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”
There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happeningāMarshall McLuhan
š Reading
From silicon to slime:
At some point I think weāll fully realize that whatās happening in the natural world is more computationally efficient, inventive, and resilient than anything we could create from silicon. So then the question becomes: what can we do with those capacities? Can biology teach us how to create new computing architectures that arenāt so extractive? Weāre literally running out of sand. Whatās the new substrate going to be? Could it be alive?
Claire L. EvansāDark Properties | 15 minutes
Help wanted: AI designers
āWhat the hell do we want the model to doā is the ultimate how it works question. To answer it, you need user empathy and taste and the ability to imagine experiences that have never existed before ā all things the tradition of design brings in spades. However, this new person will need skills that are rare on most design teams: [ā¦] they need to be just as obsessed about hanging out with models as they are with talking to users.
Nick HobbsāGoogle Docs | 6 minutes
AI Unicorns Are Running Amok:
New trends mean new companies to back and hope that there is a winner or two in those bets. Itās a good way to deploy dollars, raise future funds, and stay busy. Thatās really the business in a nutshell! Itās all about increasing the surface area for coming up with hits [ā¦] This āAIā boom/bubble is going to throw up winners. In the end, what really matters is which side of the bet you come out on. Thatās what allows you to get to the next bubble ā and eventual bust.
Om Malik | 2 minutes
š§ Listening
Blank Slates, Investing vs Operating, and the Future of AI:
I view this now as this GPT ladder: with every step up and increments of new model GPT-4 to 5, 5 to 6, etc. we're going to open up entirely new markets. Every time there's a big release, suddenly there'll be two or three things that we couldnāt do before. We're on this really interesting curve of giant steps in innovation every two years because of the model cycles. And it's like in the 90s in a semiconductor [ā¦] I think we're going through the same thing right now in AI.
Elad GilāAlex LaBossiere | 77 minutes
Monopolies and Memes:
You've got the platforms and the high priests and the A.I. overlords that make nonlinear amounts of yacht money. And then you have a cohort of people like scrambling to earn rupees in India, creating A.I. content that feeds the platforms. And then you've got this kind of massive upheaval in the middle of people in media [ā¦] trying to leverage unions or whatever kind of economic power they have to just hold on to something in the middle.
Troy YoungāPeople vs Algorithms | 62 minutes
How to Play (and Win) Long Term Games:
What are your goals? What needs to happen for your goals, which people for example you need to meet? And then you ask yourself how can I create the chances that I meet those people. And then when I meet the person how do I create the chance that something happens out of you.
Luca DellannaāInfinite Loops | 86 minutes
š Timeless
1ļøā£ year agoāSci-Fi Idea Bank
2ļøā£ years agoāThe Digital Media āAttentionā Food Chain
3ļøā£ years agoāWhy Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?