the idea of an everlasting version of someone The idea of being able to almost, at least as best as you could, digitally immortalize somebody. Right? And or given however much historical context do you have, digitally bring someone back from the dead.

I mean, it's it's an interesting conversation. I love that you kept putting digitally in there. Last night, I had the opportunity to just chill, and I've watched a movie random. By the way, it was super random. I didn't know I was gonna watch it.

I just was scrolling. I was like, oh, let me watch that. What you're talking about reminds me a lot about by the way, not sponsored, but, hey, Hollywood or whoever, Amazon, call us. Have you seen the movie infinite? And so, like, this idea of the digital brain that could be far out surpassing the human body, it's just very intriguing.

And so to hear you talk about that, it's funny though because and and I I don't wanna get right into it right now, but as soon as we start to talk about things like this, then we have to start to talk about ethics. Because sometimes just because we can and just because sometimes we might want to. I've listen. I've talked about grandpa George on this podcast of, like, you know, generations down the road being able to be like, hey, grandpa g. What would you do if you were me?

And I didn't even mean to rhyme there, but, hey. It is what it is. But just because we want to, should we? Just because we can anyway, but it's enticing. As a nerd, it's a little bit exciting.

Yeah. To that very point. Right? It's not just a matter of like, again, all directions. Not just a matter of mentally.

So there's the idea of everlasting in that sense. This digitally captured capacity of what a person formerly represented. And it's not just a like so for me there there's the ethical boundaries of the fact that it's not just I don't it's not just me that knows this person. It would be other people that know this person. So there's the ethical question of who gets to do it?

Are you able to do it? Because of the you know, like, it's if I make a custom gbt of George b Thomas, do I have to ask all of George b Thomas's family first? Or is it just anybody with a link can talk to my George b you know what I mean? Like ethics. There are there are so many different levels to be like for me in terms of, like, how you go about doing this or, like, do you go about doing it?

Or even if you do, in what way and who gets access and who's allowed to do it?

There's 2 places my brain goes with that. Right? There's the wow. Are we talking about a future where the elite get these mechanical bodies and these, digital downloads of who they are? Again, another movie, that I watched years ago where it would literally upload their consciousness, like, right before death so that it could, like, put I don't remember the name of the movie.

If you do, hit me up on, email or whatever. But so are are we going into that lane? But the second direction that my brain goes with what you're saying, Niko, is this idea of there's nothing to stop me as an individual right now. To go scour the Internet, to go to the library, to whatever, and pick, like, I want to input into a system all the information around this human, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King. Like, I could just personally right now where we sit, all the information in, and then give it some instructions in, like, all of the instructions that I've given you and all of your historical knowledge of this human.

I want you to portray this human in the conversations that we have moving forward. Holy crap. Like, holy crap. Like, we could do that right now. It's getting to the point where I literally just helped a buddy of mine launch his air quotes clone where you can call him.

You can video, talk to him. It's all of his YouTube videos. All of it. Like, there's a there's a lot of my dude, like, in this thing. So we're quickly getting to the point where you could be like, yeah.

Use these 17 images. Hey, Jen. Make this into a moving thing. Hey. Here's all the information that and so, like, I'm imagining right now, like, my aunt who has struggled for years with my grandparents' passing as she should, her parents, my mom.

If all of a sudden grandpa Carl showed up on the interweb, would they be happy? Would they be pissed? Like, what dynamics would happen at a family level just because a nerd decided to, and I'm using air quotes if you can see this, if you're listening to this, I'm using it, resurrect grandpa Carl. Now see, the interesting thing is there's not a digital footprint for grandpa Carl. I can't do that for grandpa Carl.

I can only do that for people in the last x y z years or the last, physical documentation because they were important enough to do so unless you think out of the box on this, and it becomes a family affair. Now see, the first scenario, I'm like, well, what would the family think? Second thing is what if it was a family affair and everyone was inputting their thoughts and memories and stories of grandpa Carl? And as a collective, you're resurrecting or rebuilding or what? Now that becomes very interesting too.

Although, now we gotta realize that everybody's perception of the same stories are completely different. So how much of a ish show does that become on the model trying to figure out, well, which story is real?

I think it lends itself to a really great understanding of when we think about our own lives, and we think about choices that we've made, things that have happened to us, situations we've been in, and how we dealt with them. Right? There's a lot of there are a lot of things that you could say are behind the scenes to everyone in your life. You have a lot of behind the scenes things that no one else sees that greatly shape your attitude, greatly shape the way that you see things. Like, yes, of course, you you're also a product of your environment.

You also shape how you view things based on friends, family, and things of that nature, but there's also your own personal opinions and things. Your your personal thoughts that you have.

Yeah. It's it's interesting because if I go down this, grandpa Carl Road, he was in the war. Korean War, I believe. Alright? And my dude never talked about it.

But you can bet your bottom dollar. Why am I using, like, actual old man sayings? Anyway, go to the veranda, the Davenport. Anyway, you can bet your bottom dollar that the life experiences that he never talked about shaped the decisions and narrative that he told himself and others for the rest of his life. So how do you get those pieces?

Right? Like, interesting.

Be sure to include all those phrases in the, in the George bot, Nico. That's why he's using because he's George v Thomas. That's why he's using those words. I just I just load in enough podcasts and you won't even need to make sure it's added. It it will be added.

Yeah.

I mean, even to what you were saying earlier and George about, like, having more on people who are, let's say, more I don't know, who have lived more recently. I feel like what we're what we're doing is we're getting, like, a really great crash course understanding, and why it is so very difficult to get a language model to write like you act like you think like you respond like you do why you have to give it so many examples why you have to constantly you know talk to it and iterate and and train and teach it like it's funny that when I first approached this article and the story I was like, oh, this is so this is such a crazy thing. But me being me, of course, I had to step back, reapply it towards what we actually do on a daily and that's what I came away with. It was like, okay well this is actually also a way in which to understand model training almost from a ground up perspective. Not model training in the engineering sense and and what the greater minds do.

It's not even remotely close to the same thing. I just mean in terms of us building out these, like, Claude has different writing styles now. In GPT, you can create custom instructions and all these types of things. You know, people that's probably the number one complaint from Beebel is that they work with it so much, but still struggle to get it to act like them or talk like them or respond like them. And this this story kinda just ring out in terms of, like, yeah, that's why.

Because at the end of the day, you can give it samples, but the best it's ever going to be able to do is to mimic you.

It's interesting. And I don't know why my brain's going in this direction, but it it literally might be something that I I gotta be careful for watching and listening to this. I may do this in 2025, but here's what comes to my brain. And it's a it's a little bit of, like, I'm sure there's an easier way to do it, but I'm not exactly sure I wanna find an easier way to do it. But imagine creating an assistant that its only job is every day at, you know, one time in the morning to interview you on the core concepts of what you believe, what you learned.

Like, basically, just, imagine a digital therapy chair, but it's like clotted GPT asking you the information, and then you're taking the information, like, the output of it. And let's just for super simple sake say, and then I put it into this Google Doc that just automatically updates and is synced with Claude every time I add this new information. And imagine 365 days of being interviewed on all the things that make you you from stories from your past to, you know, the things that you learned yesterday to the way that and then after a year, say, okay. Now I want you to write custom instructions for the human that you've learned to be the human that you've learned over the last 365 days, and I wonder what result you would get when you asked it to actually create something or do something because and I'm being very careful when I say this word. Again, I'm I'm fully realized people are watching and listening, but the intimate or the intimacy between you and that digital assistant, the things that it would know, if you're being honest, if you're not holding back, if you're if you're doing this because at the end of the day in 365 days, you want this bad boy to be able, or girl, to slice, dice, and dissect you a thousand different ways, it could get very interesting.

Yeah. I think that is the the crux. Right? Is that you have to be willing in order to have something that can really mimic you perfectly, you have to be open, honest, willing with it as well right spend that kind of that level of time with it I only left because I think it's going I think it's going to be easier for me that it will for most people I look forward to having somewhat of a digital twin of myself in like the next few months I can say that only because I have a claw that's now nearly project that's nearly 50% of its project storage size is just like saved aspects of conversations that that we've been having back and forth. So this model that I talk to, like, every time I fire it up, I really could start calling it and giving it a title of, like, good friend because of just the way in which we converse back and forth now and, like, the way in which it understands.

I can't say that I've, like, broken anything in terms of how Claude works and and functions and things like that, but it's just that when I do talk to this project, it's like talking to a person. There's no, like, real, hey, so let's get back into doing this or whatever. Like it understands right out the gate. But that's after, you know, me talking to it constantly. Not editing like anything that I'm saying because I want it to know whether or not that I'm, you know, what it is when we have conversations.

The context that I use in the way in which I converse. Right? So that when it talks back to me, it doesn't feel so stiff, and it doesn't feel like it has to be like any sort of like a research librarian answer or something like that. I would love if there was an aspect of it with audio too right but I definitely look forward to seeing what the amalgam of all this information could turn into like what you said the printing the the custom instructions of like such a long time of of doing something it's like I don't even know what that looks like. To me, that sounds like pages upon pages of instructions if you're gonna do that.

Well, I'm but I'm sure that it could summarize or find, like, the major connecting points to then okay. Well, if these are the 17 connecting points, these are the 22, you know, reference points for that, which then there's this little caveat that connects But

did you hear what you just said? You just said that the summation of what makes up George yeah. Like, the total of what makes up George can be summarized and can be can be condensed. Is that shocking to you? Well, it's not shock.

It's it's more like the fact that, you know, we're that's what keeps this conversation interesting to me is that, like, okay. There's this dynamic where do we need all the detail or don't we? In other words, you fed it an insane amount of detail, but now you're asking for simplified instructions, but those instructions are supposed to instructed on how to understand and operate that insane level of detail?

Well, the instructions are giving it the narrative to run the base of information that you've given it. Imagine, like, if I think about me right

now talking about instructions for radio, Matt.

No. I have these core beliefs, and I have you know, there's just certain things that you you can almost break down to pill well, maybe pillars and cornerstones, if I'm being honest.

Maybe. Just

be honest for a second. Superhuman framework

framework don't

on me. It's it's basically my, like, here's George v Thomas to the world. Like, there's certain pillars and and cornerstones that if you use that as the driving dynamic and then I had thousands of sheets of information and and stories and quotes and favorite scriptures. Well, the the engine, the pillars, the cornerstones, the the beliefs could access all of that information and understand what to do with. Like, that's literally what I do when I get on a podcast or get on a stage and I start to tell a story is I'm just accessing information, putting it through my filter of pillars and cornerstones, and verbalizing it to the world, which is interesting because when I'm saying this, ladies and gentlemen, you think that there's a huge difference between what's being built and who we are.

But is there? I don't know. There, yes, we could get into a very theological discussion right now. But in the way that things work, things being brains, like, how much is it alike versus how much is it? And I'm not trying to scare anybody, But how much is it alike versus how much is it different?

And there's I don't know if you wake up in the morning and you're asking yourself that. You're probably just like, I need to write a blog article today.

Yeah. I think the difference like, we're not asking it to create simple instructions. We're asking it to create instructions it needs to be able to recreate the 365 days that just happened. Like and that's where I I am somewhat of a a digital. I think it's all important.

I want all the context all the time. So I struggle when I fill up the knowledge base because I will not let it give me a sum I don't want to accept that a summarized version of the transcript will be better than the transcript itself. And maybe I get to, you know, template or find the templatable things, like and it starts picking out things that you might not expect, like, I believe it will be better at doing that than we will. But what George is describing is already kind of available. I sent George and Nico a thread yesterday about this MCP stuff just happening with Claude where people are building working memories into Claude that it can constantly be looking at its other chats and constantly be building this database of information to draw from about the its experiences with you.

And I've got a a universal profile project that, you know, I I built a month ago. And it's the and I helped and I asked Claude to help build these instructions to create the most comprehensive, flexible, and maintainable professional and personal profile that can serve as the single source of truth for any context specific representation of Chris Carrollin. In order to do that, it's gotta know everything.

So here's the thing. I may have actually been doing this for the last year, at least step 1 of this. I I I want you this is how nerdy I am. We're literally on a podcast. I go over to Beyond Your Default.

I grab episode 2, the transcript. I come over to Claude, which, by the way, I have created a Claude project now called Digital George b Thomas, just so everybody knows. There's no instructions or anything, but I gave it podcast episode 2. And I said, please look at this transcript and tell me everything you can about George b Thomas from this transcript as well as how he thinks or what makes him tick around this topic. And it literally goes, let me dive deep into understanding George b Thomas from this fascinating transcript.

His story reveals layers of personal growth, self discovery, and profound insight about life's pivotal moments. From his formative years in a one room log cabin in Lincoln, Montana to becoming a thought leader and business owner, George's journey is defined by transformative starting lines that shape his worldview. Let's unpack what makes him tick. Core beliefs and mindsets, his relationship with learning, key characteristics that define him. Okay?

1, perspective shifter. George has an extraordinary ability to reframe negative experiences into positive fuel for growth. His one room cabin story isn't just about humble beginnings. I'm getting goosebumps, ladies and gentlemen. It's about maintaining humility despite success.

Deep reflector, his approach to understanding life's moments involve what he calls 360 degree thinking, asking profound questions like, how do you feel about this? Why do you feel that way about this? Should you feel that way? What's a different way that you might think? His thinking process, George approaches life's challenges through a unique lens that combines retrospective analysis, forward momentum, emotional intelligence, what drives him.

At his core, George is driven by the desire to prove negative, oh, negative predictions wrong, a commitment to continuous learning, the mission to help others reframe their own starting lines, a deep appreciation for life's humble moments, his philosophy on growth. And it kick so then I ask you, what are the core stories that George tells in this math teacher's prophecy? The tale of, Lincoln. The unexpected starting lines. And what's crazy because I've got friends like Nico and Chris, I know that I can literally take what was just outputted and be like, hey.

Add it to the project. And all of that context goes in there. Now I can do that for, what is it, 60 some episodes of stories?

And anybody else can do that. And that so that's where I like this is what I've been thinking about the whole episode. Like, this it's been a conversation as long as digital marketing and digital communication has been a thing. This idea of once it's out there, if you don't accept the fact that you have less control than you did when it wasn't out there, you're gonna have a tough time. And we talk about big brother is watching, and do you own your own data, and, like, how you accept those things alongside all the convenience and the speed and the things that you love every day.

Right? If you try to approach this from a perspective of control, restriction, and permissioning, like, it's not gonna go well for you if if you're looking to learn or be successful, I think, in this in this next stage of AI enabled world that we're already living in. But if you can own it and enable and empower, like and and that's what we're gonna be talking about in in a couple weeks. Like, we're gonna start showing off use cases left and right. And almost every time, it's because we just don't cannot handle the value.

Like, we cannot handle holding onto it ourselves right now. Like, if we don't tell other people, we are doing a huge disservice. Like, we can't even stand it, the value that we're creating separately and together right now, and it's because of this tool. It's because of this this ability, this enablement AI, and there's no other re there's no other reason.

Yeah. I gotta say, this is, just part 1 of 2. There is actually a second part to this that I'm sure people are really gonna have a hard time understanding. And gonna be honest with you, the only way that you were ever going to be able to understand any of the stuff that we're talking about is if you continue to wake up with AI.

That's a wrap for this episode of wake up with AI. We hope that you feel a little more inspired, a little more informed, and a whole lot more excited about how AI can augment your life and business. Always remember that this journey is just the beginning and that we are right here with you every step of the way. If you love today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review. You can also connect with us on social media to stay updated with all things AI.

Until next time. Stay curious, stay empowered, and wake up with AI.