Build-a-HUD

How the Universe stores Information ⓧ Nobody Knows, yet ⓧ Enough with "Copilots"

👋 On time for your weekend: a round-up of this week’s remarkable stories at the intersection of technology, business, design, and culture. Three to read and three to listen to—no fluff, just stuff ⚡

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely —E.O. Wilson

📚 Reading

How the universe stores information:

In DNA, one gene can do many different things, in many different contexts; in an AI model, one weight can do many different things, in many different contexts…Interesting to see a glimpse of this architecture — this strategy — in two different systems, both operating under harsh conditions of selection: one natural, the other artificial. One wonders if this is simply how the universe prefers to store information

Robin Sloan | 2 minutes

Nobody Knows How To Build With AI Yet:

I wasn't programming. I wasn't not-programming either. I don’t know what to call it. We don’t have the word for it yet. The skill isn't syntax anymore. It's not algorithms. It's not even system design, really. It's something like "coherent desire" or "precise imagination" or "structured wishing"…We're all junior developers again…in a permanent sense, where the technology evolves faster than expertise can accumulate.

Scott Werner—Works on My Machine | 7 minutes

Enough AI copilots! We need AI HUDs:

Anyone serious about designing for AI should consider non-copilot form factors that more directly extend the human mind…Routine predictable work might make sense to delegate to a virtual copilot / assistant. But when you’re shooting for extraordinary outcomes, perhaps the best bet is to equip human experts with new superpowers.

Geoffrey Litt | 4 minutes

🎧 Listening

Forecasts vs. Fiction:

I wish that more people did take the time to write these sorts of things because, A, that would help that wisdom percolate out into the broader world faster. And B, it would help distinguish between the true wisdom and the fake wisdom, of the people who think they know what's going on but actually don't…part of the reason why people don't write scenarios, is that if you don't put your thoughts down on paper, then nobody can criticize you for them later, when they're wrong

Daniel Kokotajlo—Jasmine Sun | 35 minutes

Building in Public:

If you're a founder and you raise money you kind of need to go big or bust right. It's hard to stay in between, you can't like 10 million dollars a year, you need to make 100 million dollars a year, you need to become a unicorn…Most people don't get there and they do spend five years or seven years of their 20s on that. Where if you would be an indie you would have a ten million dollar a year company You have 100% ownership.

Pieter Levels—Cheeky Pint | 23 minutes

Podcasts, Politics & the New Media Playbook:

As a consumer…what you're seeing every day are dozens or hundreds of accounts about how the experts are wrong…They're people and they're imperfect and that they have basically built up these reputations that actually cannot be factually supported…When populations realize that these authoritative sources are not actually correct all the time…you'll basically see them crumble.

Marc Andreessen—a16z | 100 minutes

💎 Timeless

1️⃣ year ago—Seeing like a CEO

2️⃣ years ago—Why haven’t internet creators become superstars?

3️⃣ years ago—The future of tech as I see it