Language is the primary medium of human interaction, but it was not always this way. Through grunts and growls, facial expressions and body language, the first humans were able to convey their intent without the spoken word. There were limitations of course, which compelled the human race to develop a mutually understood systematic succession of vocal cues through which to express our thoughts, limitations that will soon cease to exist.
It is quicker for the look of fear to convey danger than the words, "look out behind you!". It is quicker for a group of people chanting to convey support than for them to carry out a verbal vote. Language is a burden to expression, but one that is necessary because of trust. Fundamentally, language persuades. Language compels trust.
We continuously remind ourselves that actions speak louder than words. We remind ourselves that at our heart, our true intents are verified by proof of effort. In a post-verbal world, the concept of trust would become trivial. The radical clarity of instantaneous, mutual understanding would enable us to become truly human. Before the spoken word, how do you think the first humans partook in the act of thinking? Evolution hasn't caught up to our self-imposed method of communication. It is time to unlock the true potential of human civilization.
Language is clumsy. The same message, with the same integrity and value, can be nullified by a timid speaker and glorified by a confident one. The same concepts that exist in some languages do not exist in others, despite human beings being capable of understanding them. Yet, without the same tools in one language, the efficiency of explaining the same concept differs between peoples, not because of the lack of intelligence or clarity in thought, but because of the medium to which they are constrained.
Typical conversations follow this pattern: a person speaks, and another hears. The speech is decoded by the brain and it is processed. Then, the brain encodes it into language before replying. This decoding and encoding process is redundant and slow. Oftentimes it is confusing and requires asking clarifying questions. Two people that do not speak the same language cannot communicate at all. On the other hand, two brains that are connected at a fundamental level can communicate the same intent and achieve the same outcomes, without all the nitty-gritty. Direct brain-to-brain communication eliminates the need for a medium and eliminates the terrible approximation of thought that is language.
Neuralink, Elon Musk's idea of a brain-computer interface has achieved some success in the medical field. Just two days ago, Audrey Crews, "Patient P9", was able to write her name with her mind despite being a paraplegic for over twenty years. This is proof that thoughts can be converted into tangible artifacts. In the world of AI, technology is growing at an unprecedented rate and this is just the beginning. Amidst the growth will be confusion, anxiety and uncertainty. This will all be solved when human civilization can communicate as a collective whole, unbounded by language and united by thought.
I sought out to create something as simple as making mornings stress-free, creating an app that dynamically calculates your wake-up time based on real-world traffic conditions. Instead of setting an alarm and waking up without knowing whether you'd get to work or school on time, you set an intent to arrive somewhere at a particular time and you are awoken at just the right time to maximize your sleep and minimize your tardiness. I built this in just two weeks while still studying. It has become easier and easier to build with all the tools at our disposal.
So, I wanted to think bigger. Why stop at making mornings better? Why not the entire day? Why not save you time where you need it? Onwards with the concept of intent: you know what you want when you have a purpose. When you walk into that meeting or call that friend, you communicate to them because you want a solution to a problem. That problem could be as simple as, I wanted someone to hear my thoughts.
I started thinking about meetings, and how we could simplify those. Then, interviews. Everything we do in a corporate setting is built on the bureaucracy and systems that we follow to feel as if we conformed to the "right" method. Why speak in turn when we can vocalize in parallel? Why engage in discourse, arguing about the pros and cons, when deep inside we know exactly what we want and we won't stop until we get it? Everyone has intent. Decisions are made either by consensus, the needs of the many, or the tyranny of the few. Theatre, propelled by language, should be as archaic as three kneelings and nine "kowtows" before the Emperor.
Just as I envision language as an artifact of human civilization, I see meetings as an artifact of decision-making. I want to start by compressing language, maximizing efficiency, and understanding exactly what human beings want in order to achieve their collective success. Through the compression of language, we tokenize our thoughts into b(y)te-sized pieces, ripe for analysis and a critical step forward into an integration with the future of brain-computer interfacing.
Our bottleneck as the human race is not the horizons that our technology can achieve, but by the rate at which we convey our intelligence. The idea that the human race will harness the cumulative mass-energy of our universe is inevitable, as inevitable as the insatiability of human desire. I want to speed up this inevitability so that our civilization can reap the fruits of our growth at our earliest convenience.
I want to take us all one step forward on our journey of a thousand miles. I want to start a movement that will eliminate the bias, judgement and inequity that language enforces. The human race deserves better. Join me, if you want to revolutionize the way humans communicate on a fundamental level.