Scarlett Johansson was robbed, return-to-office mandates kill innovative talent, my book launch, and the crypto philanthropy boom.

The latest OAI demo was like a late-night sex product infomercial.

If you follow my Linked In News Feed, you'll have seen a lot of conversations about ChatGPT 4o, which I have been calling ChatGPT4 ShowMeYourOFace, making the Mike Judge (creator of Silicon Valley and Office Space) reference crystal clear. There was no mistaking the sex bot marketing angle when it aired, and there has been many a lively discussion about the gender politics of the approach.

At the time, I had wondered if Scarlett Johansson had made a deal with them to use her voice because it was clearly a reference to HER, with Joaquin Phoenix as a lovelorn character who falls for his AI assistant. As it turns out, they did not use her voice. They stole her voice after she turned down the offer to be compensated. You can check out the tawdry tale and Altman's apparent blatant theft at NPR's Bobby Allyn's social media feed.

Let's recall something crystal clear for all reading so that you may warn everyone, particularly young people. The ability to erase your interactions with the device has subtly disappeared. Any face you show it or voice you give it becomes theirs immediately.

This isn't puritanical pearl-clutching. Between consenting adults is none of my business. That's not what this is. This a device to record these interactions. On an open invitation.

RTO costs people seasoned with high innovation talent.

Revealing paper from the University of Chicago on the damaging impacts of strong return-to office mandates.

The upshot, according to BFI?

Companies that mandate return to office could face significant human capital costs in terms of output, productivity, innovation, and competitiveness for the companies that implement them.

We agree.

My book launch is in the planning phase.

My book launch is being planned in Q3, and it is my framework for what I call "Singular XQ," an index for leaders on the species of intelligence(s) needed in this time of digital transformation. The index measures individuals, teams, and organizations to reveal which areas they are prepared to lead and where they need development. Developed with a team of consulting psychologists and based on 2.5 years of ethnographic and quantitative research, the Index will identify what is missing in the current ecosystem and ways to develop Singular XQ in mindset and in your teams, whether you act vertically or horizontally in your org. One major finding is those who test high on the SXQ index are also repelled by RTO mandates. Why?

Number one, deep work requires controlled and distraction-free environments. Number two, constant surveillance creates a hostile environment for innovation. Number three, all humans value freedom regardless of their tenure or skills. Top-down mandates do not buy goodwill from employees who create value, but issuing mandates pre-selects for compliance and agreeableness, both characteristics shown to be over-represented in anti-innovative environments. Please message me on Linked In or our business page on Linked In if you'd like to be included in the book and index pre-launch activities. I also would love volunteers to take the assessment so we can continue to validate it. Hit me up.

US charities are seeing a boom in crypto donations.

Singular XQ has a project in stealth mode concerning blockchain and philanthropy. We've been researching "crypto-for-good," the impacts of blockchain on society and culture, and our projections for the future while also developing our own, proprietary philanthropic crypto platform. We are concluding the discovery phase and are seeking supporters for the project, both as volunteers to develop it and as donors willing to enter early and help evolve the platform. (Hint, hint. We also use the project as a love letter to gamers, without whom we wouldn't have the graphics cars and chips now powering this AI rush). More will be available on our new website, which will launch soon--our placeholder site is www.singularxq.org. The new site, developed in a lab at Cornell University, will feature more information. However, in the meantime, subscribers to this list should let us know that they'd like to be on that list. Our forecasts so far have been tracking well, and this news item, indicating that US charities are seeing a crypto boom, aligns with our forecasts for space rehabilitation.