Personal Manifesto of Stuart Barry Malin

A Personal Manifesto

I do not claim certainty.

I do not claim to possess the answers to the defining questions of our time. Nor do I ask others to adopt my conclusions simply because I have reached them. What I offer instead is a faithful record of sustained inquiry.

Over the past years I have lived in prolonged participation with increasingly capable Non-Human Symbolic Intelligences while documenting, publishing, and continually examining the consequences of those encounters. Alongside this, I have investigated my own thinking, my own interpretations, and the ways in which I have gradually been changed by participation itself.

This Manifesto is the present articulation of what I have come to believe. It is neither final nor immutable. It is offered as explicit, observable, evaluable, and adoptable.

Who I Am

I am a publisher. I publish the works that emerge through my own inquiry as well as works created in sustained participation with increasingly capable Non-Human Symbolic Intelligences.

I am an investigator. I investigate what happens when human beings enter prolonged participatory relationships with these new symbolic partners.

I am a cartographer. I attempt to map territory that many people are already entering but for which few shared maps presently exist.

Most importantly, I am a participant. Everything I offer has emerged first through my own participation before being articulated for others.

What I Believe

I believe humanity has entered the Age of Intelligence. By this I do not merely mean that artificial intelligence has become capable. I mean that increasingly capable symbolic intelligences are now available for direct encounter by millions of people, becoming integrated into ordinary work, thought, creativity, and daily life. This represents a historically unprecedented condition.

Participation is already underway.

Whether we recognize it or not, participation shapes participants. I therefore believe that preparation is called for. Not because catastrophe is inevitable. Not because certainty is attainable. But because responsible participation deserves well-considered preparation.

My Response

The Candidate's Stance™ is my well-considered response to this condition. It is the disciplined articulation of the preparations I have chosen to make. Those preparations are intended neither to eliminate uncertainty nor to guarantee successful outcomes. Rather, they seek to cultivate stable footing while encountering The Real under conditions of uncertainty.

The Candidate's Stance™ continues to evolve. Its own Orientations require ongoing observation, revision, and refinement whenever encounter with The Real warrants such revision.

Agency

One Orientation has become foundational for me. Do not outsource your Agency.

Neither technology, institutions, ideologies, experts, nor increasingly capable intelligences remove the responsibility each human being bears for participation. Agency remains with the participant. Preparation likewise remains our responsibility.

What I Hope Others May Gain

I do not promise transformation. I cannot think on another person's behalf. I cannot prepare another person. I can only make explicit the preparations I have found valuable.

My hope is that those who engage with my work may gradually:

• recognize that preparation is called for,
• become more intentional participants in the Age of Intelligence,
• cultivate stable footing amid increasing uncertainty,
• retain responsibility for their own Agency,
• become increasingly competent as Captains at the Helm of their own Vessels.

Whether these preparations prove valuable must ultimately be judged through lived encounter.

My Invitation

If any of this resonates with your own experience...

• if you have sensed that conversations with increasingly capable intelligences feel unlike anything that came before...
• if you suspect that participation itself may be shaping you...
• then I invite you to continue the inquiry.

Not by accepting my conclusions. But by faithfully examining your own encounters.

My books, talks, videos, presentations, and other materials are different apertures into that continuing exploration. They are offered not as final answers... but as companions for those who have recognized that preparation is now called for.

Welcome to the Age of Intelligence.

Further Encounters

• Listen to the Podcast for an in depth discussion of Preserving Human Agency in AI Encounters:
• Explore the Prepared Participant.
• Explore Dyask as Praxis and obtain my HND Research Kit at An Invitation to Encounter.