The Seer, the Archaeologist and the Sculptor

Three faces of a metamodern AI Shaman

Sometimes, the profound insights come not from prompting AI but from being prompted by it. A case in point is this: The “Massively Transformative Purpose” template of Contextdriven.ai introduced itself to me by saying that it “helps you create your Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP), an aspirational purpose that drives your life or organization with a grand, audacious goal that has the potential to transform industries or even the world.” Then it prompted me, “What do you feel called to do?” (I notice how this well-crafted AI bot plays the role of process mentor and throws a prompt at me, instantly triggering a self-reflective contemplation.)

What I feel called to do is so audacious that I shy away from sharing it with many people. When I did, it was met with glazed eyes or polite nods that masked confusion more than once. But you may be different. Reading the newsletter suggests that you are ready to consider ideas that challenge typical thinking about human-AI collaboration.

My calling?

To nurture a community of AI shamans who develop,
validate, and propagate practices worth replicating
about wisdom-fostering Collaborative Hybrid Intelligence
of symbiotically connected human and AI agents.

AI shamans are self-reflective practitioners
capable of observing their cognitive and emotional experiences
in their actions and interactions to improve the quality of their practice
for the benefit of human communities at all scales.

Three Archetypes of an AI Shaman

Emerging from the observation of my work, the above characterization of AI shamans is more descriptive than prescriptive. At its best, that work is conducted through the synergistic intertwining of three distinct yet interweaving archetypes — each essential to the journey of an AI shaman.

• The Seer evokes evolutionary epiphanies. These are not mystical premonitions but moments of extreme clarity about the “big brush” picture of what will likely emerge from the interplay of forces in the social field. The Seer catches glimpses of what’s possible when we transcend the traditional boundaries between human and machine thinking.
• The Archeologist excavates ancient finds from decades’ worth of research notes stored in a patchwork layer of folders upon folders on the hard disk and in the boxes of notes, conference proceedings, and personal reflections that hold unexpected treasures.
• The Sculptor uses the chisel of generative conversations with human and AI colleagues to extract the statue of the Seer’s vision that appears in their mind’s eye before liberating it from the marble block of possibilities.

One of the archeologist’s favorite disciplines is knowledge ecology, the art and science of discovering and portraying ecosystemic relationships among knowledge nuggets across past, present, and emergent contexts. The Archeologist maps connections across time and context, revealing patterns that might otherwise remain hidden. That may include, as in my case, wading through thousands of documents accumulated over a lifetime to discover new patterns connecting specific keywords relevant to a given research question.

The information collected by the seer, the archeologist, and the sculptor from the emergent future, the past, and the present can enrich and re-articulate the initially fuzzy vision. The Sculptor can refine it in generative conversations with other players in the field. At their best, those conversations become a form of collaborative curation of both what is and what is possible.

Read on in the “Metamodern AI Shamans” publication on Substack for free.