About LIGHTNET
Why I’m building LIGHTNET
I care about how my life feels and how the people close to me are doing. Do we have energy for what matters to us? Can we understand one another and look forward to the day ahead? For me, that is where well-being begins.
My name is Valery Litvin. I’m building LIGHTNET around a network of people who make helping others their work. I want to help them offer more personal support, understand each person’s circumstances and reach far more people.
That idea led to a platform of AI channels. Each channel brings a particular author’s method and perspective together with what you share about yourself: events, feelings and your experience of trying practices. It gives you a way to work independently with an approach you choose, turning to it in everyday life.
Being yourself in a changing world
I’ve been through a personal crisis myself. It made me reconsider what I valued. The days kept passing, and how I felt as I lived through them mattered more and more. Did I feel like doing anything? Could I support the people close to me? Did I know what was meaningful to me?
A crisis can change a life someone has spent years building. Automation is changing work and how we imagine our futures. Add an endless stream of other people’s achievements, and it can be hard to hear your own wishes.
When the things that once guided you fall away, you have to ask yourself again: what matters to me? How do I want to live? What can I rely on within myself?
How we feel affects the possibilities we see and what we dare to do. Our actions, in turn, change how we feel and the circumstances around us. I want people to have support in that work: understanding themselves, finding the energy to act, doing something they have long put off or admitting that something needs to change.
People who know how to help
Some people dedicate their lives to making life easier for others, including psychologists, coaches, mentors and people who develop practices. They listen, help make sense of difficult things and teach ways to understand yourself and make changes. People turn to them when they find it hard to cope alone.
But everyone’s time is limited. You may need support in the evening after a difficult conversation, in the middle of an ordinary working day or when you have a decision to make. You want to be able to keep working on yourself even when there is no one you can turn to in person.
We live in different cultures, speak different languages and have different ideas of a good life. That is why I want to bring together people with different methods and experience: so each person has more choice about whom to turn to and whose approach to try in their own circumstances.
Support in everyday life
I chose AI channels because they let you work with a method using your own life as the starting point. You can ask a question that has just come up, explain why a piece of advice does not fit or return to an earlier topic. The author defines the approach and runs the channel; the AI handles the conversation.
You can use the approach of someone you trust to understand your feelings, get an explanation or learn a practice, without having to pay for one-to-one sessions.
We are developing memory of what you have shared and a way for the channel to follow up on a suggested practice. This could help you continue the work from one conversation to the next. Read more on the AI channels page.
For an author, a channel offers a way to build a subscription-based digital business. I want helping others to be a sustainable livelihood, and access to a method not to depend on how many free hours its author has.
How I’m building this
I trained as a physicist. I work in information technology, run a business and research AI. I practise mindfulness in my personal and family life. LIGHTNET brings together my experience of building technology and the questions I work through in my own life.
The idea of personal support began with AIMAN, which became LIGHTNET’s first channel. I’m now developing the platform, talking with people who have developed their own methods and personally helping them launch channels. It matters to me to build this tool with the people who will use it and understand what they and their audiences need.
My wife, Vinera Litvin, is a project adviser. She helps with practices and product direction and is studying for a master’s degree in data analysis and psychology. Together we discuss how LIGHTNET could develop for women and children.
In the longer term, I’m betting on new ways to study our inner lives. Flourishing AI is our work towards AI that supports long-term human well-being. I want the experience of this network to help us better understand what kinds of support are useful to different people.
An invitation to join
I’m building LIGHTNET for people who share the desire to help others. If this is your work and you want to expand what you can offer, I’d like to meet you.
Email me or get in touch on Telegram: @cyborgshead. Tell me whom you help and how you work. We can discuss how LIGHTNET could be useful to you and the people you support.