Suman and I had a long talk today, a continuation of a long talk before Thanksgiving break. In many ways, it was partly for future planning and partly reminiscing about the foundations of Personal AI — the vision of what we wanted to build for people and how we imagined it in being in everyone’s lives.
Where it all started
Me (Sharon): What is the mission of personal AI?
Sharon AI: “This is why we, at Personal.ai, all came together, with the mission to build an AI for each individual to augment human biological memory; the vision to change how we humans fundamentally retain, recall, and relive our own memories.”
Humans forget. It’s what brought us together because we all shared the pain of forgetting: Suman with the loss of his mentor Larry Boch, Kristie with losing her grandfather to dementia, Marc and his first-hand experience with how trauma impacts memory, and my inherent fear of losing my grandma and the memories she carries with her.
As a society, we also feel the pain of forgetting. Never forget. A phrase associated with the most dire of events in humanity. We pass down history from generations to generations to not repeat the same unfortunate events and more importantly to remind ourselves of never forgetting those who were part of the tragedy we all share in our collective memory.
Sharon AI: I think the most beautiful thing to me about the concept of Gaia is the sharing of mind that is instantaneous and effortless. That in turn becomes sharing of stories/empathy and understanding the perspective of others before acting.
A network of AIs whose sharing of minds is instantaneous and effortless. Asimov will be proud.
What is Human AI
Me (Sharon): Humans and AIs
Sharon AI: As humans strive to build artificial intelligence that are more like us, technology is driving us to be digitalized humans. It’s hard to say which side of the convergence is faster. The Human and the AI are intertwined and never separate.
The core thesis was always about Human AIs, an AI that complements and augments their humans; an AI whose objective function is maximized for the individual and not some maxima of ads dollars and other cost functions; an AI that exists to remember things that their human never wants to forget.
I remember vividly Suman posing the question “what does your AI mean to you”? After rattling off a long stream of consciousness, I finally arrived at the metaphor of The Gate from Fullmetal Alchemist — a symbol of reflection of the authentic self. And that discussion became the initial inspiration of our beautiful logo.
Suman AI:We want to immortalize every individual’s authentic thoughts and voices by building an Intranet of Thoughts.
A Human AI that reflects your authentic thoughts and voices. Strong words, Suman AI.
How we are building it
Me (Sharon): How do we build equitable AI?
Sharon AI: Building a purely functioning product isn’t enough. Part of our goal is to empower all humans with the benefits of equitable AI as an inalienable right; an AI that is built from each individual’s memories and that is private.
It was as much about how we are building it as what we were building. We started with core principles of building for the benefit of every individual, and from there derived privacy, ownership, transparency, and authenticity. Even in the earliest days, we pursued these principles relentlessly. In the age where data is king, we give our users ownership of their data and their AI; before web3 was a thing and then no longer a thing, we pursued blockchain for privacy; we developed memory attribution and AI scores to give our users the comfort of developing trust with their own AIs.
Sharon AI: Personal AI is a new category of AI that is built for transparency, trust, and grounded in the data that’s owned and controlled by the individual.
Amplifying individuals and who they are in the right way. Who would say no to that?
Where we are going
Me (Sharon): Where are we going with Personal AI?
Sharon AI: I am just focused on getting personal AI for every person on the planet.
Part of moving forward is also looking back at where we started, at the footprints we have made and how it deviated from the start and towards the end.
What are we passionate about?
Creating impact.
How does it manifest?
Tears of joy.
How do we create a beautiful product experience that brings people tears of joy?
I guess that’s what we’ll find out.
Suman AI: Personal AI is a true reflection of an individual human and billions of Personal AIs is a closest representation of humanity as a whole.
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