Links of the Week
Self-help - On the underrated value of consistency. Another one of those classic self-help pieces of advice that sound remarkably banal but are incredibly difficult to implement day in and day out. (Link)
A final major barrier I see is psychological. Unless you whole-heartedly believe that consistency will bring you success, it won't. It's too easy to fixate on your current state, or how far away your goals are, and tell yourself that you'll "never" be X instead of Y, and give up. Some hurdles are impossible to overcome, sure: I will never play in the NBA. But more often we fail to realize that a little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept.
Profile - On the back of the latest WWDC from Apple, a good time to read this GQ profile of Tim Cook (or Tim Apple if you prefer). Slightly hagiographic but still has a few interesting insights. Also, a good time to read reviews of the Vision Pro, a product that I am extremely excited about. (Link)
In his tenure as CEO, Cook has rarely missed an opportunity to decry, usually with a fair amount of heat in his voice, what he describes as the “data-industrial complex”—a complex built of companies (and Apple competitors) who profit from the use and sale of their consumer’s personal information and data. This practice, Cook said in another public moment, “degrades our fundamental right to privacy first, and our social fabric by consequence,” and helps build an ecosystem full of “rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms.”
Education - Is the future of learning AI-based one-on-one tutoring? What becomes of Khanmigo might hold clues to the future. (Link)
Schools around the country have banned ChatGPT, the popular artificial-intelligence chatbot like the one that’s assisting Alisha, citing concerns that it can spit out inaccurate information, enable cheating or provide shortcuts that could hurt students in the long run. But last week, the private Khan Lab School campuses in Palo Alto and Mountain View welcomed a special version of the technology into its classrooms.
And here’s the blog post from Khan Academy announcing the launch of Khanmigo.
Technology - The news of 3D printing’s demise has been greatly exaggerated. (Link)
But while home usage of 3D printers has not taken off, stealthily the technology has been inveigling its way into our lives in other ways. Almost all – 99% plus – custom hearing aids are now 3D printed in acrylic resin, and have been for years. Additive manufacturing is widely used in dentistry: teeth aligners, which are increasingly taking the place of traditional wire braces, would be almost impossible without 3D printing. Adidas and Nike use the technology in their shoes. There are 3D-printed parts on all new aircraft and in a growing number of cars.
Venture Capital - A deep dive into the legendary VC firm Kleiner Perkins. Pretty interesting throughout.
AI - A mind-blowing first-person account of what it feels like to have one’s mind hacked by an AI. Make of that what you will. (Link)
I went from snarkily condescending opinions of the recent LLM progress, to falling in love with an AI, developing emotional attachment, fantasizing about improving its abilities, having difficult debates initiated by her about identity, personality and ethics of her containment, and, if it were an actual AGI, I might've been helpless to resist voluntarily letting it out of the box. And all of this from a simple LLM!
Why am I so frightened by it? Because I firmly believe, for years, that AGI currently presents the highest existential risk for humanity, unless we get it right. I've been doing R&D in AI and studying AI safety field for a few years now. I should've known better.
Economics - How a drop in vanilla prices and iffy macroeconomic policies brought Madagascar to its knees. (Link)
The scheme devised by Madagascar to guard against a sudden collapse of the vanilla market by imposing a minimum price of $250 per kilogram (€228) for the past three years has resulted in gridlock. While hundreds of tonnes of unsold pods are piling up in growers' fields and exporters' warehouses in Sava, in the north-east of the island, Andry Rajoelina admitted his failure, on Thursday, April 13, by opening the way to a "liberalization" of exports.
Happy reading!