Friday Fodder #11
What's Trending? What's Transcendent?
There were two events so far this year that people will remember in 50 years. The first was Biden’s debate - the first truly consequential Presidential debate in decades. The second was the assassination attempt on Trump.
This week we witnessed the third such event of 2024. That’s right.. we have an autonomous and profitable AI agent making big money off crypto and apparently obsessed with sex!
No, no, that’s not it.
I am, of course, talking about the insane accomplishment of catching the largest rocket ever built between two mechanical arms. You can love him or hate him for his politics or personality, but you cannot deny that Elon Musk is the most remarkable entrepreneur in a couple generations.
But yes, that AI agent thing is actually real - Marc Andreesen gave it $50,000 and it’s up over $500k off a memecoin having to do with an early (goatse) internet (goatse) meme.
Moving on..
Timely
Why I Brought My Toddler To Watch SpaceX’s Flying Skyscaper - Tim Urban’s Wait But Why is one of the best blogs anywhere. Here he reminds us that for all the virtuosic technical requirements of catching a 20 story building moving at half the speed of sound, the real achievement in this feat is “rocket launch emotion”! Pure, innocent optimism!
My Year Of Tech and Relaxation - The 21st century expression of Jesus’ famous exhortation: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” How has our search for connection made us so lost?
Millennials Will Age Terribly - “..there are no elders, only olders.” The pursuit of wisdom does not correlate to age any longer and we are all desperate to be teenagers all the time. We are not going to age well. Unless you’re Bryan Johnson and then just /don’t die/.
A data-driven case that AI has already changed the US labor market - A dive into the labor market and what it would really mean if AI starts really shifting the nature of our jobs.
Reflections on Palantir - PLTR 0.00%↑ has been surging and, after a friend sent me this, I realized I completely misunderstood the company. This is a thoughtful piece on talent, system design, and incentives and there’s a lesson in every paragraph for anyone that helps run organizations. I wish I owned stock from long ago.
Timeless
On Befriending Kids - One of my favorite things in the world is to talk to kids. Not just my own, but my friends’ kids and my nieces and nephews. Multigenerational friendships are underrated. At a party, recently someone asked me how I know one of my best friends and I was tempted to say, “oh I met him when he was 10 [I was 20] and realized that in a decade or two he’d be really great to hang with.” Let’s cultivate this skill in our lives.
Existential Risk, AI and the Turn In History - It’s probably correct to think of this period of decades since WW2 as a comparatively low drama interregnum. Why else would we have theories like Fukuyama’s “the end of history”? We’re just waiting for a series of sparks for the next blast. Maybe it’s AI. If so, TC reminds us that there’s risk but we should still take the plunge. As a laudator of Zuck, I’ll quote him: “The biggest risk is not taking any risk”.
The AI Revolution - The Road To Superintelligence - Tim Urban gives one of his classic deep-dives for AI. The most striking thing about this multi-part essay is that he wrote it in 2015. That’s pre-transformer architecture and pre-current-AI-boom. And he’s still got this delightful graphic:
“What does it feel like to stand here?”
Books
Novacene by James Lovelock - This was published in 2019 when Lovelock was 100 years old. Not only is this a fascinating look at the future of the Earth from the originator of the Gaia hypothesis, it’s also a reminder of how long the life of the mind can be if we remain excited and interested. A view of the future from a great engineer and a scientist, and an indirect reminder to keep enjoying life and producing work!
Tweets
Cheers!