Hi all,
1.Ethan Mollick is on of my AI heroes. He’s a Stanford academic who has a way of explaining what’s happening in the world of AI and drawing a straight line to it’s implications. This week his blog was entitled ‘Mass Intelligence’. His point is that the likes of ChatGPT have now reached a level of sophistication AND a price which makes it available to billions of people on the planet. As he says “Powerful AI is cheap enough to give away, easy enough that you don't need a manual, and capable enough to outperform humans at a range of intellectual tasks”. I know some of you find this scary and I understand why, but the upside here is also exciting since we’re at the point where billions have access to this technology so now we’ll see what they do with it in classrooms, courtrooms, and boardrooms around the world. Lewis Goodall (from the News Agents podcast) has recently spent time in the US talking to the great and the good from the AI world. In this episode he talks to Jack Clark (one of the founders of the an LLM company called Anthropic which makes Claude) about the upsides and downsides of AI. he talks eloquently about the scientific discoveries which have been beyond us, not because it’s too difficult, but because we’ve lacked the people with the right skills and capabilities. AI means solving that supply side problem which will accelerate scientific discovery across a wide range of fields, not least medical and climate. Exciting times.
2.I was listening to Ben Evan’s latest podcast this week where he was talking about the lack of differentiation so far between the various AI systems, and that to an extent we have seen this before in other technologies. So once car companies started using wind tunnels, they found the optimum shape for a car so cars started to look the same. Similarly smartphones very quickly looked the same because the industry quickly settled in to the optimum form factor. Whilst I know what he means, I think he underestimates the difference which can be made with tiny product and design tweaks. Take the humble toaster for instance. The technology hasn’t changed much over the years, and yet a recent guest stayed with us for a week and it was the sophistication of our Breville toaster which seemed to be her main takeaway when she told her mum about her stay (which I’m sure just goes to show something). From what I can see, the main difference with our toaster are these design tweaks. It has a button marked ‘A little bit more’ and another facility to ‘Lift and look’ at the toast. Stop smirking. Clearly these are small differences solving first world problems, but in a world of products which have settled on a mean design, they make all the difference.
3.We find ourselves on the cusp of the new season of TV which is always a barren time when I find myself delving deep into the Netflix algorithm’s barrel. However, judging by the trailers I see, the end of September promises and end to this drought. I realise though, that this will not satisfy the likes of Kylie, and so I offer something from my back catalogue. If someone were to put a gun to my head and ask me what my favourite film is I would have to say ‘As Good As it Gets’. Usually my favourite anything turns out to be all about the context in which I found, listened or watched it, but fortunately this one won Best Actor and Best Actress in the 1998 Oscars so it must be good. Usually films fit into a nice genre like ‘coming of age’ or ‘boy meets girl’. This one doesn’t. It’s about a man (Jack Nicholson) who suffers from an unnamed mental health issue which makes him unpleasant to people. Two such people are the waitress at his favourite breakfast place (Helen Hunt) and his gay neighbour (Greg Kinnear) who he mortally offends and then finds himself in a position to help them both. It is a laugh and cry movie, and whether you’ve seen it or not, it’s a must.
Look after yourself,
Ben