Almost 12 years ago, a 16-year-old girl named Stefanie wrote to me the night before her senior year of high school. She could not sleep. She was terrified of the Singularity. And she wanted to know what she could actually do about it.
I still get these messages. More of them than ever, in fact. The names change. The fear does not. If anything, in the age of frontier AI, autonomous agents, and accelerating capability, the desperation in young people’s voices has only deepened.
What struck me when I went back to read my reply was how little I wanted to change. The advice I gave Stefanie has, mostly, stood the test of time. So rather than rewrite it, I am simply reposting it. A few of the things I told her then, and would tell any anxious young person today:
Be unreasonable. The reasonable person adapts to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to herself. All progress depends on unreasonable people. Shaw was right.
Think in decades, not weeks. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Persistence will be your best friend and your biggest enemy.
Prepare to fail. It took Edison thousands of attempts to make the light bulb. What matters is not how many times you fall, but how long you are willing to endure.
Start with yourself. You cannot change the world without first becoming the kind of person the world needs you to be. Intellectually, emotionally, ethically, physically.
Begin today. Even the longest path starts with a single step.
The future is not somewhere we are going. It is something we are creating right now, in every decision, every action, every conversation like this one.
To every young person carrying this weight: you are not alone, and you are not powerless. The fact that you are afraid is not a weakness. It is evidence that you are paying attention. The question is what you do next.
Full reply, all ten suggestions, in the full essay here, including the original letter from Stefanie and all ten of my suggestions to her:
#Singularity #AI #Youth #Mentorship #Philosophy
I am sharing this letter to provide easy access to my suggestions and solicit further wisdom and mentorship from the Singularity Weblog community.