Goal

A Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a compelling and clear long-term goal. My BHAG is to "create technology designed to amplify human consciousness". Sounds a little exalted or scary? That's the point of BHAGs. However I'm not quite satisfied with this phrase, so I came up with some alternatives below. Maybe someday I will be able to characterize my BHAG in clearer and more precise terms, and for now I have written a few generic BHAGs, that could probably work for any project if you define the target number of beneficiaries followed by the core functionality:

  • 100k people canceled their facebook accounts thanks to your app
  • 2kk people finished one of your core psychological module
  • 500k people healed depression permanently using your app
  • 150k people rated your assertiveness course at 9/10

Motivation

Over the past few decades technology has had a huge impact on our human psyche. Unfortunately, most often this influence has been negative. Overuse of many popular social platforms can lead to isolation, social anxiety and depression. Some of the most profitable apps have been designed to artificially stimulate the dopamine system which often leads to addiction. Content selection algorithms cause polarization and segregate society into "information cages".

How about we begin to reverse these trends? How about using technology to enhance human self-discovery, heal mental disorders and reveal our potential? Consciousness is a unique phenomenon on the scale of the universe. Some freaks are even working on interplanetary expansion in order to preserve it. But we can start with something more down to earth: let's create easy accessible tools to extract enormous value from our collective experience.

The idea that human consciousness is a valuable resource is not so common. As a civilization we have invented a lot of ways to deprecate self-awareness in a socially acceptable way like alcohol, drugs or dump entertainment. And all these poor people are fighting with their demons each weekend by abusing these anesthetics. Even on an academic level consciousness is often undervalued. I remember from my philosophical studies theories according to which consciousness is just a byproduct of evolution and ultimately will disappear on a higher level of development. That's a sad vision.

Solution

My goal is to create some technological solution. Whether it will be a mobile app or a platform it will consist of three core modules:

Recognize: diagnosis

First module is based on a self-discovery feature. It includes widely known psychological tests like NEO-PI-R or Raven's Matrices. During the development, it will be extended with custom tests powered by AI models trained on collected data. It is already possible to diagnose schizophrenia thanks to simple language models trained in clinical interviews, so I believe that we will be able to diagnose a lot of factors based on simple interviews or even ones Internet activity. In 2014 Tomasz Kolinko plugged in the IBM Watson model to an online forum, which allowed users to analyze their content by personality traits and other psychological attributes. The potential for automated psychological tests is huge and self-diagnosis will not require hours of filling out boring forms.

Protect: recover

Second module consists of self-help programs based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It contains multiple paths to help you achieve goals arising out from the previous module. Recovering from depression, social anxiety therapy or trauma healing just to name a few of the potential paths. CBT provides structured ways to treat many kinds of disorders. As the app develops it will work out the most efficient ways of therapy and customize programs to one's opportunities, predispositions and personal level.

Empower: development

And the final module created for unlocking your potential. It will contain programs such as goal settings, visualization practice or assertiveness training. Anything you need to expand your opportunities or just live a more fulfilling life. At this point VR technologies would be especially helpful. This module will require the most theoretical work and research, as western psychology is more focused on healing rather than improving one's life.

Side Projects

I've worked on many side projects connected to my BHAG before I even wrote it down. Here are some of them:

  • Chrome plugin that will overwrite social platforms algorithms towards more user-oriented. The plugin will allow you to control what kind of content you consume. It will help you to evaluate the emotional tone of information and its psychological impact. And finally it will enable you to manually manage your custom feed. Additionally it will analyze your relationships circle and show you its impact on your mental health.
  • Timeline - WIP
  • Goalboard - WIP
  • Writing Challenge - WIP
  • Toxic Website Blocker
  • Holistic model - WIP
  • Toba - a mobile app that help you to take care of your relationship
  • Habits tracker - WIP
  • Goal Settings - university course for Computer Science students
  • NEO-FFI web app that I created as a fresh psychology student at University of Warsaw. I was almost rejected from the faculty because I carried out test documentation from the laboratory. As I found out lately there is similar project available online: https://bigfive-test.com/