Perspectives, Perspectives

There are no AI shaped holes ⓧPractical Perspective Diversity ⓧ The Compound Interest of Small Ideas

👋 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

Working with LLMs: A Few Lessons:

There are no AI shaped holes in the world. What this means is that there are no solutions where simply “slot in AI” is the answer. You’d have to rejigger the way the entire organisation works. That’s hard … If your job requires you to convince people below to use something and above that it will work perfectly, you’re in trouble. They can’t predict or plan, not easily.

Rohit Krishnan—Strange Loop Canon | 7 minutes

Perspective Arbitrage:

In the Industrial Era, the advantage came from controlling production. In the Information Era, it came from owning the data. In the age of connective intelligence, the edge comes from perspective diversity—the ability to hold multiple, even contradictory, views at once. This isn’t philosophical. It’s practical.

Chris Perry—Perspective Agents | 5 minutes

The Compound Interest of Small Ideas:

The practice of generating many little ideas creates a resilience that big-idea hunting lacks. When your value comes from consistent good thinking rather than occasional brilliance, you’re not dependent on lightning striking. You’re building a renewable resource — your ability to notice problems and formulate potential solutions — rather than extracting a finite one.

Christopher Butler | 5 minutes

🎧 Listening

Predicting the Future After 40 Years in Tech:

What you want to have is those zones where there's a frontier. You want to keep making new territory that generates new frontiers. And some people are better on the frontier than back at the center. And I think that's a wonderful way the world would work. I want to maintain both of constantly new frontiers where those are suited to not having to have many rules are able to thrive. And then those who prefer to have the discipline of working within rules also can thrive.

Kevin Kelly—Every | 54 minutes

Jony Ive:

It's part of the human condition that we assume that progress and innovation is sort of inevitable. And you know that it's not. You know that you have to have this underlying conviction, which is fuel. And then we need an idea and a vision. And then the resolve to make that vision something that is real, that is not just for us, but that we can share broadly.

Stripe | 59 minutes

The Next AI Wave Will Be Social, Not Solo:

What are the big consumer wins so far in AI? Of course, it's ChatGPT, which is in a way not that dissimilar from Google in terms of what it was, just a text box. Custom GPTs and in-chat GPT feels criminal to me. It's clearly made by a team that is unbelievably capable, but isn't social. What's the multiplayer network effect type experience? Someone's going to create a UGC type community where there are people who are really, really good, make it so much easier for the rest of us.

Sarah Tavel—Every | 49 minutes

💎 Timeless

1️⃣ year ago—Artificial Creativity

2️⃣ years ago—Noise-Canceling Filters for the Internet are Coming

3️⃣ years ago—The Arc of the Practical Creator