provocations

There’s a lot of hype around AI, and in particular, Large Language Models (LLMs). To be blunt, a lot of that hype is just some demo bullshit that would fall over the instant anyone tried to use it for a real task that their job depends on. The reality is far less glamorous: it’s hard to build a real product backed by an LLM .

“The change before the change suggests that perhaps indescribability is, in itself, an evolutionary condition, a built-in extra budget of possibility for unfamiliar formations. I suspect it is, and this indescribability offers the challenge of how to communicate this unseen, submerged process. One is to accentuate the lateness of responding to

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Most people’s mental models of energy are flawed: they think there’s a ‘tank’ of energy that gets depleted as you spend it. This may be roughly true for physical energy, but mental energy is different: spending mental energy on things that you consider productive or important gives you more mental energy for other things: a positive feedback loop.

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Why should what you produce , rather than what you consume , be the most important thing about you? Why shouldn’t the fact that you race boats or watch anime or drink matcha lattes be what defines your identity? Why should I call myself a “writer” rather than a “science fiction fan” or a “rabbit dad”? Just imagining introducing myself as the latter... See more

Everything is hard in some way. It’s hard to be in the wrong relationship. It’s hard to be in the right one. It’s hard to be broke and miserable, it’s hard to achieve your dreams. It’s hard to be stuck in the middle, not really feeling anything at all. Everything is hard, but you choose your hard. You choose what’s worth it. You don’t choose... See more

Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego. You're so sure you'll do everything wrong you're afraid to do anything at all. Often this, rather than "laziness" is the real reason you find it hard to get started

AI discovered wholly new proteins before it could count the ‘r’s in ‘strawberry’, which makes it neither vaporware nor a demigod but a secret third thing.