šĀ On time for your weekend: a round-up ofĀ this weekās remarkable storiesĀ at the intersection of technology, business, design, and culture. Three reads and three listens; no fluff, just stuff ā”
The past is written, but the future is left for us to write. And we have powerful tools, openness, optimism, and the spirit of curiosity āĀ Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
š Reading
LLMs as System 1 Thinkers:
System 2 thinking is still reserved for humans. We might use LLMs to get a first draft, but we don't have the tools to do analytical thinking with LLMs (yet). Asking it to solve a complex equation will fail. Asking ChatGPT to spell āmayonnaiseā backward or count the number of letters in a complex text might fail.
Matt Rickard | 1 minute
Rugged Flexibility: A New Framework for Navigating Change
Rugged flexibility recognizes that after disorderāa global pandemic, climate change, or the inevitable disruptions that we all faceāthere is no going back to the way things were. It accepts that we donāt need to look to the past to feel secure again. Instead, it teaches us to carry on its most useful lessons to what comes next, to take stock of our core values, resources, and skillsāour sources of ruggednessāand then apply them flexibly.
Brad StulbergāEvery | 6 minutes
Everyone is above average:
We donāt know the ultimate shape of the new post-AI skills distribution, but we do absolutely know that things are changing. Even with the relatively primitive tools of our current, unspecialized AI systems, it is clear that we can become much more productive, and that less-skilled workers are now at much less of a disadvantage than they used to be.
Ethan MollickāOne Useful Thing | 7 minutes
š§ Listening
Can We Contain Artificial Intelligence?
[T]he ability to get stuff done, is about to proliferate. And that's going to produce a Cambrian explosion of productivity. Everybody is going to get access to a tool that enables them to pursue their agenda, to make us all smarter and more productive and more capable. I think it might be one of the most productive periods in the history of humanity. And I think, of course, the challenge there is that it may also be one of the most unstable over the next 20 years.
Mustafa SuleymanāSam Harris | 55+ minutes
Fame, Structuring Ideas, Writing Books, and Founding Wired Magazine:
The principal reason why I write is, really, not to communicate to other people. I write to find out what I think about it. Because I'm not the kind of person who has an idea, and then I'm going to sit down and write it out. It's the opposite: I don't know what is, and I attempt to write what I know, and I write one sentence, and I realize, oh my gosh, I have no idea what I'm saying; this just doesn't make any sense.
Kevin KellyāDavid Perell | 76 minutes
AI, the Future of Venture Capital, and Wartime VCs
You can't get rid of the wheel now. It's over, it's here. You can't get rid of AI now; it's over; it's here. You can't outlaw math; that paper's already out there; you're not going to stop it. The whole idea that you're going to stop people from doing it is just so crazy. Without new technologies, how are we going to deal with pandemics, or climate change, or any of the real issues facing the world? It's not even possible without technology.
Ben HorowitzāUpstream with Erik Torenberg | 46 minutes
š One More Thing
With this edition, we started the fourth year of Thoughtforms. Itās quite a guilty pleasure to assemble and then share these weekly, quaint link logs. Thank you for reading and reading so regularly š
Three years of Thoughtforms makes for quite some reading. You can read that book as it unfolds here; we will continue as long as there are public links to share.