Category: musings

DALL·E 2023-01-22 21.53.17 - an impressionist painting of the complexity of the internet

AI for Personal Growth and Self-Reflection

by xela

I’ve been poking around with ChatGPT to analyze my rather extensive collection of blog posts and journal entries; a quite manual and tedious process but ChatGPT with Web Browsing helps speed up the process quite a bit. And the insights have been well worth the effort, and quite profound (will talk more about it below).

Seeing this work so well has gotten me thinking about how AI aids could be incorporated more meaningfully into my self-reflection/action loop, and by proxy, my life. Often, I’ve found myself trying to prompt ChatGPT to try to ask me questions; I’ve been partially successful, but it needs me to do considerable prep in my own prompt to essentially, give the baton to ChatGPT to “prompt me”.

So when I saw this Tweet, I was curious to know where the thread would go:

Following the tweet chain, I discovered Mindsera and just started using it to see how it works. It’s too early to give any real learnings, but I will credit them for a slick, stable, usable, distraction-free interface for journaling. Overall, I love what they’re trying to do and hope it can provide real value for people.

For me, I have some reservations about using an app for such a personal purpose that specifically is trying to make money from what I do for fun, as well as probably doing some form of QA on my content and output. That said, if it encourages me to write more or be more reflective, then even a single entry could be worth the monthly cost to me, though the privacy aspect is why I’ve been so interested in hosting my own LLM’s locally (a whole other entry to come!).

I’m using the free version to test out what it can do; so far, it seems to take in portions of my post as a prompt and generates a question based on it. More features come with a paid version. I’ll be comparing it with my use of ChatGPT for the same purpose. Some of the “questions” seem pretty generic and canned, and I’m curious to know the distribution of what it has internally. I can see it working well for many people, and of course, the free version is ‘free enough’ for most people.

https://www.mindsera.com/#pricing

Anyway, let’s see what it can do!

(btw when writing journal entries, I tend to not do a lot of polish; typos, grammatical errors, and half-baked thoughts are probably all over the post–for a clean interpretation, just read what ChatGPT thought).

Mindsera Entry 1

Hello new journal!

I’m going to try testing Mindsera for my personal use. In my own personal use of ChatGPT w/GPT-4, I’ve been finding the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their ability to analyze and synthesize insights quite powerful, and rather than treating GPT-4 like an ‘enhanced search’ (where I ask a question to get a set of answers out there), I’ve been trying more in-depth analysis of content and actually having a conversation about it (with ChatGPT). Instead, the most powerful results have come when, at least to my perception, ChatGPT actually appears to understand the details of what I’m saying.

Mindsera Question 1: How do you determine whether ChatGPT’s apparent understanding of what you’re saying is a true comprehension of your meaning or just a clever approximation based on pattern recognition?

Well, to be honest, I can’t know for sure–but I have two big thoughts here:

While, it’s true that I can’t really know for 100% sure if ChatGPT is actually sharing an ‘understanding’, I actually would argue that that’s also true for any human we interact with. We use language to communicate with each other and can exchange words and other communication, but at some point, we can only hope and have faith that the other person actually gets it.

More important though, is the actual experience interacting with it. I’ve basically fed it single posts at a time, or sometimes several in sequence, to try to provide it sufficient data to work with.

Unfortunately, ChatGPT, even with GPT-4 is quite limited in maximum prompt length. I’ve heard some anecdotes that ChatGPT can read “hundreds of pages” to synthesize a summary, but in my own use of it, it seems to fail at integrating more than a few thousand words. GPT-4 With Web Browsing does seem to be able to incorporate a chain of webpage-sized inputs together and provide output that more holistically interprets the writing (and in turn, me), but even then, it seemed quite limited in what it actually uses to generate the final output (~4 pages).

How I’ve used it… now this is the interesting part. to see if it can generate summaries, offer insights into my own thoughts, offer perspectives on how others see me, and even offer suggestions. It does all this amazingly well, and as my journals are relatively private, I don’t think I would have been able to get this kind of benefit anywhere. Well, at least, until recently. Apps like MindSera clearly are recognizing this opportunity with LLMs to build a thoughtful journaling partner. I’ll say… so far, it’s been quite good! Look at all that I’ve written already!

And for fun, I used my standard prompt for single-entry interpretation to see what ChatGPT thought about my post:

ChatGPT (GPT4)’s take on my post:

Prompt: Can you summarize what I’m saying, how I present how I’m feeling, and any insights into my thoughts about my own life? How do you think I or my post might be perceived generally by someone reading it?

(Above Mindsera post text)

Response:

Journal Entry Analysis:

Summary: The author is experimenting with Mindsera, an AI-based journaling application, after previously using ChatGPT with the GPT-4 model. The author acknowledges the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze and synthesize information, noting the most impactful results when ChatGPT appears to truly understand the context. They express a degree of skepticism about the LLM’s understanding, suggesting it could merely be a clever approximation based on pattern recognition. However, they make a parallel between this and human interactions, stating that understanding is largely based on trust. The author also mentions the limitations of GPT-4 in integrating and synthesizing large amounts of data. Their main usage of the tool has been to generate summaries, offer insights into their thoughts, provide perspectives on how they might be perceived, and suggest possible actions. The author appreciates these capabilities and the privacy of their journals.

Presentation of feelings: The author appears to be intrigued and positive about their interactions with AI models. They show curiosity and excitement about exploring new applications like Mindsera. There’s also a sense of skepticism and practicality regarding the capabilities of AI, but these feelings do not diminish the overall enthusiasm.

Insights about life: The author values self-reflection and introspection, as they use AI to analyze and interpret their thoughts. They seem open-minded, valuing the insight and perspectives that AI provides, indicating a willingness to engage with new technologies for personal growth. The value they place on their journals being private might suggest that they find writing to be a personal, solitary activity.

Perception of the post: The reader may perceive the author as technologically literate, self-reflective, and open to new experiences. They would see someone who values their privacy but is also curious about the possibilities of AI in personal growth and introspection. The author’s thoughtful approach to using AI tools may make them appear explorative and analytical. There’s a sense of excitement and positivity in the post that makes the author seem optimistic and forward-thinking.

Potential reactions: The reader may feel intrigued by the author’s exploration of AI for personal growth and might be inspired to investigate these tools themselves. They might appreciate the author’s balance of optimism and skepticism towards AI’s capabilities. The author’s inquisitive and analytical approach might also lead to a feeling of respect for their thoughtful engagement with technology.

Not bad, ChatGPT! I’ll continue to use it and MindSera as I found the initial phases of writing the hardest, and the quick prompts from Mindsera were actually great at taking little seeds of ideas and encouraging me to expound them into something worth writing.

But I have found that as my posts get longer (and perhaps less coherent), MindSera seems to struggle to give any meaningful prompt that incorporates the entire post. Perhaps a paid feature?

State of the Blog (this one) in 2023

by xela

It’s been a while since I’ve written here regularly, quite sad (though over the span of this 20+ year blog, perhaps even years is just a small life hiatus). Not like I haven’t been writing, but all too often, I end up worrying too much about making it readable and transition to private journaling instead where I don’t need to worry about it.

Thankfully, I’m not trying to sell a subscription, please advertisers, or run for high office, so at least for now, you’d think I’d I can say what I want, right? Alas, this hasn’t been true, perhaps ever, for me. Self-censorship has only gotten stronger it seems, as folks retreat to their curated social media lives on other platforms.

So, in the spirit of solving this problem, starting with this post, I’m just going to post more this year. Yes, there will be more rambly posts like this one but they will serve my core goals, they being:

  1. Practice, experiment, and grow my online voice
  2. Have fun expressing, writing, sharing thoughts in long form
  3. Express thoughts worth discussing
  4. Re-build a modern personal blog network
  5. At the end of the year (and at intervals throughout), reflect and determine what to do for 2024

Monthy posting is my cadence goal for now–no specific interval, topic, or agenda. I assume if you’re here and have read this far, you’re here because you want to know what I have to say. So–thank you, dear readership!

Onwards, 2023~!

Hello World 2021: Pulse check

by xela

Yes I’m alive! Though I seem to habitually forget how to write in this blog. It’s not to say that I’ve forgotten to document my life–the majority of my personal writing I’ve moved to more private docs–it’s just that I haven’t really figured out what I want to write about here in 2021. Though I suppose now that I’ve had this blog for over half my lifetime, it’s not surprising that my habits and style would change, long hiatuses included.

From Xanga to blog.skyrien.com

The world has changed quite a bit since I started this blog started in 2002 (nearly 20 years ago!). It started as a personal blog where, I posted quite random musings and conversed with my community (then of high school Naperville, Illinois folk). In doing so, I also cultivated my online internet persona and written voice.

I credit a lot to my sophomore year English classes for inspiring a habit of self-reflection and an appreciation for documenting my experiences in written form. The skill came in handy when I needed to write professionally, but I also furthered many useful skills — perhaps most importantly, metacognition–thinking about your thinking–in a self-reflective manner. At least, that’s how I remember it.

I still reflect fondly on the ‘publishing company’ we created for class–ours was called ‘4AM publishing’ which carried a number of meanings. It did give me an excuse to poke around and use more of the incredible 3d modeling/ animation tool that is 3ds max where I made our simple logo:

My amateur 3d modeling experience would come in handy in my near future in at least two ways: (1) CAD modeling props and environments for engineering school courses and (2) making my own models intended for 3d printing; and I’m still on Thingiverse!

Later in college, as I began to document more of my life and write more personal stories, I felt a need to share and document my story. I wrote quite a bit about my college experience (2004-2008) and writing continued up until around 2011. Through that period, I often had major thoughts and frequently would want to write them into a semi-coherent blog post. I experimented with several platforms outside of Xanga–including LiveJournal, Vox (different than today’s), WordPress.com, and probably a few more. Most I’ve merged back into blog.skyrien.com, which I claimed in 2008.

Over the decades, I’ve mostly reverted to simple commentary on other peoples’ created works. Actually creating new posts it’s much rarer and I’ve wondered why; it’s not like I have less to share. I do think it’s because I don’t really know the audience I’m posting to anymore; and perhaps more importantly, not sure what to write about. Incidentally, this is also why I’ve mostly been writing in my much more expansive journals elsewhere, where I don’t really have to wonder what reaction my posts may elicit.

I have expanded my tweeting though, but even that has been confused given the uncertain audience. I’ve often contemplated shifting more of my posting to anonymous social media–i.e. Reddit, where the security of anonymity brings out… shall we say a less inhibited internet persona.

Often it seems the internet is a permanent low-context environment; where anything you say can be re-twisted into anything. Or perhaps that’s just our political climate. Regardless, I think the essence is, what I’ve long believed to be the inevitable utopia (the future) of the internet, I wonder what the true impact of humanity earning this superpower will be. I still hope for the best, but I still don’t know what to write here anymore.

For me personally, I have perhaps, too many opinions and thoughts that could be construed in any which way. Keeping your own personal internet a safe environment for expression is critical. But it’s been said that the internet never forgets… and that can cost you; an election, job, friendships, or more.

Hmm… nonetheless, I do believe that the essence of sharing and connecting is innate in humanity, particularly when in a safe and productive environment that promotes the development of self-identity and a healthy, self-aware relationship with one’s other peers. The art of personal blogs seems to have become lost by many, who have reverted their online identities to things like their Twitter accounts and other private social media pages. To each their own; I’ve always loved having my own territory–here–with perhaps rules only set by my hosting provider.

Restarting this blog

So let’s do a quick catch-up… a lot has happened since my last post of September 2020, and doing a complete retrospective is quite hard. I’ve actually been accumulating a list of partially started drafts of posts over the past year since my Kindle ramble. I’ll keep them as drafts for now and quickly reflect on world events (that I may expound into their originally intended posts–

  1. COVID19 – Has it really almost been 2 years?! Crazy… this is going to be a life era for all of us, regardless of our political persuasion. I wrote about it once back in April 2020 — by then, the depths of the sudden shock of shutdowns were setting in, etc… but I’m pretty sure if someone suggested we’d still be talking about COVID19 years later… well, I suppose there’s at least a lot to write about! But indeed life does go on, and I think I have mostly fascinations to expound on.
  2. George Floyd, CHAZ/CHOP, and the Summer of 2020 — This itself deserves many books which I’m not qualified to write. Yet it has shaped the course of this nation and the discussion of race, policing, the boundaries of civil unrest, and one’s stand on the toughest social issues of our time.
  3. Election 2020 — Yeah, wow, the country survived–but the ominous seams still seem to be there under the surface; what is the endgame from all this polarization? What would a more proactive role be in ensuring the survivability of liberal democracy in today’s climate? An important civil discussion to keep having in these United States.
  4. Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program, and my newfound love of production simulation games such as these. I’ve admitted to a few that I somehow played 160+ hours of Satisfactory in the month of June; basically a full-time second job. Granted… much of that was spent accumulating resources while I slept, traveled long distances through hypertubes, or otherwise had very little engagement from me during those hours. But the hours I did play… very few games have encouraged such addictive yet beautiful game mechanics that make it such a joy to keep playing. I came upon this video yesterday and it very much sums up why I loved Satisfactory. Thank you Coffee Stain!
  5. Gadgets I’ve recently accumulated — I’ve acquired a number of new toys / gadgets that I’ve integrated into my lifestyle — a folding smartphone, a new smartwatch, an “Art TV”, (yes I suppose I’m a Samsung fan?), my wfh setup, autonomous vacuums, a dining table, etc…
  6. Cryptomining round 2 — I mined a bunch of Litecoin back in 2014; and now I’ve started on Ethereum with an RTX3080. Mixed experiences overall though in round 2.
  7. Playing around with hair coloring — The hair colors I have today I’ve generally had since 2017, so at least four years now. I’ve almost come to identify them as part of myself/identity, in that it almost feels weird when my hair is mostly natural. (Not that I don’t like my hair, but I like playing with its canvas).
  8. Seattle, Pacific Northwest, and how I became part of what I once fought–the Seattle Freeze… I guess after 12 years I’m maybe a local-ish person now?

And I’m sure more… but in any case, I’m writing all the above to move these ideas out of my mental space and start anew for 2021. I probably will write more about those issues eventually.

Decision: No self-hosting, yet…

One thing I’ve decided on though is to not yet try to self-host skyrien.com. I learned quite a bit and got the entire stack working locally, and even mirrored the MySQL DBs into MariaDB which Synology’s DSM seems to prefer. But really, the limiting factor was upload bandwidth by my home ISP.

And that ISP being Comcast in Seattle, the best reasonably priced up-speed only seems to offer an abysmally slow 6 Mbps. Not that I’m Youtube, but this upload speed is also shared by all other applications in my house, so even a single user uploading files would strain the available bandwidth.

So I’ll stay with Dreamhost for now.

But for now, my year-long blog post fast is broken! Tomorrow is a new day!