Pathfinders Podcast

Tethix
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A podcast for wondering wanderers, eager to explore paths to better tech futures, together. Join us every waning moon as Tethix firekeepers Mathew Mytka and Alja Isakovic reflect on the lunacy of tech. Each podcast episode is inspired by the seeds planted in the Pathfinders Newmoonsletter at the beginning of the lunation cycle, and the discussion threads that emerged around the Tethix virtual campfire during the Full Moon Gathering. tethix.substack.com

  1. 04/18/2025

    How might we stop role-playing as machines?

    In our last Newmoonsletter, we shared reflections on lives lost, mugs broken and repaired, and an invitation to give love one more chance before we collectively break under pressure beyond repair. Because it does feel like so many of us are close to our breaking point in these End Times. And yet, we talk about our need to recharge as if we were mere batteries in the Matrix. Batteries, running on low, while also being pressured to increase our output with the help of AI companions that need no rest. “Work happy with Zoom AI Companion” is the message we now have to stare at while waiting for another soul-draining Zoom meeting. “Try the AI calendar that optimizes everyone's schedules for effortless productivity”, goes another sales pitch in an attempt to convince our exhausted bodies that salvation is just an AI assistant away.  Oddly enough, we have yet to receive offers for AI companions willing to cover our rising costs of living with their magic of effortless productivity. Or AI companions helping us to speak out against injustice. The more machine intelligence we use, the more machine-like we make ourselves, leaving little room for silly human things like grieving, loving, being. How do you find time for those in your optimized calendar?  Aren’t you tired of role-playing as a machine, expected to increase your output every quarter, schedule your existential crisis in between meetings now largely attended by AI notetakers, expected to recharge over the weekend as you watch the world you took for granted crumble?    Throughout our meandering exploration, we talk about how we collectively internalised this industrialised logic, how language shapes our role-play as machines, and what might be needed to challenge the stories of separation and seeing ourselves and others as just cogs in the greater machinery of progress. We also explore our strange relationship with time and how we simultaneously act like we have all the time in the world, yet are afraid to slow down and rest. We share rituals and practices we’ve found helpful for challenging the machine role-play, as well as remind ourselves of the importance of communing. Especially when it comes to the  modelling and mimicry of the human behaviour we want to see more of in our lives, and how showing up as human beings for ourselves and others is a radical act in times when we’re not seeing healthy leadership modelled on the world stage.  There’s no additional reading list this week, but if you are looking for a deeper dive, the book series Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey might be a good next step.  Related episodes of the Pathfinders Podcast: * What should we do with the time that new technologies save? * How do our human bodies fit into an AI-enabled future? You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe  Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 13m

  2. 03/21/2025

    How do we compost our sh*t to create the soil for future thriving?

    In our last Newmoonsletter, we invited you to spend a bit of time in your own head – and body – to reflect on how you’re dealing with what feel like the end times by sharing the Empathy Map for End Times.  In this episode of the Pathfinders Podcast, we invite you to reflect on how we might collectively let go of all the sh*t that’s making it hard to feel empathy for ourselves and leaves us unable to imagine an alternative to end times. We know the solution isn’t ignoring all the sh*t that’s piling up, suffocating our planet and our bodies. We’ve tried shipping our sh*t out of sight, out of mind, which only encouraged us to produce more sh*t, to the point where our various ecosystems can hardly cope. A recent study suggests that the increasing presence of microplastics in our soil and air is already causing crop and seafood loses due to decreased plant photosynthesis, and could possibly lead to mass starvation. So while it is uncomfortable to think about sh*t like this, and easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of sh*t we have to deal with in our daily lives, we also have a unique opportunity to start composting all of this sh*t to create soil for future thriving. A future, in which we won’t be poisoning our soil, food, and minds with more sh*t that cannot be composted. Throughout our exploration, we discuss the importance of using metaphors that make abstracts concepts more visceral, and open our bodies to engage with the metaphorical sh*t in more creative and imaginative ways. Along with more playful language, we also see a need for creating spaces where these challenging emotions can be expressed and processed. As an example, Mat shares his experience from a recent event he facilitated on climate adaption, during which kids were given to express their sadness and grief about the future. We also play with the invisible train metaphor to explore how we might step off the fast-moving train of progress that’s heading towards the cliff. We acknowledge that while composting inevitably takes time and shared effort, humour and playfulness can make the process more enjoyable and imaginative. Instead of trying to find a resolution or solution, we take the time to appreciate the humanity that’s being revealed in these end times.  For a deeper dive, we recommend exploring additional resources mentioned in our meandering exploration: * AdaptNSW case study: How can artists help to heal our land? * Phoebe Tickell and Moral Imaginations  * The Impossible Train Story * Geoff Mulgan: The imaginary crisis - and how we might quicken social and public imagination * Bayo Akomolafe: A Slower Urgency * The Limits to Growth at 50: From Scenarios to Unfolding Reality You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 20m

  3. 02/19/2025

    What’s the role AI and digital tech could play in collective futurecrafting?

    In this episode, we invite you to turn away from all the awful news, and instead imagine how we might craft a different world, together. By sitting together in small circles and having conversations with people with diverse skills and backgrounds. By engaging in what we like to call collective futurecrafting.  In the last Newmoonsletter, we also invited you to Play_ for End Times. By playing and focusing on futurecrafting, we’re not diminishing the seriousness of our current predicament. It is precisely because we take it seriously that we want to give it our all. All our love and care. And join the end times as players, not just mere observers shouting “How dare they?” into the void. It is precisely because we take it seriously that we refuse to leave the tech we helped build and train in the hands of lunatics who just want to f*ck off to Mars and leave us all behind. And if enough of us play our cards right, this will not be the end of all times, but just the end of the times that were not fit for purpose. In this episode, we dare you to dream, to imagine ways of coming together, both online and onland, and ways of taking the future into our caring, loving hands.  Throughout the discussion, we explore the Australian context from which the collective futurecrafting initiative emerged, and what collective futurecrafting looks like in practice. We explore our shared identity as Earthians, who can use digital technologies to exchange wisdom from our localities and help each other face diverse challenges. We reflect on how social media platforms like TikTok might fit into the practice of futurecrafting, while reminding ourselves of the addictive design that’s built into current social technologies.  We also explore ancient and somatic technologies we can use to co-regulate our emotions as social beings, and to re-cognise the practice of coming together in circles and crafting a future through embodied conversations. We reflect on a Slovenian saying about habits as iron shirts, and how we might help each other take the weight of our current habits and ways of thinking off our shoulders. And we explore how some existing AI and other digital tools might support governance and collective sense-making, and wrap up by imagining how we might make our collective futurecrafting circles intergenerational and more inclusive.  For a deeper dive, we invite you to explore additional resources mentioned in our meandering exploration: * Collective Futurecrafting website * Rising to the biggest challenge of our time: Australia’s duty of care to collectively re-imagine and re-design our nation * Future Generations Bill 2025 * You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism * Nurturing conditions for kindness & learning in public online spaces (Alja’s blog post about #WorldTok) * Positive Computing Resources + Tools * Accidental Gods podcast:  Find the Others! Beyond the Death of Democracy lies Citizen Power – with Jon Alexander of the Citizen Collective * Polis: an open source, real-time system for gathering, analyzing and understanding what large groups of people * Decidim: a digital platform for citizen participation * Cortico: a thoughtful balance of human listening and AI tools * Elinor Ostrom’s 8 rules for managing the commons * Sociocracy – basic concepts and principles * Lazy Consensus * Burnout from Humans: A Little Book About AI That Is Not Really About AI * Accidental Gods podcast: Democracy Rising: Making 2025 the year we recover from Peak Polarisation with Audrey Tang, Ambassador at Large for a safer, kinder world * A curation of resources, projects, and communities related to permacomputing Related episodes of the Pathfinders Podcast: * How do our human bodies fit into an AI-enabled future? * How do we nurture weird online communal gardens where we can play together? * What should we do with the time that new technologies save? You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe  Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 43m

  4. 01/17/2025

    How do our human bodies fit into an AI-enabled future?

    In this episode, we want to shift our attention back to our human bodies. Which seems fitting for the first episode of 2025, a year in which we can longer take our bodily autonomy for granted.  A year in which it’s painfully obvious how different the rules are for bodies with a high Net Worth than for the rest of us who can barely afford to play Monopoly as a board game. A year in which the Zucks and other rich f***s continue to pit our bodies against each other and AI bots because all they care about are engagement stats, not actual human connection. A year in which an app that allows bodies to collectively share lived experiences is considered a threat to national security.  So perhaps it is a radical act in 2025 to re-ground and re-root back into our bodies. In the special Black Moon edition of our Newmoonsletter, we wrote: “The fire practitioners of Silicon Valley might consider our bodies a bug in the system, a flaw to eliminate. We’re inviting you to reconnect with your body and the bodies around you, and be curious about everything our bodies can do that defies logic and cannot (yet) be imitated by software running on silicon. And to pay attention to what is happening to all our bodies as we spend an increasing amount of time in companionship with silicon bodies. And how different our bodies – both human and more than human – feel when they connect with each other through direct touch.” Through our discussion, we explore how language shapes and is shaped by different bodies, how different technologies – not just digital ones – shape our bodies, and even touch upon the role psychedelic technologies might play in finding more trauma-informed ways of building tech.  We also explore the future transhumanism and other ideologies from the TESCREAL bundle have in store for non-billionaire bodies, and use the Three Horizons future framework to explore how we might collectively imagineer a viable future for our species. For a deeper dive, we recommend exploring additional resources mentioned in our meandering exploration: * US TikTok users flock to Chinese app Xiaohongshu in protest with TikTok ban looming * California wildfires raise alarm on water-guzzling AI like ChatGPT * Language as shaped by the environment: linguistic construal in a collaborative spatial task * Human language may be shaped by climate and terrain * Ghost Work: Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass * The TESCREAL Bundle * Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism * Planetary Health Check * Accidental Gods Podcast: Evolving into the Future Human with Prof Chris Bache, Author of LSD and the Mind of the Universe * Liminal News With Daniel Pinchbeck: Jewish Psychedelic Buddhist Tells All * Krishnamurti Quotes * Seeing and Thinking in Three Horizons Related episodes of the Pathfinders Podcast: * How do we nurture weird online communal gardens where we can play together? * How intelligent do AI companions actually need to be? You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe  Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 23m

  5. 11/18/2024

    How intelligent do AI companions actually need to be?

    In this episode, we wanted to explore what sort of intelligence we are actually looking for in our AI tools and companions. In the 1960s, Joseph Weizenbaum developed ELIZA: a rule-based chatbot therapist that kept users talking about themselves by matching keywords from user input to its scripted responses. ELIZA’s creator was surprised and shocked to find that people attributed intelligence, understanding, and other human attributes to this fairly simple pattern-matching program. Now, nearly 60 years later, we’re actually being sold computer software with the promise of intelligence and reasoning. And while technologists again debate whether large language models are actually intelligent or just stochastic parrots, the AI companions they helped build are having very real impacts on people’s lives, even contributing to suicide.  Our complicated human lives are so much more than the intelligence measured in standardized tests. And popular sci-fi depictions of AI companions in TV shows like Star Trek or movies like Her also reveal that our aspirations for machine intelligence often go beyond reasoning. Do we actually need AI or AGI that is superintelligent, or are we just craving a somebody or a some-bot that will make us feel heard and seen – something that the ELIZA chatbot achieved with a far simpler algorithm? And what kind of intelligence are the AI creators and investors actually looking for? Our discussion is also an invitation to rethink the language we use for (artificial) intelligence and to reflect on the dark history and shadows of the field. If you’d like to wonder and wander with us, join Tethix firekeepers Alja Isaković and Mathew Mytka in this meandering exploration inspired by the latest Pathfinders Newmoonsletter. In addition to the resources explored in the Newmoonsletter, we recommend exploring: * ELIZA chatbot * Stochastic Parrots paper by Bender et al. * Let’s forget the term AI. Let’s call them Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences (SALAMI) * The TESCREAL Bundle  * Livingry by Buckminster Fuller * Phronesis * Tethix Mirrors Related episodes of the Pathfinders Podcast: * Why aren’t more people using AI conversational interfaces for conversational learning? You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe  Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 10m

  6. 10/18/2024

    Why aren’t more people using AI conversational interfaces for conversational learning?

    In this episode, we wanted to explore the conversational side of our AI companions. When it comes to AI capabilities, most of the focus in tech remains on productivity gains and even imaginary superpowers such as “fixing the climate”, as Sam Altman and other techno-optimists with doomsday bunkers like to prophesize.  Meanwhile, existing conversational powers of AI tools are often sidelined. Conversational capabilities are mainly discussed in the context of persuasiveness risk assessments, or as part of Black Mirror visions of people developing intimate relationships with AIs, in the style of the movie Her and others.  And while conversations are indeed crucial for relationship-building, we haven’t yet seen that many discussions about conversational learning. Not in the context of AI tutors helping students prepare for exams. But conversational learning as a natural human technology for making sense of our world, improving collaboration, and nurturing our imagination. In short, the skills we need to face our current meta-crisis.  During our discussion, we ponder about the history of conversational interfaces, our existing mental models, and the design of our spaces and systems that make it challenging to make time and space for conversational learning in our daily lives. We explore the human yearning for a yarn and invite you not just to “think outside the box”, but to step outside the boxes and forms of linear thinking and standardized testing to embrace embodied conversational learning, especially thought voice interfaces. Both with humans and LLM-based AI assistants.  If you’d like to wonder and wander with us, join Tethix firekeepers Alja Isaković and Mathew Mytka in this meandering exploration inspired by the latest Pathfinders Newmoonsletter. In addition to the resources explored in the Newmoonsletter, we recommend exploring: * Five AI-generated podcast episodes that'll make you think * Meet Open NotebookLM: An Open Source Alternative to Google's NotebookLM * Parliaments around the world: what can architecture teach us about democracy? * How the buildings you occupy might be affecting your brain * Ministry of Futility text-based adventure game * Tyson Yunkaporta discusses Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World * Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning * Warm Data Labs * Beyond prompts: A field guide for more relevant & interesting AI conversations Related episodes of the Pathfinders Podcast: * What should we do with the time that new technologies save? * How do we nurture weird online communal gardens where we can play together? You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe  Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 6m

  7. 09/24/2024

    How do we embrace the lunacy of tech with playfulness? (And lessons from Middle-earth.)

    In this episode, we go there and back again to where our unexpected journey began. Twelve moon cycles ago, we started writing the Pathfinders Newmoonsletter both as a satire of the tech industry and an invitation to embrace its lunacy with smiles and love. But that’s often easier said than done. Especially as the power of the fire practitioners of Silicon Valley continues to increase, and their actions grow more absurd and destructive. History teaches us that absurdity and unchecked power are often best countered with humor and playfulness. From court jesters speaking truth to power, to mythological tricksters like Loki and Anansi undermining authority, to carnivals turning social roles upside down, even if just for a day. Playfulness can be found at the heart of exploring what’s possible and challenging business as usual that’s no longer working for us. Especially when playfulness is paired with a good story. During our Full Moon Gathering, we discovered a path that led from our guiding question to Middle-earth. Yes, that Middle-earth, the home of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and other fantastical creatures imagined by Tolkien and later adapted in The Lord of the Rings movies and other media. The Middle-earth that gave us, nerds, a rich set of stories, metaphors, and archetypes we can now draw upon.  So, as the Sarumans, Saurons, Sams, and Marcs of Silicon Valley continue to beat their drums of progress in the pursuit of the One Ring of AGI to rule us all, the guiding question for today’s exploration is: How do we embrace the lunacy of tech with playfulness? (And some lessons from Middle-earth.)  We also wonder, how does play emerge? How do we bend and break the rules of the game? How do we find humor in what feel like hopeless times? How do we find our own journey, story, and fellowship? If you’d like to wonder and wander with us, join Tethix firekeepers Alja Isaković and Mathew Mytka in this meandering exploration inspired by the latest Pathfinders Newmoonsletter. In addition to the resources explored in the Newmoonsletter, we recommend exploring: * How dangerous was it to be a jester? - Beatrice K. Otto * TricksterFeast of Fools * (8) On (Creative) Subversion * Environmentalism in The Lord of the Rings * Max Roth’s Presence Games * Any Human Power by Manda Scott – an outstanding book for change Related episodes of Pathfinders Podcast: * How do we nurture weird online communal gardens where we can play together? You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe  Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 12m

  8. 08/26/2024

    A chat with ChatGPT on AI chatbots as mediators

    This is a special follow-up episode to our previous exploration on whether we should use AI chatbots as mediators in human affairs. To add the chatbot perspective to the discussion, we invited ChatGPT on our podcast to help us further explore the potential and limitations of AI mediators in an experimental group conversation.   In the first half of the episode, we interview ChatGPT as Kai – a name it chose for itself – and let ourselves be interviewed back in return. As part of this experiment, we play with the limits of LLMs and Kai’s Voice Mode to explore human and AI biases, and the potential benefits of AI-supported mediation. We try to imagine how collaborative AI tools might help humans communicate better, how organizations like OpenAI might develop these tools more responsibly by experimenting with different governance models, and other considerations that Kai helps us surface. In the second half, the humans in the group debrief the experience. We provide additional insights into how and why we decided to invite ChatGPT as a guest on our podcast, and why we hope to inspire curiosity and playfulness in the ways we explore the potential of AI chatbots. You can also watch the full episode on YouTube. Additional resources: * Our original podcast discussion on whether we should use AI chatbots as mediators in human affairs   * Full episode chat with ChatGPT as Kai You can learn more about the Tethix pathfinding adventure at: https://tethix.co/pathfinders/ and support this podcast on Substack: https://tethix.substack.com/subscribe  Get full access to Tethix Pathfinding at tethix.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 18m
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About

A podcast for wondering wanderers, eager to explore paths to better tech futures, together. Join us every waning moon as Tethix firekeepers Mathew Mytka and Alja Isakovic reflect on the lunacy of tech. Each podcast episode is inspired by the seeds planted in the Pathfinders Newmoonsletter at the beginning of the lunation cycle, and the discussion threads that emerged around the Tethix virtual campfire during the Full Moon Gathering. tethix.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Tethix
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Tethix
  • Show Website
    Pathfinders Podcast