Episode 70: AI on Acid?

In this episode I chat with Mark Michaels, a proclaimed "self-experimenter and uncontrolled experiment" whose life reads like a thousand stories interwoven into one epic narrative.

Mark has spent decades becoming an expert in himself through radical self-experimentation. His current vehicle? Ketamine. His method? Turning the trip into art, science, and provocation simultaneously. His latest project is a groundbreaking paper that blends rigorous scientific writing with creative narrative some of it composed while on ketamine that he describes as both autoethnography and conceptual art.

We explore the intersection of science and spirituality, art and evidence, creativity and precision. The conversation also touches on AI, which Mark used to help draft his paper before "reclaiming it" through his own creative writing a metaphor for what it means to stay sovereign in an age of automation. He talks about the need for people to become experts in themselves rather than passively accepting therapeutic diagnoses as fixed identities. He urges listeners to take charge of their own perceptions, their own experiments, their own evolution.

Mark's paper is now available as a preprint on his website markamichaels.com and is explicitly framed as both a scientific contribution and a provocation, intended to stir up discourse around psychedelics and AI at a critical moment in history. He welcomes moderated comments and is genuinely interested in dialogue.

This is the conversation for people who are tired of false boundaries between disciplines, who want to think differently, and who believe that living an epic life means being willing to be the experiment, document the findings, and offer them to the world: messy, creative, scientific, and transformative all at once.

Listener discretion is advised: This podcast discusses sensitive topics related to trauma, abuse, addiction and psychedelic therapy, which may be sensitive or triggering for some listeners. I encourage listeners to engage mindfully and take care of themselves throughout the conversation.

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Website: ⁠mushroommamasita.com