The Info Diet | #2

Tech, being human, and striking the right balance between the two

Welcome to the 120 new subscribers who have joined in the last two weeks! Thank you for becoming a part of this journey.

For the newcomers… in between long form essays, I publish this bi-weekly (‘ish) piece called ‘The Medium Energy Info Diet’: a simple list of things I consumed that grabbed/moved me most, e.g. articles, podcasts, videos, or books.

This ‘information diet’ is broken into three buckets:

(1) Exponential Technology- news, trends, vectors around all things cutting edge tech, with a focus on AI, spatial computing, and blockchain (the trifecta that I think is going to be the most fundamental and transformative). Will of course include a smattering of quantum computing, biotech, and longevity stuff.

(2) Being Human- all things that promote well-being and self-improvement, e.g. psychology, leadership, mental health, neuroscience, fitness

(3) Tech + Being Human- examples of all the goodness that sits at the center of bucket one and two, aka: the upside from finding the right balance, or healthy tension, between tech and being human (aka Medium Energy, which I’ve lately defined as ‘a state of harmony between exponential tech and the human experience’.

Enjoy!

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Exponential Tech

• Article- Strange Ways AI Disrupts Business Models, What’s Next For Creativity & Marketing, Some Provocative Data: If you want to get smart on what AI can/will do for your business/company, read this.

• Article- Regulating AI by Executive Order is the Real AI Risk: An absolute fleecing of Biden’s recent executive order for AI regulation. Steven Sinofsky argues that this is a "a premature and pessimistic political solution to unknown technical problems and a clear case of regulatory capture.” He believes this will stifle innovation, limit competition, and ensure the large tech incumbents become our corporate overlords. I think he’s right. While nothing is in stone yet, the battle lines are being drawn. This will be one of most important political issues to monitor closely over the coming months/years.

• Company: BlueSea Frontier Compute Cluster: The Future of AI Innovation: Welp, this is one way to address regulation: build AI training capacity outside the reach of any government oversight… in the middle of the ocean. “The rapid pace of artificial intelligence has led to hastily drafted government regulation. Foreseeing this inevitability, Del Complex has engineered a solution ready to set sail. The BlueSea Frontier Compute Cluster (BSFCC)—a groundbreaking venture in international waters, melding cutting-edge technology with unparalleled autonomy.”

• Twitter/X Thread- OpenAI Leaks: A roadmap for the next gen version of ChatGPT was leaked. This isn’t the next version of its LLM (GPT-4 )but rather, the tools, features, and capabilities to make to make their LLM a more robust, accessible, and useful tool. The pace of innovation and competitive urgency in AI right now is wild.

Being Human

• Article: Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children’s Mental Well-being: This is a paper/study from the Journal of Pediatrics. It provides evidence that indicate “a primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.” In other words, we’re not giving kids the level of freedom and indepedence they need to properly develop & thrive. Worth thinking about how tech can help combat this & give parents more peace of mind when kids venture off on their own, while still creating a sense of independence (e.g. an intelligent AI companion, embedded in AR glasses, that acts as a guardian or security mechanism of sorts. Or… a humanoid robot tagging along as a bodyguard/sherpa)

• Podcast: Patrick Collison & John Collison - A Business State of Mind: If you’re looking for better mental models and strategies around leadership & performance, it doesn’t get much better than the Collison Brothers (the founders of Stripe: arguably the most successful startup of the decade)

Tech + Being Human

• Article: The Techno Optimists Manifesto: This one caused quite a stir. And in the face of the recent White House executive order re: AI… it’s the exact message the world needs. Andreesen lays out a hard hitting set of principles & beliefs on why tech, free markets, and capitalism are all key to human flourishing and societal progress; beliefs that I personally subscribe to and that reflect the ethos of this newsletter.

• Article: Riskophilia: An essay from Packy McCormick that pairs nicely with the manifesto above. It reflects on the importance of embracing risk to create the future we all want & need. I think both of these pieces are a must read.