I’m Jamie Freestone, a writer and researcher based in Sydney. Half of me is in academia, doing the philosophy of autonomous systems, including research on robots, AI agents, and sleepwalkers. My other, better half, is here.
The Stark Way is a metaphor to navigate the difficult terrain of modern knowledge: AI, brain sciences, the rise of Big Tech, the war on attention, destruction of the arts, the ongoing fact of nuclear weapons.
This landscape is sublime, provoking a mix of fear and admiration, with a scale that overwhelms our ability to comprehend it. Yet we must find a way through. Most people take a scenic route: some worldview that would be nice if it were true. I take the stark way, erring on the side of sceptical, hard-nosed explanations, to avoid wishful thinking. Maybe I go too far. Most people do the opposite. I hope to be a useful corrective.
This Substack is a forum for my original, unfiltered writing. My rules are simple.
No wishful thinking.
No forecasts.
No censorship or vested interests.1
For years, I’ve been investigating big topics:
consciousness
how AI understands language
the fundamental nature of narrative
Darwinian evolution
a human future in a world of Big Tech
whether we could reboot society following a global catastrophe.
I’m fortunate to live in a time and place with free access to most knowledge. I have greedily imbibed the flood of information. I haven’t shared much. Most of what I’ve created languishes in the academic publishing pipeline, or rots as a draft on my drive, or is in a purgatory of maybe getting made as a podcast or TV series. This newsletter is a way to force myself to share my original ideas about the topics above.
Anyway, that’s me. Now sit back, curl up, draw the blinds, remove the wedding ring, and enjoy my absurd analysis of the mind-killing implications of recent science and technology.
I have an employer, a respectable institution with the usual PR concerns and vacillations. And some of what I discuss will emanate directly from my day job. But even though they pay my salary, I’d give that up in a second if it meant being gagged in any way. Am I some free-speech-lovin’, gun-totin’, libertarian hero? Nope. But as I find myself in my fifth decade, with no assets, little cash, and questionable career prospects, it’s with more flinty resolution than morning-affirmation joy that I say: I have my intellectual integrity. This newsletter is a new attempt to share my original thoughts.
