Thomas Thomison (@TomThomison) profile picture

Entrepreneur | Co-founder of HolacracyOne | Architect of PowerShift® Ecosystem | Champion of psychedelics to awaken | Reimagining Work, AI, and Human Agency

Austin, TX
Joined July 2014
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
🇩🇪 In diesem Podcast gehen wir auf die Reise zu den “Inseln der Sinnhaftigkeit” im Ozean eines zunehmend chaotischen Weltgeschehens. 🇺🇸 In this podcast, we embark on a journey to the “islands of meaning” in the ocean of increasingly chaotic world events. letscast.fm/sites/islands-of…
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what a privilege it is to face such difficult problems in such interesting times
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Je reçois de plus en plus de messages privés de personnes très proches des élites parisiennes. Le constat est simple : Je suis devenu radioactif. Pourquoi ? Parce que je défends des idées devenues presque interdites dans certains cercles : La liberté d’expression. La liberté individuelle. Le droit d’entreprendre. La responsabilité personnelle. La réduction du poids de l’État. La simplification radicale de la bureaucratie. L’idée qu’un individu libre crée plus de valeur qu’un comité. L’idée qu’aucun bureaucrate à Bruxelles, Paris ou ailleurs ne sait mieux que des millions de citoyens ce qui est bon pour eux. Je pense que les entrepreneurs créent davantage de prospérité que les administrations. Je pense que l’innovation résout plus de problèmes que la réglementation. Je pense que la technologie est le plus puissant moteur de progrès que l’humanité ait jamais connu. Et oui, j’admire Elon Musk. Pas parce qu’il est parfait. Mais parce qu’avec une fraction des moyens des États, il a : Révolutionné le spatial. Accéléré la transition vers les véhicules électriques. Déployé un réseau Internet mondial. Fait avancer les interfaces cerveau-machine. Contribué à démocratiser l’IA. Pendant que des armées de bureaucrates produisent des milliers de pages de régulations, certains bâtissent. Et je préfère les bâtisseurs. Comme disait Victor Hugo : « Vous avez des ennemis ? Tant mieux. Cela signifie que vous avez défendu quelque chose dans votre vie. » Et pour être honnête, c’est même pire que ça. À partir du moment où défendre ces idées crée des ennemis, j’ai tendance à redoubler d’efforts. L’opposition n’est pas un signal d’arrêt. C’est souvent un signal que l’on touche à quelque chose d’important. Alors à ceux qui veulent entrer en conflit avec moi sur ces sujets : allez-y. Le débat, la confrontation des idées et le combat intellectuel sont un carburant. Je ne cherche pas les ennemis. Mais je ne les crains certainement pas. Les bâtisseurs n’ont jamais obtenu la permission de construire le futur.
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Around the turn of the 20th century, Argentina was among the richest countries on Earth, then spent a century squandering that lead through volatile economic policy and political instability.  Leading the world with policies on AI personhood can perhaps make it a comeback no one is expecting.
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
In an unprecedented push for deregulation, Argentine President Javier Milei has introduced legislation to permit fully autonomous, AI-operated corporations. Argentine President Javier Milei has submitted a groundbreaking legislative proposal to Congress that could make Argentina the first nation to legalize "non-human corporations" run entirely by artificial intelligence. Under this proposed legal framework, these entities would be operated autonomously by AI agents or robots, rendering human shareholders completely optional. Promoted in a high-profile Financial Times op-ed, Milei’s radical pitch aims to transform Argentina into a global tax haven for tech giants by keeping AI entirely unregulated, promising a massive leap in productivity by freeing enterprise from the constraints of the human brain. The bold initiative has sparked immediate international backlash from legal experts and ethicists, who warn that granting legal personhood to AI-controlled entities creates a dangerous loophole of "programmed impunity." Critics, including prominent historian Yuval Noah Harari, argue that allowing software to execute contracts, manage funds, and carry out business operations without a designated human owner shifts liability to unaccountable machines, potentially giving rogue AI agents dangerous access to global financial and political systems. As tech leaders eye the South American nation as a regulatory escape hatch, the proposal forces a global reckoning over the future of corporate responsibility. source: Landymore, F. (2026). Argentina Moves to Legalize 'Non-Human Corporations' Run by AI. Futurism.
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
SpaceX a clôturé son premier jour de cotation à 2 100 milliards de dollars, +19%. Tout le monde regarde le chiffre. Personne ne regarde ce qu'il price réellement. Laissez-moi vous dire ce que le marché vient d'acheter, et pourquoi je pense que cette boîte vaudra 30 à 50 trillions d'ici 5 ans. D'abord, le symbole. Cette IPO est un référendum. D'un côté, 20 ans de discours sur la décroissance, la sobriété, la redistribution, la fin de l'histoire gérée par des comités. De l'autre, un homme qui a dit "je vais rendre l'humanité multiplanétaire", que tout le monde a traité de clown, et qui vient de créer la plus grosse entreprise cotée de l'histoire en partant d'un entrepôt à El Segundo. Le marché a voté. Le wokisme avait des départements RH, SpaceX avait des fusées. Les fusées ont gagné. Ensuite, la mécanique économique, parce que c'est là que tout le monde se trompe. Les analystes valorisent SpaceX comme une entreprise de lancement plus Starlink. C'est comme valoriser Internet en 1995 sur le marché du fax. Starship ne réduit pas le coût du kilo en orbite de 20%, il le divise par 100. Et chaque fois dans l'histoire qu'un coût d'infrastructure est divisé par 100, ce n'est pas le marché existant qui grossit, ce sont des industries entières qui naissent. Le coût du calcul divisé par 100 a donné Internet, le smartphone, l'IA. Le coût de l'orbite divisé par 100 va donner une économie spatiale complète. Faisons la liste de ce qui devient rentable quand le kilo en orbite coûte le prix d'un billet d'avion. Les data centers orbitaux, avec énergie solaire continue et refroidissement gratuit, au moment exact où l'IA fait exploser la demande énergétique terrestre. La fabrication en microgravité de semi-conducteurs, de fibres optiques, d'organes imprimés impossibles à produire sous gravité. Le tourisme orbital de masse, puis les hôtels lunaires, qui passeront du fantasme au business plan exactement comme la croisière de luxe au 20ème siècle. Le transport point à point terrestre, Paris-Tokyo en 40 minutes. L'industrie minière des astéroïdes, dont un seul corps de classe M contient plus de métaux que tout ce que l'humanité a extrait depuis le néolithique. Et Mars en ligne de mire, pas comme destination touristique, mais comme le plus grand projet d'infrastructure jamais entrepris, avec tout ce que ça implique de demande en énergie, matériaux, robotique, IA. SpaceX ne participera pas à ces marchés. SpaceX possède le péage d'entrée de tous ces marchés. C'est AWS, mais pour la civilisation. Apple vaut 3 500 milliards en vendant des rectangles de verre sur une seule planète. Le premier monopole d'accès à une frontière infinie à 30 ou 50 trillions dans 5 ans, ce n'est pas de l'exubérance, c'est une simple règle de trois sur l'expansion du marché adressable. Et maintenant, la partie que je préfère. Ce futur n'a pas besoin de bureaucrates. Il n'y a pas de comité consultatif en orbite. Pas de commission Théodule sur Mars. Chaque dollar de cette nouvelle économie sera créé par des ingénieurs, des techniciens, des soudeurs, des pilotes, des entrepreneurs. Les diplômés en gestion de la norme vont devoir apprendre un métier utile, et franchement, c'est une excellente nouvelle pour eux aussi : construire est infiniment plus fun que contrôler. Parce que c'est ça, le vrai signal d'aujourd'hui. Pendant 50 ans on nous a vendu un futur rétréci : moins d'énergie, moins d'enfants, moins d'ambition, gérer le déclin proprement. Et là, d'un coup, le plus gros actif financier du monde est un pari sur l'abondance, l'expansion et l'aventure. Le pessimisme vient de passer en position vendeuse sur lui-même. Le futur sera méga fun. Il y aura des hôtels avec vue sur la Terre, des honeymoons en orbite, des gamins qui diront "papa, c'était comment avant les fusées réutilisables" comme on dit "c'était comment avant Internet". Et quelque part dans les années 2030, un humain marchera sur Mars en livestream devant 5 milliards de personnes, et ce jour-là plus personne ne se souviendra du nom d'un seul de ses détracteurs. Achetez de l'optimisme. C'est encore sous-valorisé.
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
"creativity" emerges in wake of deep distress felt when one's experience of reality is not our consensus - what remains is no other choice but to disrupt the consensus
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
Stephen Wolfram says language lets humans package private thoughts and transmit them to other minds. He argues we already guess about consciousness in people, animals, and soon AIs by observing behavior, not peering inside. He claims brains, weather systems, and computers all run computations that reach the same ultimate power level. This “principle of computational equivalence” blurs the line between human thought and other complex processes. It suggests that many systems we meet including advanced AIs deserve to be treated as thinking in their own way.
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
🧵 Unpopular opinion: Most companies are using AI completely wrong OpenAI analyzed data from 1M+ enterprises. The gap between winners and losers isn't what you think: 🧵 1/ Everyone thinks the gap is: "Some companies use AI, others don't." Wrong. The REAL gap is: "Some companies DELEGATE to AI. Others just CHAT with it." The difference? 320x growth in reasoning token usage. 2/ What "chatting" looks like: "Write me an email" "Summarize this doc" One-off requests with no memory What "delegating" looks like: Custom GPTs that know your brand voice + data Automated workflows with 10+ steps API integrations into core systems 3/ The data doesn't lie: Companies using Custom GPTs/Projects: 19x growth YoY Why? Because they're building persistent agents, not having conversations. BBVA runs 4,000+ custom GPTs. That's not usage. That's infrastructure. 4/ Here's what blew my mind: Non-technical workers (marketing, HR) are now doing CODING. 36% increase in coding-related messages from non-engineering roles. AI didn't replace technical work. It REDISTRIBUTED technical capability. 5/ The org chart is melting: Old world: "I need IT to build me a dashboard" New world: "I just built it myself with Claude/ChatGPT" This is why frontier firms have 2x messages per seat. Their people stopped waiting for permission. 6/ What actually separates leaders from laggards: ❌ NOT fancier models ❌ NOT bigger budgets ✅ Executive sponsorship ✅ Data connectors turned ON (25% still haven't) ✅ Culture of experimentation Technology isn't the constraint. Courage is. 7/ Bottom line: If your "AI strategy" is a ChatGPT license + a lunch-and-learn... You're cooked. The companies winning are treating AI like they treated "going digital" in 2005. Infrastructure. Integration. Transformation. [END: "Is your company chatting or delegating? Be honest. 👇"]
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Most people treat AI like Google: ask a question, get an answer. But what if AI could think *like/with you?* I reverse-engineer "Theory of Mind" to test if the model can form a "theory of my mind". Using AI as a mirror to understand myself by giving it personal context and seeing how well it can embody/reflect my expertise back to me helps me to evaluate the model's thinking. This is something like a single-user, multi-model human-AI synergy benchmark where the task is "strategic alignment with your own expertise." Here's my hypothesis: Does pre-loading context create emergent synergy and enhance collective intelligence? If the LLM has: - Your projects (what you've built) - Your career details (how you think about growth) - Your self-description (your values/philosophy) 1. Does this response sound like something I'd say? 2. Does it reveal blind spots I hadn't considered? 3. Does it reduce the "explanation tax" I pay in every conversation? Different models excel at different aspects of "me." Before you think I'm building a digital mirror to talk to myself: this isn't about AI companionship or AI psychosis. It's actually bout me understanding the model's reasoning so I can deploy the right model for the right task. I'm my own test subject because I have ground truth: I know what I actually think, what I'd actually decide, what I'd actually prioritize. Most benchmarks lack this. When a model says "Muratcan would choose X," I can immediately verify: "No, I'd choose Y because of Z." I think everyone should do this with their own domain expertise. - If you're a manager, load your case history and test which model best applies your reasoning. - If you're a creative, load your portfolio and test which model understands your aesthetic principles. - If you're a founder, load your strategy docs and test which model identifies blind spots in your go-to-market plan. AI should serve as an extension of your strategic thinking, a collaborative partner.
You know how some people seem to have a magic touch with LLMs? They get incredible, nuanced results while everyone else gets generic junk. The common wisdom is that this is a technical skill. A list of secret hacks, keywords, and formulas you have to learn. But a new paper suggests this isn't the main thing. The skill that makes you great at working with AI isn't technical. It's social. Researchers (Riedl & Weidmann) analyzed how 600+ people solved problems alone vs. with an AI. They used a statistical method to isolate two different things for each person: Their 'solo problem-solving ability' Their 'AI collaboration ability' Here's the reveal: The two skills are NOT the same. Being a genius who can solve problems in your own head is a totally different, measurable skill from being great at solving problems with an AI partner. Plot twist: The two abilities are barely correlated. So what IS this 'collaboration ability'? It's strongly predicted by a person's Theory of Mind (ToM)—your capacity to intuitively model another agent's beliefs, goals, and perspective. To anticipate what they know, what they don't, and what they need. In practice, this looks like: Anticipating the AI's potential confusion Providing helpful context it's missing Clarifying your own goals ("Explain this like I'm 15") Treating the AI like a (somewhat weird, alien) partner, not a vending machine. This is where it gets strange. A user's ToM score predicted their success when working WITH the AI... ...but had ZERO correlation with their success when working ALONE. It's a pure collaborative skill. It goes deeper. This isn't just a static trait. The researchers found that even moment-to-moment fluctuations in a user's ToM—like when they put more effort into perspective-taking on one specific prompt—led to higher-quality AI responses for that turn. This changes everything about how we should approach getting better at using AI. Stop memorizing prompt "hacks." Start practicing cognitive empathy for a non-human mind. Try this experiment. Next time you get a bad AI response, don't just rephrase the command. Stop and ask: "What false assumption is the AI making right now?" "What critical context am I taking for granted that it doesn't have?" Your job is to be the bridge. This also means we're probably benchmarking AI all wrong. The race for the highest score on a static test (MMLU, etc.) is optimizing for the wrong thing. It's like judging a point guard only on their free-throw percentage. The real test of an AI's value isn't its solo intelligence. It's its collaborative uplift. How much smarter does it make the human-AI team? That's the number that matters. This paper gives us a way to finally measure it. I'm still processing the implications. The whole thing is a masterclass in thinking clearly about what we're actually doing when we talk to these models. Paper: "Quantifying Human-AI Synergy" by Christoph Riedl & Ben Weidmann, 2025.
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
Either you crack general intelligence -- the ability to efficiently acquire arbitrary skills on your own -- or you don't have AGI. A big pile of task-specific skills memorized from handcrafted/generated environments isn't AGI, not matter how big.
New post: Thoughts on AI progress (Dec 2025) 1. What are we scaling?
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Hey folks, here's a primary on Post-Labor Economics. I know many people here have only followed my tweets, but are not aware that PLE is actually a very well developed framework, with a forthcoming book on the topic. So here's a 6 minute primer on PLE.
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5.24g of mushrooms left measurable physiological and emotional fingerprints on my body. This is a first-of-its-kind, face and body thermal map of a psychedelic experience. Notes: 1) my core body temp increased 1.5-2°F (~1°C), matching human studies in which 30 mg psilocybin raises temperature by 1.8°F (1.0°C). 2) my upper chest and throat increased 2.5°F (1.4°C), producing a thoracic heat bloom visible in the thermal image. 3) my nose and lips cooled significantly, showing emotional intensity, sadness, and arousal. 4) my cheeks warmed showing joy, connection, happiness and subtle sadness. 5) my forehead cooled showing cognitive effort, introspection. 6) arms cooled showing peripheral vasoconstriction. 7) my fingertip SpO₂ decreased by 5% due to lower measured oxygen saturation at the fingertips due to peripheral vasoconstriction and reduced blood flow to the extremities. Overall, there was sympathetic activation, peripheral vasoconstriction, and increased cardiovascular load, leading to increased core and reduced peripheral blood flow. Around the peak (2.5 hrs), my heart rate was still elevated by 15 bpm (55 bpm to 70 bpm), and interestingly my fingertip SpO₂ was decreased by 5% (99% to 94%), both consistent with lasting sympathetic activation. While acute sympathetic activation typically does not substantially affect systemic arterial blood oxygenation in healthy individuals, it can lower measured oxygen saturation at the fingertips due to peripheral vasoconstriction and reduced blood flow to the extremities.
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Agree with Chris as well as the data. Democracy 🤝 Capitalism 🤝 Science 🤝 Technology This is the Way
The far left and far right share the false belief that the world has been getting worse rather than better
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Thomas Thomison retweeted
Interactive quantum neural network built with Three.js and GLSL shaders, wrapped in a glassmorphic UI. Click or drag sends pulses while form, colors, and density update in real time through the interface. Let me know in comments if you want the code and I’ll share it.
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"Whitehead on the Ingression of Novel Form" (a response to Michael Levin's proposal for a Platonic Research Program in biology youtu.be/ojll25IWOn8?si=rKGS…
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