Adam Gamwell
@anthrocurious
In pursuit of mutual thriving. Cultural Anthropologist, Technologist, Dad, musician, vibe maker-coder,
Adam Gamwell
anthrocurious.com
Our “small giants” approach optimized for mojo over growth. We wanted a small, talent-dense team with a focus on craft, autonomy, and quality of life for all team members. We banished the term “founder” in favor of “partner” and tried to be transparent with all business matters across the team.
We took some capital from investors in order to invest... See more
We took some capital from investors in order to invest... See more
Muse Retrospective
As we build systems whose capabilities more and more resemble those of humans, despite the fact that those systems work in ways that are fundamentally different from the way humans work, it becomes increasingly tempting to anthropomorphise them. Humans have evolved to co-exist over many millions of years, and human culture has evolved over
... See moreMurray Shanahan • Talking about large language models
I think the most worrisome aspect of AI systems in the short term is that we will give them too much autonomy without being fully aware of their limitations and vulnerabilities. We tend to anthropomorphize AI systems: we impute human qualities to them and end up overestimating the extent to which these systems can actually be fully trusted.
Melanie Mitchell • Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans
Clear’s Law of Recurrence: The number of people who believe an idea is directly proportional to the number of times it has been repeated during the last year—even if the idea is false.
James Clear • Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
Humanity is waking up to the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence, but we don’t yet understand our role. People talk about unexplainable AI when they should be more concerned about the unexplainable humans running the companies that develop the AI. (Hiya, Sam!) People worried about AI taking their jobs and taking control are... See more
Esther Dyson • Don’t Fuss About Training AIs. Train Our Kids
In startups, the big winners are big to a degree that violates our expectations about variation. I don't know whether these expectations are innate or learned, but whatever the cause, we are just not prepared for the 1000x variation in outcomes that one finds in startup investing.
Paul Graham • Black Swan Farming
Imagine if we could somehow show the people of the eighteenth century a simple child’s toy from today — say, a speaking doll.
The common folk would marvel at its ability to speak its few stock phrases. The scientists and engineers would marvel even more at its innards; at the minutely detailed silicon; at the bewildering complexity soon to be within... See more
The common folk would marvel at its ability to speak its few stock phrases. The scientists and engineers would marvel even more at its innards; at the minutely detailed silicon; at the bewildering complexity soon to be within... See more
Towards an experience of humanity
A short meditation on remembering where we place value
By definition, you will likely succeed a vanishingly-small percentage of the time, but—as the saying goes—that’s a feature, not a bug. The point is to venture—fistfuls of money in hand—at the furthest extremes of capitalism, hoping to stumble upon that rare, proper intersection of technology and commerciality.By design, most investments will miss... See more
Tom White • This Time is Different
People worried about AI taking their jobs and taking control are competing with a myth. Instead, people should train themselves to be better humans even as they develop better AI. People are still in control, but they need to use that control wisely, ethically and carefully.