Leverage
the fastest path to being perceived as a “genius” (commonplace hyperbole) is to read books that your peers aren’t reading. this will not be a universal perception, but it’s nonetheless a very strong effect that’s amusingly underutilized
x.comSimilarly, when everyone is saying the same things, simply asking why becomes revolutionary.
Fascinating historical case of technological and strategic advantage: 400 Spaniards conquered the 6-million Mexican Empire, and just 180 soldiers overwhelmed the 10-million Incan Empire.
Will AGI bring the same kind of strategic advantage, potentially decisive? https://t.co/vqf7eNpICI
@john_lam @simonw Reminds me of this Joel Spolsky anecdote "the gridlines are the most important feature of Excel" that I've never forgotten https://t.co/ygM8xxm8tw https://t.co/DDnam30nEQ
hate to admit it, but this tracks. ui design starts becoming more important the moment you have a sufficiently capable data structure/model in place
users will ask for features when what they actually want is a specific view
this probably explains notion » coda
notion has very good views and is adding automations after the fact
coda has very good automations and is adding views after the fact
my hunch is most people are visual learners. they prefer to have information laid out the right way and only then can they reason about it.
automations are reasoning before seeing
this is also why cli tools, chatbots, and other text based ui paradigms are niche or quickly fall out of favor. too much reasoning without the requisite framing.
And the uncredited bioweapon
The State of AI with Marc & Ben
open.spotify.comAI and the Internet are different phenomena.
The internet increased the leverage of computers by connecting them to other computers. Amplifies things that benefit from wider distribution. Network effects.
LLMs are stateless calculators (computers). Amplifies things that have a lot of computational complexity. Quick and Reliable decision making.
Quote reply to the previous tweet that captures most of my thoughts well with lots of examples.
Excerpts:
(On design): When designing productivity software, conceptualize it as a medium first and foremost, and a tool secondarily.
(On chatbots as UI): Its browsing, code interpreter, and Dall-E tools are testament to this upside-down design philosophy: the tools go to work first, only thereafter you see some output.
With the exception of code interpreter, interactions with ChatGPT are largely stateless and transactional. Manipulations are indirect.
It's becoming increasingly evident that in many circles, AI is not perceived as merely a technology, but as "something else" entirely. This misconception is exemplified by the recurring debate: "Humans vs AI." To illustrate the absurdity of this framing, let's replace "AI" with "technology":
"Humans vs... See more
Cristóbal Valenzuelax.comWhat Alan Kay has been emphasizing, and which is now at the heart of Bret Victor’s design philosophy, is that the computer is a “dynamic medium.” The essence of a computer is not the keyboard, the mouse, and the screen. It’s computational and responsive capabilities that don’t exist in a static medium like paper. We should use this dynamic medium... See more