👋 On time for your weekend: a round-up of this week’s remarkable stories at the intersection of technology, business, design, and culture. Three reads and three listens; 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
Overpromising & Stumbling Bambis:
If I had to choose, I’d prefer to be part of a culture which encourages exploration and experimentation, but that will require a change in our collective patience. Flaws are part of every new thing, and we need to remember that. If we’re to make progress we’ll need to give these ideas time to marinate and evolve, the third generation of this ‘new thing’ might well become a vital part of our everyday lives if we don’t kill it first.
Nick Foster | 12 minutes
The Era of Abstraction & New Creative Tensions:
The best integrations into existing workflows (unlocked by designers) and the novel and transformative interfaces (discovered by designers) will sit on top and become the surfaces we ultimately choose to engage with. For companies with a shortage of design talent, they will lose market share to startups that value design. But in this age, unless you’re building the core models, design advantages will outperform tech advantages.
Scott Belsky—Implications | 11 minutes
The State of the Culture, 2024:
The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity […] It’s a huge business, and will soon be larger than arts and entertainment combined. Everything is getting turned into TikTok—an aptly named platform for a business based on stimuli that must be repeated after only a few ticks of the clock.
Ted Gioia—The Honest Broker | 10 minutes
🎧 Listening
OpenAI Sora, Google Gemini, and Meta:
I think that a lot of what we're seeing, is this more and more fine tuning, more and more of this other work being done to these models over time, and we're getting this bullet point, super hedged style that's very inhuman. I see exactly how it makes sure not to get the thumbs down, and I see exactly how it makes sure not to piss anybody off, and it's incredibly frustrating and makes my life worse than if you just do the thing.
Zvi Mowshowitz—Cognitive Revolution | 137 minutes
The New Internet:
I think you need one of three things to do well in the AI world. One is a strong entertainment IP or a sport or something like that. Two, a specific identity personality […] and then three is having a very protectable data set. If your work is based off stuff that is available over the open internet, you're dead in the water. And by automating it, you're just accelerating your demise.
Alex Schleifer—People vs Algorithms | 61 minutes
7 Trillion Reasons Why:
The thing that's bothering me the most about the Vision Pro right now, is that it's extremely hard to communicate with other people using it. Using text messaging inside the Vision Pro, it's like that old adage that the first ads when the TV appeared, were people reading a radio ad sitting in front of a camera. That's what text messaging on the Vision Pro feels like to me. This isn't how I'm supposed to communicate with other people through this thing.
Dave Morin—More or Less | 62 minutes
💎 Timeless
1️⃣ year ago—Let’s (Not) Make Bots In Our Own Image
2️⃣ years ago—‘Disruption’ Is a Two-Way Street
3️⃣ years ago—The case for opsimaths. Maybe late bloomers aren't so late