Beautiful

“So what kind of work do you do?” I asked the French woman standing next to me in line.

“I started a company that makes philosophy-driven fragrances” she said.

I was sure I misheard. “…What?”

“Each of our fragrances are inspired by a certain ethos or perspective. When you wear it you invite yourself and those around you to step into that narrative and be inspired by it. In a noisy chaotic world we want people to be able to use their senses to help hold onto their values.”

Wow. Hmm. Should I wear a fragrance??

I found myself shifting from cynicism to curiosity, a shift I made a dozen times over the course of The World Beautiful Business Forum in Athens three weeks ago. I wanted to attend because the program seemed wildly ambitious and I wanted to see how they would pull it off.

After a slew of (American) conferences about AI + work, this European gathering was a delightful change of pace. It was packed with art, science, and yes, philosophy. The three days were structured around “Five Acts”:

The motto was “the most human gathering for the more-than-human world.” It was an embrace of humans + AI mixed with a lot of creativity and confidence.

The first morning kicked off with a funeral march for “The Death of Human Democracy” in which we walked in silence across Athens to an amphitheater where the speakers delivered a eulogy for human-only democracy now that AI will forevermore be a part of this process. “The medium has always been the message. But now the medium also has a message. The medium speaks to us with its own tone and meaning. Instead of trying to keep it out, could we better manage the challenge of AI by inviting it into the political process intentionally?”

In that vein of inviting it in, all Forum sessions were recorded, and overnight an “AIssembly” watched the recordings, had a discussion with each other, and wrote up a summary of their discussion for the humans to read in the morning. There were ten members of the AIssembly, including Cleopatra, Bob Marley, Hannah Arendt, an octopus, and a river.

I found their output a tad verbose but the reactions from “the river” were pretty astonishing. Which fit well with a brilliant keynote about “biomimicry”:

That idea showed up again in a session on creating a regenerative economy, which was cleverly staged inside the old Athens Stock Exchange. We played a simulation game imagining an economy where rebuilding was more heavily rewarded than extracted.

I loved that the first day started with everyone in different sessions around the city, and then we all converged in a theatre at 8:00pm for Act One. A big taverna-style table went down the middle of the stage, with each speaker taking a seat there after their talk.

At one point the organizers invited seven philosophers onstage and then asked them to “think with us.” They stood onstage in silent thought for three full minutes while a Buddhist monk swept the floor around them. It was jaw dropping, an audacious interlude in which the audience went from nervous chuckling to taking it quite seriously - that same shift I made with the fragrance founder.

Act Two opened with a monster on stage, wearing an ancient Greek tunic turned into an alien robe:

The monster was a visitor from the future, which segued into a beautiful video in which an “oracle” from the future told us that 2026 was our last chance to change things - to “thicken instead of thin.” The oracle said “We found all your records and they were perfect, but useless. They told us exactly what you did, not what you meant.” Damn.

Act Three was a simulated boardroom discussion in which four real-life CEOs sat around the table debating a proposal they had just seen from their interns to cut headcount in half and use AI instead. They called in various experts to advise them on what to do. At one point an “activist” burst in and threw soup on the stage art, yelling about the environment, and was escorted off. The CEOs then talked about how to respond and their obligation to future generations.

Act Four - “How I Learned to Love Synthetic” - was a series of stories about people improving or learning about human lives through creative technology. An older couple appeared each holding a small robot they had made, which they placed on opposite ends of the stage. Classical music started, and the robots started coming toward each other, and then when they got close enough, they started dancing with each other - not a preprogrammed routine but something impromptu in which they took turns leading a move and the other would then do the same, then they would move together. When the music stopped, the couple shared that they found each other late in life and made these love robots to express their sense of courtship to each other. Aww.

Act Five culminated in a full-on Greek sirtaki dance, with all the Greek attendees circle dancing on stage. The atmosphere was electric, liberating, full of awe. I felt genuinely moved and emotional. So very different from how my other conferences had ended, feeling depleted and anxious and bored.

On the last day I stopped by a table which was selling sunscreen, and the founder invited me and a stranger near me into a nearby room where the two of us stood next to each other facing a large mirror. On the mirror came prompts, things like “What I’ve always appreciated about my body is…” and “I’m increasingly noticing my own…” which we took turns answering, all while staring at ourselves in the mirror. Deeply moving as you might expect.

When it was done I went back to the founder and asked what I thought was the next reasonable question: “How exactly does this relate to sunscreen?”

He said “I just think it’s really important to connect people to each other. Selling something gives me a way to do that.”

Again I found myself nodding.

That’s actually how I feel about business too.

I had almost forgotten.

More about the Forum next week. For now, I hope you have a Beautiful week of work and life {{first_name|dear builder}}!