You might be able to accelerate the beginning of a '2nd Renaissance'

We’re clearly entering a historically significant era and an interesting question to consider is how this time may come to be known to future generations.

For example, AI will obviously continue to leap forward - will history remember an “Age of AI”? Space travel will also become increasingly accessible - perhaps leading to a “New Space Age”? Robotics could make a similar claim, as could virtual reality and a number of other domains.

However, for you as an individual, none of these ideas of our era probably feel possible to meaningfully participate in - mostly they’re defined by technology itself, and all driven by centralised and mostly closed organisations.

Additionally, each domain captures a small slice of the future we have in store - would it be a good thing if a world in which humans have been empowered by such technology across multiple domains becomes defined by the technology itself?

Just as a healthy dose of imagination made playtime as a child more fun, your life may be similarly enriched by a little delusion. What if, instead of accepting these possible futures, you chose to imagine a different kind of world - one that wasn’t defined by domain-specific technology making the world more advanced, but by how humans leveraged this technology across multiple disciplines to make the world more beautiful?

A historical era being remembered for its beautiful creations may seem farfetched but consider our idea of the Renaissance - this was a time when the printing press, mechanical clock, and telescope were invented and when scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, and Vesalius transformed our understanding of the world.

However, when we think of Renaissance, we mostly don't think of any of that. Instead, we think of art like The Mona Lisa, the Birth of Venus, and the Last Supper and artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Botticelli.

What could a 2nd Renaissance be?

A “2nd Renaissance” would carry on in this tradition - technology will obviously still advance across all of those domains , but it our era wouldn't be defined by it - instead, it would be defined by what humans create with it - specifically, the transcendent art they make that transforms our physical world.

In this sense, it would carry on the legacy of the 1st Renaissance - a time when humans fused capitalism, belief, technology and creativity to not only advance our world but also to enrich it spiritually and artistically.

Embedded in the idea of the 2nd Renaissance are many assumptions about a flourishing path for humanity during this period.

For example, for art to define this era, humans will need to fully unlock AI’s potential from an artistic and creative perspective. Practically, the nature of AI models is so endlessly multifaceted that no closed organisation or company could come close to unlocking this - they will at best give a small glimpse into what a model can achieve.

In order to unlock its true potential, it will require the intelligence and creativity of inspired people going down insane rabbit holes that no organisation would proactively commit resources to - all sharing their advances and models openly for others to build on top of. Open source AI is the only way to accomplish this.

Artists and creators who use these tools will then need to not only ‘play’ with them, but to be inspired and motivated to use them to craft masterpieces - often working for years without meaningful recognition. Building their skills and taste.

As technology progresses and artists build reputations, patrons will need to appreciate their work to the extent that they wish to fund them to up their ambition - and we’ll need to celebrate and admire these patrons so much that patronage becomes a status symbol among the wealthy.

This system of inspiration and incentives along with the advancing AI can help create thousands of Da Vinci’s - 2nd Renaissance men and women who hugely expand their natural intellectual, engineering and artistic capabilities with AI and are powered by armies or robots who execute and maintain their work.

Over the past century, the workforce has shifted from primarily pragmatic activities to less strictly essential economic pursuits. Maybe the remarkable work these pioneers create will inspire many of those who will be adversely impacted by the advancing technology to not reject the technology that cost them their jobs, but to pursue a life and career of artistic creation powered by it. Perhaps we as a society will increasingly value craftsmanship and beauty in everything, creating opportunities for these artists

A lot of the above happened during the first Renaissance, and I believe it and more can happen again in this era on a far larger scale - and if it happens on a significant enough level, it will define this coming era.

When would the 2nd Renaissance start?

For an age to become known this way, I believe it would need to be glaringly obvious - especially considering the 'competition' from various technologies - or even from the malaise that currently feels like it's defining places like Europe. Right now, it feels as though Europe is in the early stages of a Dark Age.

At the beginning of what's perceived to be a 2nd Renaissance, we would likely need to be seeing the beginning of a world that's bubbling with beautiful, ambitious creations.

Imagine landing in a futuristic version of Florence, where 4-5 more Renaissance-level cathedrals are under construction, or one in which an animatronic Colossus walks through the Rhodes harbour each day. Or where we have an increasing number of orbital holiday destinations and tourist sites.

Imagine a global cohort of tens of thousands of artists spending their lives working on countless projects like these, supported by billionaire patrons who've grown to understand the importance of art and compete with one another as The Medici and Borgias once did.

Imagine a world so wealthy and plentiful that this doesn't seem garish and ostentatious - but good and natural.

In many ways, that feels quite far away. While the world has been growing enormously in wealth and poverty is slowly being eradicated, our culture feels quite distant from this.

The creative and artistic industries feel stratified, with a select few able to realise their creative visions. And even for those, the calculus of short-term capitalism drives most of their creativity and puts a checker on their ambition. American closed AI companies also get the overwhelmingly more funding that open source-oriented ones - Americans - blind to the creative potential of AI - are voting with their money for a closed future.

Our cinema line-ups and new megastructures like the Las Vegas Dome are demonstrations of this short-term orientation - people aren't driven by legacy or ideology - but the box office ticket sales and short-term revenue.

The spirit that made The Renaissance what it is is alive, but it's not what's defining this world in any meaningful way.

How can I help accelerate its beginning?

First of all, I believe that the most any individual can do with their life's work is accelerate the advent of such an era by a few days at most.

This might not seem significant, but a few days could be the difference between a Da Vinci being born into a world that's ready for their ambition and talent, vs. one where they live a life of wasted potential.

If you're reading this, there’s probably a path for you to contribute significantly towards this idea of an era - perhaps you’re an artist who believes that this system of patronage will fall into place, and therefore doubles the effort and ambition of your work, or maybe you’re a engineer who just lost their job, and you choose to believe that contributing towards open source AI initiatives will bring you opportunities, meaning and reputation. Or maybe you’re someone with money to spare who realises how significant even a small donation can be to an aspiring artist, so you PayPal them $500 - you become a Patron! In all cases, you're choosing to act based on a wish for how you want the world to become.

You're choosing to act based on ideology and beauty. By voting with your actions, you are in a tiny way contributing to this potential utopia.

And though this idea is at heart a delusion, so was everything in this world at one point. This particular delusion can be an empowering one to believe in - not only might believing in it inspire you to develop skills and create useful and beautiful things, but it’ll give you a sense of agency: instead of experiencing a pre-determined future as a spectator, you'll find yourself charged with a responsibility to contribute towards a world that you can be a part of the future. I, for example, feel this responsibility and am it's driven me to develop the first method for animating diffusion models with images, the leading open source AI art community, and generally dedicate my life towards what I believe will be one tiny piece of this era.

I can't tell you how you could contribute. Only you can figure that out. However, if you found this even a little bit compelling, I’d ask you to consider: what utopian ecosystem could you contribute towards? How could you support others who are building a piece? What role could you play? What skills could you learn that could make you useful to it? What could you create that inspires or enables others to create with AI? What might the first steps you take towards figuring this out be?

Could you maybe - if you choose to really believe in it - dedicate your life to accelerating the beginning of the 2nd Renaissance by just a few days?