Charlie Gedeon

A mentor who doesn’t frequently say 'I don’t know' needs to be replaced.

Critical thinking and reflective skills are becoming even more important. As the line between reality and artificiality blurs, and given AI tools sometimes generate outputs that are inaccurate or biased, we need people capable of engaging with information critically. In addition, reflecting on the broader implications of AI on our problem-solving... See more

I think it is more helpful to talk about the underlying processes: spontaneous thought, or the decoupling of attention from perception, which is what happens when our thoughts separate from our perception of the environment. Both these processes take place during mind-wandering and daydreaming.

When you write about the subject, your task is to remember with crystal clarity how bored you were when you first tried to understand it.

When you try to make something that solves everything, you obsess over questions of power: how to make something that is omnipotent and everlasting. But when you make something that does one thing well, the questions are much more personal: does it solve my problem? and for how long? and who for? and where will it push the space around it? I want... See more

I used to value myself based on how fast I was learning and the breadth of the ground I was covering. This was a way to escape my own perfectionism — which caught up to me as soon as I started focusing on only one thing. I’m learning it’s a skill to sit with your mistakes, ask for help, and move slower and more deliberately.

If you’ve ever felt that you can’t focus on a task when you’re hungry — or that all you can think about is food — the neural evidence backs you up. Work from a few years ago confirmed that short-term hunger can change neural processing and bias our attention in ways that may help us find food faster.