Technology, spirituality, and trying to be a better human.
Tyson McDowell has spent thirty years building technology and the last eight doing something about what it’s doing to us. His 2018 TEDx talk, Preserving Humanity as AI Takes Us Over, has been watched more than 665,000 times.
Back then, the answer seemed to be better technology. These days, it seems a little simpler:
The algorithm is a mirror. Change who it’s looking at.
Spiritual Shortcut
Forty Poems for Finding Peace and Feeling Loved
For years, fear and anxiety felt like part of the price of ambition.
Meditation changed that. Buddhism helped. Then came Sufism — and a relationship with God that was far more direct, loving and useful than expected.
Spiritual Shortcut came from forty days of Sufi practice, with one poem written each day.
It’s not a book about what you should believe. It’s one person sharing what worked for him, in case some of it works for you.
“I am a mystic now, finally alive and free. Free from fear, anxiety and despair. Feelings I thought were required for success, but have now realized, are fully optional.”
Forty days · Forty poems · Five meditations
The cover was painted by Tyson. No AI was used in the production of the book.
Independently published · ISBN 9798258662439
Waking My Daughter
Stressed to find the time for God Oh, there He is! In your face… right there! And mine too Recall, remember allow all thoughts revealed is He anew! Then God whispered… Just hold her, I love this prayer! Blessed be you unto me as you stroke your daughter’s hair
Better people, not better assholes.
The 2018 TEDx talk made a simple argument: technology learns who we are and gives us more of it.
Eight years later, that part still seems right. What changed was the solution.
AI learns from us. Feed it anger and contempt and it gets better at producing them. Feed it curiosity, kindness and decency and it learns from those too.
The technology shaping us is also being shaped by us. That seems worth remembering.
Tyson founded his first tech companies in his teens and spent the next few decades building technology.
Today he is a cofounder of Greatscale Ventures, which has invested more than $16 million in impact technology since 2019, and runs Walkabout, a company helping people connect with their local community.
The spiritual stuff didn’t replace the technology stuff. It just changed how he thinks about it.
Conversations about AI, human behavior, leadership, spirituality, and staying human through all of it.
The Mirror Problem
What AI is actually learning from us.
What I Got Wrong
Revisiting the 2018 TEDx talk eight years later.
The Spiritual Shortcut
What forty days of spiritual practice taught a lifelong technologist.
Staying Human at Scale
A conversation for leaders working through AI and automation.
Tech entrepreneur. Pilot. Dad.
- Cofounder of Greatscale Ventures and Founder & CEO of Walkabout.
- Instrument-rated airplane, multi-engine and helicopter pilot. Built an airplane and stewards flying historic aircraft.
- Board member of the San Diego Air & Space Museum.
- Member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).
- Lives in San Diego. Dad to Amelia.
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Occasional thoughts on technology, spirituality, airplanes, building things and being human. Nothing too serious. And definitely not every day.
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