Daniel Miessler's Blog, page 10
June 17, 2024
The Fast-Slow Problem
I’ve been obsessed lately with the concept of slow versus fast. I’m calling it the Fast-Slow Problem.
It refers to the speed and amount of dopamine that you get from a thing. So in the distant past, an apple would have been a treat, and especially an apple pie because it took so long to prepare and enhanced those apples, which were themselves not easy to come by.
That’s slow. From the difficulty of finding the thing, and from the long process of creating an apple pie.
A box of donuts on the other hand is fast.
First of all, you can just walk in and say, “give me a dozen donuts”, and second, a donut has been engineered to taste better than 100 crates of apples.
So if you eat six donuts, and bite into an applle, it’ll taste like 3-D printed styrofoam.
There are many other examples of this, including porn being the fast, extracted version of sex, and TikTok being the fast, extracted version of reading a book or watching a movie.
I worry that this is what’s happening with dating and relationships.
They say young people don’t want to get into relationships or have sex with each other anymore. Evidently they would rather do other things.
This feels very much like the Fast-Slow Problem.
What if it is as simple as teenagers and young adults having more Fast options on their phones and TVs, and they are so good that the Slow options of companionship and relationships simply can’t compete?
It’s one thing when a doughnut competes with an apple, but in this case, the fast versus a slow problem might literally be affecting the future of the species.
I’m not sure what the complete answer is here, because I’m sure there are places where the fast version is simply better and not just faster. But what I do know is that I think we should start being very cautious about replacing slow versions of things with fast versions of things.
There is meaning in doing things slowly. Slow walks while holding hands. Reading physical books in natural light. And making apple pies from scratch.
I think we should do our best to figure out what those slow, meaningful things are, and ensure that we keep as many of them in our lives as possible.
NOTESBeing born and raised in the San Francisco, Bay Area, I also find it interesting how conservative this idea is. It’s like I’m literally saying that the old way is better than the new way, and we need to hold onto it. Which is weird for me. But yeah—reading physical books in natural light is probably better than watching TikTok on your phone. I’m willing to take that non-progressive stance.
Powered by beehiiv
June 16, 2024
ASTRA Scores: AI-Powered Assessment and Rating Systems
I just woke up with an idea that went from amazing to alarming in about three minutes.
The core ideaAI is about to replace many systems that were designed to teach, test, filter, and rate people.
Here are some examples.
Teaching and testingInteractively and creatively teaching people new content and then doing a live, multi-modal test with the student to see if they’ve learned the material.
This is the one that woke me up, and I was like:
Example: New employee training at a companyWow!—this will be so cool.
So imagine like someone onboarding at a company, and they need to learn the various HR policies, main cultural concepts, how to request resources, how to get access to different systems, security practices, etc.
Today we have someone live teaching these classes with slides, or people are just given slide decks—perhaps with some video—and are told to self-study.
Then they take a multiple-choice test—which is designed to be pretty damn easy—and they’re done.
That’s the current old way.
The new wayThe new way would be like a life-like AI avatar that has all the knowledge of what needs to be learned and absorbed.
And they look at the person’s background, the companies they’ve worked at, the school they went to, etc.—and they come up with a perfect way to teach the content to them. But they’re also a world-class expert teacher and expert at creating curricula.
How? Because the avatar is based on the knowledge of a massive pinnacle model like GPT-5 or whatever.
The new way of testingWhen it comes time to test, instead of multiple-choice questions, you actually have a conversation with this avatar. They present you with scenarios, and you have a conversation with them.
They ask you questions like why or why not? They ask you what about questions.
Again, it’s a conversation. And they can go down various different paths to establish that you either do or don’t know the material well enough to safely start working.
So that’s the teach-and-test paradigm. Pretty cool.
Scores can and will get a LOT scarierBut then we come to scoring.
What if—after this long conversation—they can give you a safety score? Or a knowledge score about how deep your knowledge is about the company policies. Or how easy you are to trick with a suspicious email.
Still seems fine.
But the more I started thinking about this—as I was still waking up—I realized how big this actually is.
What about?
Hiring
Dating
Access to special parties
(see even more exclusive things)
The bigger test-to-rating trendThis is where I started getting scared.
Think about an ultra-deep interview by an AI with full world-knowledge. Like a GPT-6 level intelligence—say a 200 I.Q. (conservatively)—but more importantly, a vast understanding of what makes people successful in various endeavors.
The Astra™️ ScoreAstra is the company with the most popular score on YouTube and Insta and TikTok in 2026 (yes, it survived). Your Astra is a score between 1 and 100, with multiple subscores.
Here are some of the aspects of the test:
A 3-day (7 hours a day) deep interview with a full-sized AI representative from Astra.
Knowledge and Past
Your personal life philosophy
Your personal life goals
Your understanding of math, physics, biology, history, economics, and many other disciplines.
Your understanding of human nature
A review of everything you’ve written online, every video you’ve made, etc.
A review of everything that’s ever been said about you publicly online
Your past, your traumas, your preferences, what you’re looking to accomplish in life
Your work history
Your skills
Your past relationships and how they continue or how they ended
Etc.
Scenarios
They then present you with all sorts of scenarios to actually test what they learned above, and tease out more information on your personality type and strengths and weaknesses
They also use immersive tech to put you under stress and see how you respond
The whole thing is done with a full camera on you in your surroundings, so they’re observing body language, facial expressions, etc. as well as your actual answers and your voice.
Health biomarkers, taken from blood and saliva samples. Optional, but encouraged. 😀
The result of all of this is your constellation of Astra scores, which is rolled up to on Astra™️ score.
93Astra
The scary part is how it will be usedNow think about hiring.
What do you think will be more predictive of success in a job? A set of arbitrary questions from a hiring panel, or your Astra score in the areas of Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, IQ, Work history, Talent score, Discipline score, etc?
Uh, yeah.
The Astra AI will take all your scores. All your work history. All your personality traits. Your fucking blood work. Analysis of everything that’s been said about you. Everything you’ve ever said. A thorough review of your publicly-visible work for your whole career. A deep personality analysis of you whole past and your life. Analysis of your honesty from your body language and voice and facial expressions….etc.
And it will use its full knowledge of what makes people successful, combined with its full knowledge of human psychology and a growing list of other profiles it can correlate with—and output an answer.
It’ll be the closest thing to a true assessment of a person that we’ve ever seen, and it won’t be close.
I’m an AI-optimist who sees good that can come from something like this, but this still scares the crap out of me. Why? Because for every company that builds a benign-ish version, there will be 3 companies building a dystopian version.
Let’s keep goingOk, so we talked about hiring.
Something like this might replace a lot of hiring processes. Or Astra will simply get trained on what the company needs and will create custom interview avatars for just that particular role.
The point is, this level of depth will be way better—in terms of being more predictive of success—than anything that’s come before it.
Now let’s expand into greater society.
People with high scores will display them right on their personal APIs, so people can visually see them in their AR interface.
Someone showing off how great they are with their Astra/Omni scores
Think about dating. Think about vetting for whether you want to start a family with someone.
There will be scores for:
Current financial state
Financial potential
Family dependability
Excitement
Conversation quality
Humor
Skill in bed
Trust with friends
Knowledge of Greek literature
These scores will be extraordinarily deep and accurate. But will they capture who we really are?
Or an even worse question—will people even care if they do once they get popular?
A universal vetting mechanismWhat this all starts to point to is a cycle of:
Teach
Test
Rate
AI will be the best teachers, because they can be multi-modal, super-intelligent, and nearly all-knowing—plus they can tune their teaching style perfectly for the student.
Ditto for the testing. It can be so natural feeling, and can pull out the truest and best performance from the student.
And then the ratings. They’ll be so multi-faceted. So deep. And so damning when they’re low.
My concernMy biggest worry with systems like this is that it’ll take bias that already exists in the world and put actual numbers on them.
You take one look and think “not dating material”, but you don’t know how you came up with that. Well, Astra can tell you. Here’s a breakdown of 137 subscores that resulted in them getting a 38/100 in “should you date them.” Answer: No.
So damning. So final. So gross.
It reminds me of dystopian sci-fi. It reminds me of eugenics. It reminds me of elitism. It reminds me of basically everything we shouldn’t be building.
But we will build this. I guarantee you people have already started.
The problem is that existing, legacy rating systems are so bad, and so crappy at being predictive, that these replacements will be gobbled up by so many entities that need them to thrive.
Companies need the best people. Intelligence groups need people who are steady and reliable. Single people need someone who will be a good partner.
Our morals run everything until they don’t. And the point where a bad decision can harm you is exactly where that line is.
Just like AI itself, expect this. It’s not a thing that might happen, or could happen. It’s a thing that will happen—and probably already is.
Powered by beehiiv
June 10, 2024
UL NO. 436: Thoughts on the Future of AI & Societal Stability
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
SECURITY | AI | MEANING :: Unsupervised Learning is my continuous stream of original ideas, analysis, tooling, and mental models designed to help humans thrive in a world full of AI.
TOCNOTESHey there,
Today’s a big religious day for me, perhaps my Holiest day. Yes, the WWDC Keynote. And this year it included massive updates that I absolutely loved. My quick couple of thoughts:
Apple just won AI.
They caught up and past everyone in one shot.
The thing they get is that it's about the integrations, not the standalone features.
And they're the only platform with the product knowledge combined with the tech capabilities.
In. Sane.
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
Jun 10, 2024
One thing that wasn’t clear from Apple’s presentation today was how much of Apple Intelligence is Apple-native vs. integration with OpenAI.
It mostly sounded like only the ChatGPT branded stuff was OpenAI, and that would be fine.
I’d be a lot less comfortable if basically all… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
Jun 10, 2024
Prety disappointed none of the main AI features seem to be in the iOS18 betas that were just released. So basically everything is for later this year? Booo.
Later today I’m going to train kickboxing for the first time formally—other than one-off lessons. Pretty sure I’m going to sign up at the place and alternate between kickboxing and jits.
One of the most important conversations ever on AI Safety. A must-watch. It’s 4.5 hours and better than any movie.
Wrote a new Fabric pattern called capture_thinkers_work, which does a capture of a thinker, author, or philosopher’s work. So basically their background, their main ideas, the work they produced, and more. Example:
echo "hayek" | fabric -sp capture_thinkers_work
My thread on how to find a good mentor:
💡🤝💪Being mentored by someone ahead of you can change your whole trajectory, but there are good and bad ways to do it.
📄
Here are the main things to do—and avoid doing—when contacting and working with a mentor.
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
Jan 19, 2023
Experimenting with adding source names to stories now so people can see where they’d be taken. A frequently-requested feature.
Ok, let’s get to it…
Hey there!
I’m trying to get better at asking people to share my work. I think a lot of people can benefit from knowing there are others out there like them.
🫶 So—if you know someone smart, and kind, and voraciously curious—like you—please share the newsletter with them. 🫶
Share UL with someone kind and curious…And if you’re not yet a member, please come join us in the UL community. We have vibrant conversations, a monthly book club, and so much more.
Become a UL Member !!!See you in chat!
MY WORKMy new member piece on the future of AI. Lots of good stuff in here!
A Collection of Thoughts and Predictions About AI (June 2024)
Predictions, responses, ideas, and miscellanea regarding AI and the future
danielmiessler.com/p/a-collection-of-thoughts-and-predictions-about-ai-june-2024
SECURITYDespite Europe's ban on Russia's RT network, its content is still sneaking through via sites like Man Stuff News. These platforms are republishing RT's articles, effectively bypassing restrictions and continuing to spread disinformation. NYTIMES | by Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers
TikTok's latest headache was a zero-click attack that's been hijacking celebrity accounts by just opening a DM. THE HACKER NEWS
💡The new tactic Tiktok is using to avoid the split-off lawsuit is separating out the algorithm for US users. Not sure that’ll be enough, though.
A new paper claims GPT-4 can now autonomously hack zero-day vulnerabilities with a 53% success rate using a team of specialized agents. | ARXIV
💡I’ll keep reading and posting these when the claims are interesting and they’re from respected outfits, but watch the quality of the paper closely. Look especially at how much of their testing methodology they posted.
Here’s the Fabric analyze_paper analysis for this paper, for example.
Ticketmaster and other organizations just got hit by a data breach through Snowflake. Looks like a lot of the latest big breaches where we keep hearing about new affected customers for months. SECURITYWEEK | WIRED by Matt Burgess
Sponsor
Calculate the time you can save by automating compliance
Whether you’re starting or scaling your security program, demonstrating top-notch security practices and establishing trust is more important than ever.
Vanta automates compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, HIPAA, and more, saving you time and money while helping you build trust.
Plus, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer-facing Trust Center, all powered by Vanta AI.
Instantly calculate how much time you can save with Vanta.
vanta.com/automation-value-calculator
Calculate NowA Chinese drone photographer got snagged by the U.S. Espionage Act for snapping pics of a military shipyard. PETAPIXEL | by Jeremy Gray
Eric Schmidt's latest venture, White Stork, is testing AI military drones in Silicon Valley and Ukraine, blending tech innovation with frontline warfare. | by Sarah Emerson | FORBES
Sponsor
Top 3 web application security vulnerabilities in 2024
We've isolated the top 3 critical web application security vulnerabilities that Aikido users face. This guide outlines what they are, why they're so common, and how to fix them - along with some risky runner-ups we couldn't ignore.
Address these early and effectively, and you'll already be well ahead in the fight to keep your web application secure against cybercrime.
akido.dev/blog/web-application-security-vulnerabilities
Read BlogOpenAI revealed that its AI tech was used by Russia and China for sneaky online influence ops. They've been crafting social media posts and editing articles to skew public opinion and mess with geopolitics. NYT | by Cade Metz
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
TECHNOLOGYEverything Apple Talked About in the WWDC Keynote TECHCRUNCH
Fabric SummaryApple's WWDC 2024 introduced major updates across its platforms, including Vision OS, iOS 18, and new Apple Intelligence features.
# MAIN POINTS:
1. Vision OS 2 introduces spatial photos, new gestures, and enhanced productivity.
2. iOS 18 offers deeper customization, new privacy controls, and a redesigned Photos app.
3. Apple Vision Pro expands with new apps and developer APIs.
4. Apple TV Plus celebrates its fifth anniversary with new original content.
5. WatchOS 11 introduces training load metrics and a new vitals app.
6. iPadOS 18 brings a floating tab bar, math notes, and smart script handwriting features.
7. MacOS Sequoia includes iPhone mirroring, enhanced Safari, and new gaming titles.
8. Apple Intelligence integrates generative models for personalized experiences.
9. Siri becomes more natural and contextually aware with Apple Intelligence.
10. Developers gain new APIs and frameworks to integrate Apple Intelligence into their apps.
💡One of the features I loved most was the fact that you can send money by bringing your phone next to someone else’s now.
Apple was like ‘yeah let’s do Venmo but make it absolutely sick’
— Sebastiaan de With (@sdw)
Jun 10, 2024
All the startups Apple killed today. X
The U.S. needs 225,000 more cybersecurity workers to close the talent gap, according to CyberSeek. | by Eduard Kovacs | SECURITYWEEK
💡I’ve always had doubts about numbers like these. It all comes down to how you ask the question, who you ask, etc.
And it’s even more nuanced now, given that AI will be able to start filling in demand.
But at the same time, more stuff is about to be built, so that’ll be more stuff that needs to be secured.
Apple just hit the $3 trillion mark again, but Nvidia jumped ahead to the world's second-most valuable company. Microsoft is still on top, but I predict not for long. | MACRUMORS
💰Cartwheel, spearheaded by Andrew Carr, secures a $5.6M seed round for its groundbreaking text-to-animation tool. TECHCRUNCH
⚙️Ollama CLI just got a slick interactive upgrade, making managing LLM models a breeze. | by x-cmd | X-CMD.COM
✏️WiredJS brings a fresh twist to UI design with its hand-drawn, sketchy look that makes interfaces feel more personal and engaging. | by preetster | WIREDJS
🗺️ShadeMap — A project that maps every mountain, building, and tree shadow for any date and time, blending terrain data with AI to estimate tree canopy heights. | by shademap | SHADEMAP
👨💻How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Interactive Edition is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to get into the mindset of coding. | by Christopher Schuster | HACKER NEWS
Starship just nailed its first-ever landing burn after surviving re-entry. Previously the ship burned up on the way up or on re-entry. Crazy progress for just a few months. TWITTER
The world’s largest solar farm, a 3.5-gigawatt facility in Xinjiang, China, is now online and will generate enough electricity to power over 2 million EVs annually. | ELECTREK
The USA's solar panel manufacturing capacity jumped 71% in Q1 2024, hitting a record 11 GW of new capacity. Florida and Texas are leading, while California struggles due to policy changes. | CLEANTECHNICA
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
HUMANSDavid Brooks argues that progressive energy has shifted from the working class to elite universities, making these institutions more left-leaning than ever. He points out that protests and progressive opinions are now predominantly found at wealthy, elite schools, while working-class campuses remain relatively quiet. NEWYORKTIMES
Greg Lukianoff argues that the farther left you lean, the more anxious, depressed, and unhappy you are. The data shows that 57% of very liberal students report poor mental health at least half the time, compared to 34% of very conservative students. | SUBSTACK
Gurwinder proposes we're facing an "Intellectual Obesity Crisis," where too much information leads to mental sluggishness. | by Gurwinder Bhogal | HACKER NEWS
Burnout can make you feel helpless, incompetent, emotionally exhausted, isolated, and cynical. Yale faculty explain the neurobiological basis behind burnout symptoms and how to reverse them. | by Kayla Yup | YALE DAILY NEWS
The US is about to fund Moderna's cutting-edge mRNA vaccine for bird flu, as the H5N1 virus makes an unwelcome visit to egg farms and cattle herds. FINANCIAL TIMES
The New York Times' deep dive into the devastation of Ukraine through satellite data reveals destruction on a scale hard to fathom, akin to leveling Manhattan four times over. | by Marco Hernandez, Jeffrey Gettleman, Finbarr O’Reilly, and Tim Wallace | NYTIMES
Sticking around at the same company for more than two years might cost you, big time—like, half your paycheck big. FORBES
US job openings hit a three-year low, signaling a cooling labor market but with layoffs still surprisingly low. CNN
Viagra improves brain blood flow and could help to prevent dementia. | by University of Oxford | HACKER NEWS
A new poll shows that 49% of Independents think Trump should drop out after his guilty verdict. | by Alex Thompson | AXIOS
💡I predict this effect wears off and Trump will be polling even with Biden within a month, if not sooner.
X just updated its terms to give the official approval to adult content. THEVERGE
Ernest Hemingway wrote a deeply moving letter to friends who lost their son, saying that those who truly live never really die. | by Maria Popova | THE MARGINALIAN
One of the coolest life wisdom threads I’ve come across. X
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
IDEAS & ANALYSISI think I figured out the simplest possible answer for why Trump is still doing so well.
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
Increasingly starting to think the most important factor in the 2024 election is that:
1. Biden represents a left that thinks the US is evil and needs to be reformed
2. Trump represents a center and right that believes the US is the best country in the world and should thrive
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
Jun 7, 2024
An extraordinary conversation between two insanely curious people.
I recommend you follow them both.
APHORISM OF THE WEEKI’m trying to get better at asking people to share my work. I think a lot of people can benefit from knowing there are others out there like them.
🫶 So—if you know someone smart, and kind, and voraciously curious—like you—please share the newsletter with them. 🫶
Share UL with someone kind and curious…And if you’re not yet a member, please come join us in the UL community. We have vibrant conversations, a monthly book club, and so much more.
Become a UL Member !!!See you in chat!
Happy to be sharing the planet with you,
Powered by beehiiv
A Collection of Thoughts and Predictions About AI (June 2024)
Member Post
I have been talking about AI and making limited predictions about it for nearly 10 years now, but some new ideas and thoughts have come out recently that I want to comment and expand on.
I'm specifically speaking of the wondrous conversation between Leopold Aschennbrenner and Dwarkesh Patel, and Leopold's collection of essays he recently released on the topic of AI safety (my summary here).
That’s what kicked off a bunch of ideas, and I now have so many I need to make a list.
Table of ContentsHow I see the AI paths of development
Reacting to Leopold and Dwarkesh's conversation
Thoughts on the ladder to AGI and then to ASI
So that’s what I’m going to cover in this long post, done in the jumping style of my annual Frontview Mirror pieces that I do for members.
How I see the ladder path to ASI / Consciousness
Subscribe to Unsupervised Learning Membership to read the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Unsupervised Learning Membership to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
Upgrade Translation missing: en.app.shared.conjuction.or Sign In
A subscription gets you: Access to the UL community and chat (the thinking and sharing zone) Exclusive UL member content (tutorials, private tool demos, etc.) Exclusive UL member events (currently two a month) More coming!Powered by beehiiv
June 5, 2024
Podcast Summary: Dwarkesh vs. Leopold Aschenbrenner
This is a Fabric conversation extraction (using the extract_wisdom_dm pattern) of the 4-hour conversation between Dwarkesh and Leopold about AGI and other topics.
SUMMARYLeopold Aschenbrenner discusses AGI timelines, geopolitical implications, and the importance of a US-led democratic coalition in developing AGI.
IDEAS- CCP will attempt to infiltrate American AI labs with billions of dollars and thousands of people.
- CCP will try to outbuild the US in AI capabilities, leveraging their industrial capacity.
- 2023 was when AGI went from a theoretical concept to a tangible, visible trajectory.
- Most of the world, even those in AI labs, do not truly feel the imminence of AGI.
- The trillion dollar AI cluster will require 100 GW, over 20% of current US electricity production.
- It is crucial that the core AGI infrastructure is built in the US, not authoritarian states.
- If China steals AGI weights and seizes compute, it could gain a decisive, irreversible advantage.
- AGI will likely automate AI research itself, leading to an intelligence explosion within 1-2 years.
- An intelligence explosion could compress a century of technological progress into less than a decade.
- Protecting AGI secrets and infrastructure may require nuclear deterrence and retaliation against attacks.
- Privatized AGI development risks leaking secrets to China and a feverish, unstable arms race.
- A government-led democratic coalition is needed to maintain security and alignment during AGI development.
- Solving AI alignment becomes more difficult during a rapid intelligence explosion with architectural changes.
- Automated AI researchers can be used to help solve AI alignment challenges during the transition.
- AGI may initially be narrow before expanding to transform robotics, biology, and manufacturing.
- The CCP's closed nature makes it difficult to assess their AGI progress and strategic thinking.
- Immigrant entrepreneurs like Dwarkesh Patel demonstrate the importance of US immigration reform for progress.
- Trillions of dollars are at stake in the sequence of bets on the path to AGI this decade.
- Many smart people underestimate the intensity of state-level espionage in the AGI domain.
- Stealing the weights of an AGI system could allow an adversary to instantly replicate its capabilities.
- Algorithmic breakthroughs are currently kept secret but could be worth hundreds of billions if leaked.
- Small initial advantages in AGI development could snowball into an overwhelming strategic advantage.
- AGI may be developed by a small group of top AI researchers, similar to the Manhattan Project.
- Privatized AGI development incentivizes racing ahead without caution in order to gain a market advantage.
- Government-led AGI development can establish international coalitions and domestic checks and balances.
INSIGHTS- The US must proactively secure its AGI development to prevent a catastrophic strategic disadvantage.
- Leaking of AGI algorithms or weights to adversaries could be an existential threat to liberal democracy.
- Policymakers and the public are unprepared for the speed, scale, and stakes of imminent AGI progress.
- Privatized AGI development is incompatible with the coordination and caution required for safe deployment.
- A government-led international coalition of democracies is essential to maintain control over AGI technology.
- Immigration reform to retain top foreign talent is a critical strategic priority for US AGI leadership.
- Scenario planning and situational awareness are crucial for navigating the complex path to AGI.
- Hardening AGI labs against state-level espionage will require military-grade security beyond private capabilities.
- Timely and decisive government intervention is needed to nationalize AGI before a private lab deploys it.
- Humanity must proactively shape AGI to respect democratic values, rule of law, and individual liberty.
QUOTES- "The CCP is going to have an all-out effort to like infiltrate American AI labs, billions of dollars, thousands of people."
- "I see it, I feel it, I can see the cluster where it's stained on like the rough combination of algorithms, the people, like how it's happening."
- "At some point during the intelligence explosion they're going to be able to figure out robotics."
- "A couple years of lead could be utterly decisive in say like military competition."
- "Basically compress kind of like a century worth of technological progress into less than a decade."
- "We're going to need the government to protect the data centers with like the threat of nuclear retaliation."
- "The alternative is you like overturn a 500-year civilizational achievement of the government having the biggest guns."
- "The CCP will also get more AGI pilled and at some point we're going to face kind of the full force of the ministry of State security."
- "I think the trillion dollar cluster is going to be planned before the AGI, it's going to take a while and it needs to be much more intense."
- "The US bared over 60% of GDP in World War II. I think the sort of much more was on the line. That was just the sort of like that happened all the time."
- "The possibilities for dictatorship with superintelligence are sort of even crazier. Imagine you have a perfectly loyal military and security force."
- "If we don't work with the UAE or with these Middle Eastern countries, they're just going to go to China."
- "At some point several years ago OpenAI leadership had sort of laid out a plan to fund and sell AGI by starting a bidding war between the governments."
- "I think the American National Security State thinks very seriously about stuff like this. They think very seriously about competition with China."
- "I think the issue with AGI and superintelligence is the explosiveness of it. If you have an intelligence explosion, if you're able to go from kind of AGI to superintelligence, if that superintelligence is decisive, there is going to be such an enormous incentiveto kind of race ahead to break out."
- "The trillion dollar cluster, 100 GW, over 20% of US electricity production, 100 million H100 equivalents."
- "If you look at Gulf War I, Western Coalition forces had 100 to 1 kill ratio and that was like they had better sensors on their tanks."
- "Superintelligence applied to sort of broad fields of R&D and then the sort of industrial explosion as well, you have the robots, you're just making lots of material, I think that could compress a century worth of technological progress into less than a decade."
- "If the US doesn't work with them, they'll go to China. It's kind of surprising to me that they're willing to sell AGI to the Chinese and Russian governments."
- "I think people really underrate the secrets. The half an order of magnitude a year just by default sort of algorithmic progress, that's huge."
- "If China can't steal that, then they're stuck. If they can't steal it, they're off to the races."
- "The US leading on nukes and then sort of like building this new world order, that was kind of US-led or at least sort of like a few great powers and a non-proliferation regime for nukes, a partnership and a deal, that worked. It worked and it could have gone so much worse."
- "I think the issue here is people are thinking of this as chat GPT, big tech product clusters, but I think the clusters being planned now, three to five years out, may well be the AGI superintelligence clusters."
- "I think the American checks and balances have held for over 200 years and through crazy technological revolutions."
- "I think the government actually like has decades of experience and like actually really cares about this stuff. They deal with nukes, they deal with really powerful technology."
- "I think the thing I understand, and I think in some sense is reasonable, is like I think I ruffled some feathers at OpenAI and I think I was probably kind of annoying at times."
- "I think there's a real scenario where we just stagnate because we've been running this tailwind of just li
ke it's really easy to bootstrap and you just do unsupervised learning next token prediction."
- "I think the data wall is actually sort of underrated. I think there's like a real scenario where we just stagnate."
- "I think the interesting question is like this time a year from now, is there a model that is able to think for like a few thousand tokens coherently, cohesively, identically."
HABITS- Proactively identify and mitigate existential risks from emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
- Cultivate a strong sense of duty and responsibility to one's nation and the future of humanity.
- Develop a nuanced understanding of geopolitical dynamics and great power competition in the 21st century.
- Continuously update one's worldview based on new evidence, even if it contradicts previous public statements.
- Foster international cooperation among democracies to maintain a strategic advantage in critical technologies.
- Advocate for government policies that promote national security and protect against foreign espionage.
- Build strong relationships with influential decision-makers to shape the trajectory of transformative technologies.
- Maintain a long-term perspective on the societal implications of one's work in science and technology.
- Cultivate the mental flexibility to quickly adapt to paradigm shifts and disruptive technological change.
- Proactively identify knowledge gaps and blindspots in one's understanding of complex global issues.
- Develop a rigorous understanding of the technical details of artificial intelligence and its potential.
- Seek out constructive criticism and dissenting opinions to pressure-test one's beliefs and assumptions.
- Build a strong professional network across academia, industry, and government to stay informed.
- Communicate complex ideas in a clear and compelling manner to educate and influence public discourse.
- Maintain a sense of urgency and bias towards action when confronting existential risks to humanity.
- Develop a deep appreciation for the fragility of liberal democracy and the need to defend it.
- Cultivate the courage to speak truth to power, even at great personal and professional risk.
- Maintain strong information security practices to safeguard sensitive data from foreign adversaries.
- Proactively identify and mitigate risks in complex systems before they lead to catastrophic failures.
- Develop a nuanced understanding of the interplay between technology, economics, and political power.
FACTS- The CCP has a dedicated Ministry of State Security focused on infiltrating foreign organizations.
- The US defense budget has seen significant fiscal tightening over the past decade, creating vulnerabilities.
- China has a significant lead over the US in shipbuilding capacity, with 200 times more production.
- AGI development will likely require trillion-dollar investments in compute and specialized chips.
- The largest AI training runs today use around 10 MW of power, or 25,000 A100 GPUs.
- Scaling AI training runs by half an order of magnitude per year would require 100 GW by 2030.
- The US electric grid has barely grown in capacity for decades, while China has rapidly expanded.
- Nvidia's data center revenue has grown from a few billion to $20-25 billion per quarter due to AI.
- The US produced over 10% of GDP worth of liberty bonds to finance World War II spending.
- The UK, France, and Germany all borrowed over 100% of GDP to finance World War I.
- The late 2020s are seen as a period of maximum risk for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
- China has achieved 30% annual GDP growth during peak years, an unprecedented level in history.
- AlphaGo used 1920 CPUs and 280 GPUs to defeat the world's best Go player in 2016.
- The Megatron-Turing NLG has 530 billion parameters and was trained on 15 datasets.
- The number of researchers globally has increased by 10-100x compared to 100 years ago.
- The US defense budget in the late 1930s, prior to WWII, was less than 2% of GDP.
- The Soviet Union built the Tsar Bomba, a 50 megaton hydrogen bomb, in the 1960s.
- The Apollo program cost over $250 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to land humans on the Moon.
- The International Space Station required over $100 billion in multinational funding to construct.
- The Human Genome Project cost $3 billion and took 13 years to sequence the first human genome.
REFERENCES- The Chip War by Chris Miller
- Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman
- The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
- The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Inside the Aquarium by Viktor Suvorov
- The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner
- The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop
- The Myth of Artificial Intelligence by Erik Larson
- Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
- Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
- The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian
- Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
- The Precipice by Toby Ord
- The Bomb by Fred Kaplan
- Command and Control by Eric Schlosser
- The Strategy of Conflict by Thomas Schelling
- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy
- The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark
- The Accidental Superpower by Peter Zeihan
RECOMMENDATIONS- Establish a classified task force to assess and mitigate AGI risks to national security.
- Increase federal R&D funding for AI safety research to $100 billion per year by 2025.
- Overhaul immigration policy to staple a green card to every US STEM graduate degree.
- Harden critical AI infrastructure against cyberattacks and insider threats from foreign adversaries.
- Develop post-quantum encryption standards to protect sensitive data from future AGI capabilities.
- Launch a public education campaign to raise awareness of the transformative potential of AGI.
- Strengthen export controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment to slow China's AI progress.
- Create an international coalition of democracies to coordinate AGI development and safety standards.
- Increase DoD funding for AI-enabled weapons systems to maintain a strategic advantage over China.
- Establish a national AI research cloud to accelerate US leadership in AI capabilities.
- Pass a constitutional amendment to clarify that AGIs are not entitled to legal personhood.
- Develop AGI oversight committees in Congress with top-secret security clearances and technical advisors.
- Create financial incentives for chip manufacturers to build new fabs in the US.
- Increase funding for STEM education programs to build a domestic pipeline of AI talent.
- Launch a Manhattan Project for clean energy to power AGI development without carbon emissions.
- Establish a national center for AI incident response to coordinate actions during an emergency.
- Develop international treaties to prohibit the use of AGI for offensive military purposes.
- Increase funding for the NSA and CIA to counter foreign espionage targeting US AI secrets.
- Establish a national AI ethics board to provide guidance on responsible AGI development.
- Launch a government-backed investment fund to support promising US AI startups.
ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAYThe US must launch a government-led crash program to develop safe and secure AGI before China does.
—
You can create your own summaries like these using Fabric’s extract_wisdom pattern found here.
To learn more about Fabric, here’s a video by NetworkChuck that describes how to install it and integrate it into your workflows.
Powered by beehiiv
June 4, 2024
UL NO. 435: Making New Things is Post-AI Safety
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
SECURITY | AI | MEANING :: Unsupervised Learning is my continuous stream of original ideas, analysis, tooling, and mental models designed to help humans thrive in an AI-powered world.
TOCNOTESHey there,
Lots of good stuff this week:
My definition of prompt engineering JUMP
My analysis of AI’s impact on the job market JUMP
I’m working on a number of new talks. I didn’t think I’d be doing this. I planned on having like 2-3 for the whole year, and just doing them different places. But I like this problem. It’s better than the opposite of having no new ideas.
I published a new official_pattern_template in Fabric. It’s basically all my latest format and instruction tricks in one place, and it’ll be the new model I apply to all my prompts. And I’ll keep it updated as the state-of-the-art advances and empirical testing becomes available. MORE
I did my buddy Jason Haddix’s RED BLUE PURPLE AI class last week, and it was phenomenal. Jason is the best teacher I know and going to his classes are a unique combination of learning, hanging with friends, and bettering yourself—all in one. Absolutely loved both days of content. When it becomes available again, you should sign up.
Ok, let’s get to it…
MY WORKCheck out this new sponsored conversation I had with Abhishek Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Material Security. We talk about:
why product managers are such good co-founders
the need for customized security measures for different organizations
the role of AI in detecting email threats
the importance of single-tenant environments for sensitive customers
and the potential risk of default settings in productivity suites like Google Workspace
Abhishek seriously built this service the same way I would have, and I absolutely loved the conversation.
—
🎙️ My new piece on getting the perfect sound from your microphone, including a bunch of audio tips and analysis of the sounds of top podcasters.
Analysis of Mics and Mic Sounds Used by Podcasters
The difference between different mics, their sounds, post-production, desired sounds, and other podcast-related microphone information
danielmiessler.com/p/podcast-audio
—
This one is political, but centrist. I think you’ll like it if you’re not extreme on either end, but if you don’t like political content—skip it. 😀
The Left's Brexit
The right hobbled the UK with Brexit, and now the left in US has done the same with Stormy Daniels
danielmiessler.com/p/left-brexit
SECURITYCheck Point Vuln
Check Point swiftly released hotfixes for a VPN zero-day, CVE-2024-24919, which is being exploited to infiltrate networks. | HIGH | RESPONSE: Hotfixes released for affected versions. | MORE
Massive Botnet Bust: $5.9 Billion Stolen
The US and international agencies dismantled a colossal botnet responsible for stealing $5.9 billion. This botnet, known as 911 S5, infiltrated over 19 million IP addresses across nearly 200 countries. MORE
AI Against Jamming: Ukraine's Drone Solution
Ukraine's special forces developed Eagle Eyes, a software that lets drones navigate using AI and machine vision, bypassing Russian jamming. Eagle Eyes uses AI to compare live video with pre-collected maps, enabling drones to operate independently of GPS or operator signals. MORE
💡This is the exact tech from Daniel Suarez’ Kill Decision. Basically, offline drones that didn’t need a connection to any network or signal to function.
Sponsor
Enhance Enterprise Security: Trust Every Device with 1Password!
When you go through airport security, there's one line where the TSA agent checks your ID, and another line where a machine scans your bag. The same thing happens in enterprise security, but instead of passengers and luggage, it's end users and their devices.
These days, most companies are pretty good at the first part of the equation, where they check user identity. But user devices can roll right through authentication without getting inspected at all. In fact, 47% of companies allow unmanaged, untrusted devices to access their data. That means an employee can log in from a laptop that has its firewall turned off and hasn't been updated in six months. Or worse, that laptop might belong to a bad actor using employee credentials.
1Password finally solves the device trust problem. 1Password ensures that no device can log into your Okta-protected apps unless it passes your security checks. Plus, you can use 1Password on devices without MDM, like your Linux fleet, contractor devices, and every BYOD phone and laptop in your company.
Visit 1Password.com/unsupervisedlearning to watch a demo and see how it works.
1Password.com/unsupervisedlearning
Watch a DemoSmart Home Tech in Warfare
Home Assistant is being repurposed to alert people of incoming missile and drone attacks in Ukraine. MORE
Data Deletion Services
Incogni is another service like DeleteMe that removes your info from over 170 data brokers. MORE
Sponsor
Build Trust and Accelerate Growth with Vanta
Whether you’re starting or scaling your security program, Vanta helps you automate compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more.
Streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer-facing Trust Center.
Over 7,000 companies like Atlassian, Flo Health, and Quora use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get $1,000 off VantaTicketmaster Breach
Ticketmaster got hit by a group called ShinyHunters, and it looks like around 560 million people’s data has been stolen. MORE
A Few Spread the Most Fake News
In 2020, a tiny group of 'supersharers', mainly older Republican women, spread 80% of the misinformation online. The studies reveal that small, persistent groups can have a significant impact on propaganda and misinformation, and in this case, especially on vaccine hesitancy. MORE
NSA's Easy Hack Protection Tip
The NSA released a guide to keeping your phone from being hacked. One of its top recommendations was simply to reboot your phone once a week. MORE | THE REPORT PDF
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
TECHNOLOGYSpeed King: Groq's Llama 3 8B
Groq's Llama 3 8B model exceeded 1,200 tokens per second. I’m telling you, this thing is FAST. It seriously feels fake. It’s like the result is pre-run and stored, but it’s actually running in real time. MORE | GO CHECK IT OUT
💡So here’s the question: why doesn’t Google or OpenAI or Microsoft just offer this guy $1 billion in cash for this technology? Or has that happened already? This is one of the most insane stories in AI right now.
One guy basically has magic beans (proprietary chip tech) that lets him run AI multiple times faster than anyone else in the world.
OpenAI's Apple Deal: A Game Changer?
Satya Nadella is reportedly freaking out over a potential OpenAI and Apple collaboration. Cool story but I just want Apple to fix Siri. If that doesn’t happen, nothing happened. MORE
Outperforming Standard Attention
Researchers have developed new attention mechanisms that actually outperform the standard multi-head attention. MORE
Recall: A Privacy Disaster?
“Stealing everything you've ever typed or viewed on your Windows PC is now a reality, thanks to a feature in Copilot+ Recall that's a privacy nightmare.”
AI wrote that, and while I think it’s true, I disagree with the take. As I talked about last week, this tech is pure magic. In 10 years, almost everyone will think computers without this functionality are worthless. MORE
💡Actually in 10 years most people will be talking and gesturing to their computers. The “computer” will mostly be monitors and/or HUD displays, and your personal AI will be the one doing the work.
So the idea of your AI forgetting work that you did, or who said what when, will be a completely asinine idea. OF COURSE your AI remembers everything! How else would it be useful?
LLMs Aren’t Just Internet Simulators Anymore
LLMs are increasingly being trained on custom, non-internet data, enabling them to exceed the limitations of "internet simulation”. MORE
Nvidia vs. Apple
Nvidia is getting ready to overtake Apple in market cap. Bonkers. MORE
💡Here’s a way to make sense of this:
Imagine that there’s a giant filter on how many people are capable of:
Creating a hit movie
Writing a book
Starting a business
Sharing their art with billions of people
In other words, imagine the current number of major builders/creators is something like .0000000000017% of our 8 billion people. (I made that number up, just work with me.)
The reason NVIDIA is rising so fast is because it’s one of the primary pieces of tech that will remove 3-5 zeroes from that number.
We’re talking about multiplying humanity’s creative output by THOUSANDS in the next decade.
That requires chips.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk about NVIDIA.
Google's Playbook for Keeping Things Simple
Google's SRE Handbook champions simplicity as a core principle for reliability. MORE
💡They need one for product management.
Kaparthy’s GPT-2
🔧 Reproducing GPT-2 (124M) in llm.c in 90 minutes for $20 | by Andrej Kaparthy | MORE
Tinygrad Updates
🔧 Tinygrad's latest update slashes Python time and ditches external dependencies. | by tinygrad | MORE
Terminal Animations That Will Blow Your Mind
🔧TTE: Terminal Text Effects brings a splash of visual flair to your terminal with animations like beams, binary paths, and even a black hole effect. MORE
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
HUMANSINR: The Spot-On Predictions Bureau
There's this little-known intelligence bureau that nailed the outcomes in Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine. MORE
💡I am going to build some kind of programmatic / AI way to get this group’s predictions into my field of vision.
Sleep's Economic Divide
This study says sleep inequality in the US is deeply tied to economic stress and health disparities, not just bad "sleep hygiene." MORE
Exercise Rewires Brain to Forget Trauma
Mice with PTSD-like behaviors showed significant improvement after having access to a running wheel, hinting at exercise-induced neurogenesis as a potential therapy. MORE
Taste the Difference: How Ozempic and Wegovy Could Change Eating Habits
Ozempic and Wegovy might be fine-tuning your taste buds to help you lose weight by making sweets taste sweeter. MORE
Carmack Questions Work's Worth
John Carmack dives into "Bullshit Jobs," sparking a lively debate on the value of work. Carmack's review sheds light on the often unspoken reality of perceived value versus actual productivity in modern employment. MORE
The Social Lives of the Teens Who Don't Have Phones
“Imagine navigating high school's social maze without a smartphone, missing out on chats and memes but gaining a unique perspective on life and friendships.” MORE
💡I don’t have to imagine; I grew up in the 80’s. It was glorious.
Could Eye Exercises Be the Key to Fighting Myopia?
A comprehensive review finds eye exercises might actually help in preventing and controlling myopia. MORE
Lung Cancer Breakthrough: Lorlatinib's Unprecedented Success
A new lung cancer drug, lorlatinib, has shown unprecedented success, keeping 60% of advanced-stage patients progression-free for five years. MORE
Marc Andreessen Wants You to Stay in School
Marc Andreessen's advice to a Stanford student to "stay in school" is surprisingly grounded. The real kicker is his reasoning: if you're the type to drop out, you probably wouldn't listen to advice to stay anyway. MORE
I Love My Wife. My Wife Is Dead.
Richard Feynman's undelivered letter to his late wife reveals a heart-wrenching blend of love and grief, even years after her death. MORE
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
IDEAS & ANALYSISHere’s my new favorite way to explain prompt engineering. In short, don’t think of it like an AI thing, or a tech thing. Think of it this way instead.
—
My X thread on why it’s so hard to find tech jobs right now, and how I think AI is affecting the situation:
The problem for the job market isn't that AI is happening. The problem is that it’s happening at the exact same moment that most companies are figuring out that 80% of their employees are worthless.
We need to stop expecting things to go back to the way they were.
The new reality is companies mostly hiring super ambitious, exceptional, proven people who are gods with AI.
This means most formal education becomes a waste of time and money because a degree doesn’t certify you are any of those things.
In this model, only elite schools will matter because the filtering for being exceptional will have happened just by being accepted into the school.
It’s like two separate things:
1. You’re exceptional enough to be accepted here.
2. You finished some classes.
#2 you can get anywhere. #1 is the thing that employers actually care about.
So the result will be companies hiring the top 10-20% of people in competence. This will be filtered by:
1. Elite school attendance (if young)
2. Proof of competence via something you’ve put into the world, like on your website, YouTube, as a tool, or as a company you built.
So, in hyperbolic form:
If you’re not 19 and at Harvard—or have your own projects or companies you’ve built and talked about online—you are not going to be interesting to employers.
You’ll be part of the 90% fighting for scraps.
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
The problem for the job market isn't that Al is happening.
The problem is that Al is happening at the exact same moment that most companies are figuring out that 80% of their employees are worthless.
We need to stop expecting things to go back to the way they were.
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
Jun 2, 2024
For everyone you know who is going to be thinking about their career in the future—which I guess means everyone who’s not independently wealthy—try to get them thinking in the following way:
AI is going to take out most executors of knowledge work.
The people who will survive are the people with ideas who are actively. building/making that thing.
So the safest thing to be is a CREATOR or a BUILDER.
That means founder, entrepreneur, programmer with ideas, productive and ambitious artist, etc.
The trick is you have to be able to 1) have the ideas, 2) make it yourself or get the talent/AI together to have it made, and then 3) market the hell out of it.
In short, the winners in this new game will be the people making new things and bringing them into the world.
APHORISM OF THE WEEKThank you for reading.
UL is a personal and strange combination of security, AI, tech, and lots of content about human meaning and flourishing. And because it’s so diverse, it’s harder for it to go as viral as something more niche.
So—if you know someone weird like us—please share the newsletter with them. 🫶
Share UL with someone like us…Happy to be sharing the planet with you,
Powered by beehiiv
June 3, 2024
Analysis of Mics and Mic Sounds Used by Podcasters
I think I’ve finally figured out what’s up with podcast audio. At least in terms of:
What makes a good microphone
What makes a good sound signature in a podcast
Audio production
Etc.
So what I’m going to do is just blast you with what I at least think I know at this point.
My audio journeyI’ve been studying this stuff in-depth since around 2019. And during the pandemic I went hard on it. Like full audiophile.
I learned the science around what audiophiles were on about. I learned about what makes good sound in music. I built my house in 2020 and put in a pretty sick sound system.
But a lot of my focus was on finding the perfect sound for a podcast. Like how I wanted to sound in audio, and what it takes to make that happen.
Previous postsMy podcast sound update in 2021 MORE
Chasing the perfect microphone sound MORE
This post basically updates and replaces a lot of what I talked about in those, although much of what I said before still holds.
The basics, in no particular orderFirst I’ll hit you with the science / reality stuff and then I’ll give you some samples.
Dynamic microphonesDynamic mics have less range but are more forgiving of noises.
The Shure SM7b is the most famous dynamic mic right now, and pretty much every major podcaster uses it.
The SM7b produces a pleasing, rounded, deep, but a little bit dead sound. It makes you sound authoritative.
Condenser microphonesCondenser mics are extremely clear but very noisy because they pick up everything.
Condensers capture mouth noises, any room sounds, and pretty much anything VERY clearly and accurately.
They also pull in much more sound range, meaning way up towards 20,000 hz and beyond, which makes them sound less dead and more realistic.
Examples include the Yeti series on the low end (less than $100), and the Neumann U87ai on the high end ($4,500).
Common mistakes with post-productionLots of podcasters—especially men—like a super-deep sound because they think it makes them sound cool and authoritative.
Unfortunately, all that extra bass sounds artificial over time and is actually quite fatiguing to listen to.
It’s also really hard to listen to in a car, where lots of people listen to podcasts, because the low rumbling mixes with the road noise.
Signature soundsThe NPR sound is low bass and high clarity largely because they use Neumann U87ai mics, and they like that clear sound.
The sounds of famous podcastersSam Harris uses an SM7b (or the USB version) and keeps it pretty clean with not too much post-production. He’s had the same signature for years now. It’s basically mid-range, with some decent bass but not too much, extremely clean in terms of mouth noises and background noises, and a bit sterile. It works well for him because it’s like an understated clean sound.
Chris Williamson is a super-popular podcaster now and he also uses SM7b’s, but he mixes his own mic with a lot of post-production to have lots more highs and “ambience” added in. Which basically means character. If you listen to his podcast his voice always has a strong combination of deep but also bright. Really good production, and I’d be surprised if he or his team ever shared his post-production chain. I bet he considers it a trade secret.
Joe Rogan also uses the SM7b and he has a sound profile that’s very neutral and natural. I’m not sure if Jamie enhances the highs or not, but the overall mix is very clean and clear.
Lex Fridman is also on an SM7b and he has a pretty neutral sound with some highs possibly added in.
I believe Scott Galloway is on SM7b’s as well, and he definitely has some added in highs after the fact. His sound is a lot more natural and bright than something like Joe’s.
Tips for improving your audioThe general rule for audio is to do as much as possible at recording time and as little as possible in post-production. That means 1) room treatment, and generally having a quiet room if possible.
Removing echo is a superpower for making audio sound amazing. Definitely do this if you want to sound professional. I have been using DeVerberate for years and love it.
If you’re going to use the SM7b, my recommendation is to use the it with bass rolled off and the highs raised on the microphone itself. This will still have plenty of bass but it’ll make the mic sound much more natural and vibrant vs. sterile and dead.
Do as little post processing as possible.
Treat your room if possible.
Make sure to remove echo, even if you don’t think you have much.
Additional trivia / tricksLoudness is deceptive and an enhancer. Basically, being louder sounds better to most ears, but be careful with how you achieve it.
Be careful with loudness without compression because you can start clipping (cutting out from being too loud).
Be careful with too much compresssion because it can remove the natural sound and make it sound more sterile and dead.
My current setupMy current setup is quite clean and simple. I’ve moved away from my Neumann U87ai because it picks up too much noise. Most importantly my mouth noises, shaking feet, the sound of my clothing rubbing, etc.
SM7b
Fully treated studio / office where I work
Bass rolled off (on the mic hardware)
Highs enhanced (on the mic hardware)
RODECASTER PRO for my mixer
The only mod on my RODECASTER PRO is a noise gate
Post-production when I record in Hindenburg and not OBS:
DeVerberate for echo removal
Nectar 4 for noise gate
Nectar 4 for bass cutoff below 80
Nectar 4 for a slight lift in mid bass
Nectar 4 cutout at around 1500 hz to remove bad mids
Nectar 4 minor high shelf added after around 7000
Here’s what that sounds like
// My latest mic sound
SummaryYou should probably use a dynamic mic unless you’re a trained studio speaker.
You should probably use a dynamic mic if you don’t have a treated room.
Resist the urge to add bass. It only sounds cool for a moment, and then is bad for listeners.
If you have any doubts, go with the SM7b. It’s a workhorse. And if you can’t afford one yet (around $400), get the little brother USB version.
If you do get an SM7b you’ll need an audio interface to put it in, and/or a signal booster.
Focus on getting a clean, natural sound from your voice, not making it sound deep or booming. That is what will cut through the listener’s environment and make it to them the best.
Do as much as you can during recording, and try to modify it as little as possible in post.
Finally, don’t stress it too much. The content matters more anyway.
Powered by beehiiv
May 31, 2024
The Left's Brexit
I think Trump's conviction might be the American Left's version of Brexit.
Let me explain.
First off, I think Trump is the worst president we've ever had by far, and I do NOT want him re-elected. I am anti-current-Left, but I consider myself a Radical Centrist and have never voted for a Republican. So that's where I am politically.
I also think that in normal circumstances it would be ok to prosecute someone for what Trump did. He appears to be guilty of the crimes, and he's now a convicted felon as a result. Fine.
My problem is how and when it happened.
First, a lot worse crimes have been carried out by presidents without prosecution. Like, really bad stuff (See: spending trillions in Iraq to remove someone protecting the world from Iran, the Iran/Contra issue, and many others). So, we absolutely set a precedent here by doing this.
Second, it seems entirely too obvious why it happened. Basically, the radical left is scared Trump will be re-elected, and none of their previous (and legitimate) weapons were effective at taking him out, e.g., impeachment, Jan 6 hearings, etc.
So basically—after everything that's happened—January 6th included—at least half the country still wants to elect Trump. And the Left is VERY angry and scared as a result.
So they did the Al Capone Attack. Basically, hit them for something else they did that was illegal. And that was this Stormy Daniels thing. A last-ditch, desperate effort to take down someone who they don't believe should be President again.
Here's the problem. They don't get to fucking decide that. Half the country has seen all this evidence and they still want him. This shakes me deeply. I don't see how that's possible. But it's true. Go check the polls. It's tied. Half. Half the country still wants him over The Left.
Actually, I eventually did figure this out. Most people voting for him also hate him compared to a theoretical, better conservative, but they love him because he's the best weapon against the Radical Left. In other words, they love him because he's their defense against the Left turning the country into San Francisco.
Anyway. They want him. That's the reality. Half the country. And the Left is panicking.
My problem with this whole fucking thing is that this is self-inflicted by the left. Just like Brexit was for the right in the UK. The issue is the left is NOT LISTENING to how much America despises far-left policies. The country keeps communicating very clearly that they are center-right. That they're more conservative.
And the left ignores it. Over and over. And instead of offering logical, progressive, centrist, UNIFYING policies that appeal to everyone, they repeatedly go Extreme Left and alienate the country.
And they wonder how a clown like Trump is so popular. Like it's a fucking mystery.
Let me spell this out for you, friends on the left. Your extreme policies have made you the #1 enemy of America, which has forced them to choose ANYONE to oppose you—including someone they hate—like Donald Trump.
In short, this is all the left's fault. All of it. Trump being elected the first time. And if Trump gets elected again, that will be their fault as well.
Self-inflicted. Just like Brexit.
So, to my friends on the left, expect more Trump types unless you stop kicking balls in your own goal and START LISTENING.
You have a choice: either wake the fuck up or stop being surprised when bad things happen.
Powered by beehiiv
May 28, 2024
UL NO. 434: Can You Articulate Yourself in 50 Words?
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
SECURITY | AI | MEANING :: Unsupervised Learning is a website, newsletter, and podcast about how to survive and thrive as humans in a post-AI world.
TOCNOTESHey there,
I think one of the most important things for surviving AI is being able to articulate what you do. Or—even better—who you are.
I was at a party with a bunch of muckety-mucks recently and someone asked me what I did. I told them I built AI stuff, and it was quite unsatisfactory—both to me and to the person I gave the answer to.
Here’s how I’ve decided to answer from now on:
I’m basically worried about two problems: people having a lack of meaning in their lives, and what will happen to peoples’ sense of meaning when AI takes their jobs.
So what I do is use AI to build products and services that help people and companies create a version of themselves that will thrive after AI is everywhere.
My new spiel
I like this for a few reasons:
It starts with the problems
It highlights that I’m building stuff
It mentions AI, which is what I’m doing
It puts meaning as the most important piece, above AI
As I’ve said before, I think the most screwed people are those who don’t know themselves. People without a purpose that they’re driving towards. And even people who have a purpose but can’t articulate it.
Know yourself. And be able to articulate it.
Oh, and the create_5_sentence_summary Fabric pattern is super helpful here. Check this out:
I’m in love with using AI to give Accordion Explanations to things. Expand, compress. Expand, compress.
Ok, let’s get to it…
MY WORKMy buddy Network Chuck just released a video on Fabric! It’s easily the best video on the tool, including all the ones I’ve made myself. Go check it out! WATCH THE VIDEO
SECURITYAnd Now a Cyber Force
The House Armed Services Committee is preparing to propose a study for a dedicated military Cyber Force, echoing the creation of the Space Force. MORE
China's ORB Networks
Chinese-linked hackers are getting harder to find due to 'ORBs'. These ORB networks, not directly run by the government but by contractors in China, are a maze of compromised devices and virtual servers used for spying. MORE
Fix Problems Instead of Doing Risk Measurement Theater
Andy Ellis suggests fixing tangible security problems might be more productive than obsessing over measuring risk. Love this take. MORE
💡So I guess there would still be cyber within each group, but this would be a dedicated branch. It would be pretty difficult to have all cyber people belong to this group and have them assigned to different branches. I bet it’ll just be a dedicated one separate from cyber within each branch. Cool either way, though.
Sponsor
Secure Email Beyond Just Phishing
There’s more than one way-in to exploit email as an attack vector. Plus even more to target once inside the mailbox.
Material takes a holistic approach to email security that covers the full threat landscape – stopping new flavors of phishing and pretexting attacks in their tracks, while also protecting accounts and data from exploit or exposure.
Visit material.security to learn more about their multi-layered detection and response toolkit for email.
Secure Email From Every AngleCritical Bug Exposes Major Clouds
A critical vulnerability named "Linguistic Lumberjack" in Fluent Bit was found in a utility with over 3 billion downloads. It creates risks of denial of service, data leaks, and remote code execution on systems including AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud. MORE
American Criminal Records Exposed
EquationCorp and USDoD (threat actors), just dumped a 70 million row database of American criminal records. MORE
Space Warfare Escalates
The U.S. accuses Russia of launching a space weapon capable of attacking satellites, which Russia dismisses as "fake news." Despite the denial, the Pentagon asserts the weapon is in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite, posing a direct threat. MORE
Sponsor
Build Trust and Accelerate Growth with Vanta
Whether you’re starting or scaling your security program, Vanta helps you automate compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more.
Streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer-facing Trust Center.
Over 7,000 companies like Atlassian, Flo Health, and Quora use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get $1,000 off VantaAI Breaks Into Tech Giant
IBM's X-Force used their new AI hacking platform to breach a major tech manufacturer's network in just 8 hours. This will only get better. I’m doing a video on this soon. MORE
Tesla's High-Tech Keys? Still Hackable.
Despite Tesla's new ultra-wideband keyless tech, a simple radio hack can still steal these cars. MORE
NTSB Preliminary Report on Baltimore Bridge Collapse Released
The NTSB's initial findings on the Baltimore bridge collapse hint at unexpected structural weaknesses. The report suggests that overlooked maintenance issues could have contributed to the sudden failure. MORE
Core WiFi Bug Discovered
Researchers have discovered a new WiFi vulnerability affecting all clients and operating systems, due to the IEEE 802.11 standard's lack of SSID authentication during beaconing. MORE
US Scheme Funds North Korean Nukes
A U.S. woman and four others were charged in a scheme using fake IT jobs to funnel millions to North Korea's nuclear program. The U.S. Justice Department's indictment reveals a sophisticated operation that compromised over 60 U.S. identities and impacted more than 300 companies, generating at least $6.8 million for overseas IT workers. MORE
NYPD's Drone Response Team
NYPD's rolling out drones to respond to 911 calls in five NYC precincts. I love this more than I should. It’s super efficient and sci-fi at the same time. With a background of dystopia. MORE
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
TECHNOLOGYThe EU Passed Its AI Act
The AI Act has been passed and my general opinion is that it’s good content but I worry it will be used to keep the EU sidelined in the race to AI. Here’s a good summary and browser of the actual act. MORE
Main Points:
1. Prohibits certain unacceptable AI practices that are manipulative, exploitative or cause harm.
2. Classifies certain high-risk AI systems that pose risks to health, safety or fundamental rights.
3. Establishes requirements for high-risk AI systems related to risk management, data governance, technical documentation, transparency, human oversight, accuracy and cybersecurity.
4. Sets obligations for providers and deployers of high-risk AI systems.
5. Requires conformity assessments, registration, and post-market monitoring for high-risk AI systems.
6. Mandates transparency obligations for certain AI systems like emotion recognition and biometric categorization.
7. Provides measures to support innovation, especially for SMEs and startups, like regulatory sandboxes.
8. Establishes a governance system at EU and national levels, including a European Artificial Intelligence Board.
9. Allows for fines up to 7% of worldwide turnover for non-compliance with the rules.
10. Aims to facilitate development of codes of conduct for voluntary application of requirements to non-high-risk AI. MORE
When Your AI Sounds Too Much Like Scarlett Johansson
OpenAI pulled the voice that sounds like Scarlett Johanssen, and it’s turned into a giant mess that’s challenging OpenAI’s morality. Specifically, Sam’s. MORE
💡I have opinions on this. Basically they knew they wanted to make it sound like the AI from Her. That’s why Sam tweeted out, “Her.”
So it seems like they basically tried to make that happen two ways: 1) with a separate voice actress who sounds similar, and then by reaching out to Scarlett herself. Scarlett said no. So somebody there tried to pivot and say it wasn’t supposed to sound like the movie.
I don’t think this is nearly as malicious as people are making it out to be. Remember that things get crazy inside companies when there are multiple parties both taking actions and talking to the media. I think it’s more like good intentions and bad execution. But I do think it’s a mess. And a self-inflicted one.
The irony is that this is doing more damage to the appearance of Sam’s morality than the ouster by the board. And again—self-inflicted on OpenAI’s part.
Apple Locks Down 2nm Chips
Apple apparently snagged all of TSMC's 2nm chip production capacity in a fairly private meeting. MORE
Nvidia's AI-Driven Revenue Surge
Nvidia's revenue skyrocketed by 262% due to the AI frenzy, hitting $26.0 billion and surpassing expectations. MORE
US Strikes Lithium Gold
The US just found a massive, untapped lithium source. MORE
Windows Reimagined: AI at the Core
Microsoft is reimagining Windows with a deep dive into AI, introducing Copilot+ PCs that blend cutting-edge AI features directly into the operating system. MORE
💡People are freaking out and saying nobody wants this. Yes. Yes they do. Once everyone has it, it’ll be crazy to imagine a time when they didn’t have it.
This is approaching the ideal form factor of a computer. Like Her, actually. Anything you do on your computer, or in your life, is available to your assistant. And you can ask it anything or have it collaborate with you on work. WATCH A WHOLE VIDEO ON THIS
Anything less is less than complete. The faster we accept this as the future of computing the faster we can move on.
Will there be security and privacy issues? Yes. SO MANY. And they’ll be horrible because it’ll be your whole soul getting compromised. But it’ll be so useful that people will happily enable the functionality anyway. WATCH A WHOLE VIDEO ON THIS
You might not believe me, and you might abstain yourself. But most will jump in head-first as soon as they get a taste of the capabilities.
Mapping AI's Inner Universe: A Peek Inside Claude Sonnet
Anthropic released a brilliant paper that shows how one of its models think. It’s a major step in AI explainability, and if you care about this field at all you should check out this paper. MORE
New Chinese Chatbot: Ask President Xi
China's new chatbot lets citizens ask President Xi how to be better socialists, trained on his philosophies and major internet databases. MORE
AI: The New Astronomer's Assistant
Astronomers are preparing to use AI to tackle 300 petabytes of data annually. Cecilia Garraffo's AstroAI initiative is pioneering the fusion of AI and astronomy to explore deep cosmic questions, already planning dozens of projects with a 50-member interdisciplinary team. MORE
Windows now has AI-powered copy and paste
Windows 11's PowerToys now lets you AI-transform clipboard content into different formats or languages with a simple shortcut. This Advanced Paste feature can do everything from converting code between languages to changing text style, but it hinges on having OpenAI API credits. MORE
Don't Microservice, Do Module
Microservices might be all the rage, but this deep dive suggests we're better off building with modules instead. MORE
No More Public Likes
X is ditching public "likes" to stop people from holding back on liking edgy content due to fear of backlash. MORE
The Pragmatic Programmer
Focusing on fundamentals over frameworks could be the secret sauce for long-lasting tech skills, according to the Lindy effect. MORE
🔧 This guide shows you how to use Ghidra for crafting a GDB script that traces function calls, making vulnerability hunting a bit less of a headache. | by Craig Young | MORE
🌐D3 in Depth guides you through crafting interactive data visualizations on the web using D3.js, Chart.js, Leaflet, and React. This resource not only covers D3.js but also dives into the essentials of HTML, SVG, CSS, and JavaScript for creating compelling data stories and visualizations. By Peter Cook | MORE
🛠️Experts.js simplifies creating multi-agent AI systems with OpenAI's Assistants API, enabling complex tasks through a panel of specialized tools. By Metaskills | MORE
🔧 The "User Persona Generator" Prompt simulates user interviews to create detailed user personas, saving you from conducting dozens of real interviews. | by The Prompt Warrior | MORE
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
HUMANSJob Market Paradox
Job seekers are struggling to find work, and employers can't seem to fill positions. This paradox highlights a significant mismatch in the job market, possibly due to skills gaps or unrealistic expectations on both sides. MORE
💡It’s not a mystery: the problem is that hiring managers need people ready to do the job, and they don’t want to train anyone. This is why degrees are mattering less, and why someone with an active tech blog or YouTube channel—who is actually building stuff and doing the thing—can get hired with no credentials over someone with a degree in computer science.
The ability to actually do the thing is all that matters now.
Expect to see AI services soon that look at a person’s social media, blog, YouTube, and then do an interactive interview with them, and they give a score of how likely they are to thrive in a given job.
This type of algorithm will cut through credentials, fluff, and all sorts of other BS and get at the real thing.
The value of traditional education will drastically fall soon as a result. Because degrees won’t significantly raise those scores for most people. And for the people who are likely to have high scores, the degree won’t raise it that much.
Basically it’ll filter for drive, curiosity, obsession, and proof-of-work. Like actual builders and coders. And people who raise insightful questions and are curious.
This means that not only will most candidates fail the test, but over 90% of college graduates will as well. So college will largely become this very long and expensive waste of time.
It’ll spawn a new type of education dedicated to making more curious and capable people.
Tough Times for New Grads
Recent grads are hitting a wall with entry-level hiring projected to drop by 5.8% in 2024, making the job hunt tougher than it's been in years. Software engineer positions on Indeed have plummeted 30% from pre-pandemic levels, signaling a significant shift in the tech job landscape. MORE
💡See above. And of course this isn’t the only factor; I’m sure there are other causes as well.
Is College Overrated?
Nearly 30% of Americans are questioning the value of college, according to a recent Pew poll. MORE
💡See above.
Job Hopping: Not Just Flaky, But Strategic
High performers often job hop not because they're flaky, but because they're in search of a culture that matches their drive. Sticking it out in a toxic work environment can dull a high performer's edge, making them lose their superpowers over time. MORE
💡For truly top performers, it’s not that bad to see them jump every 3-4 years. Hiring managers know they get bored quickly and that they probably solved a bunch of problems and wanted a new challenge.
Sunlight: A Double-Edged Sword?
So now they’re saying avoiding the sun might actually be a risk factor for major causes of death, sending mixed messages on sun exposure advice. MORE
💡I definitely believe this. I think there’s value in this whole “get sun, touch grass” thing. Grounding. That kind of thing. Like a more, um, grounded version of the “get in touch with nature vibe”.
I can tell you it’s true for me anecdotally, and that it seems to be true anecdatally. Would love to see some more real science on it though.
Daily Marijuana Use Outpaces Daily Drinking in the US, a New Study Says
For the first time, daily and near-daily marijuana use in the U.S. has surpassed high-frequency drinking. MORE
Psychedelics as Painkillers?
Psychedelics are being eyed as a potential boon for treating severe chronic pain, including cluster headaches. Research is exploring LSD and psilocybin, not just for their mind-altering effects, but for their ability to significantly reduce debilitating pain. MORE
Amazon's Surprising Stat
One-third of Amazon warehouse workers rely on food stamps or Medicaid, which is quite the eyebrow-raiser. MORE
One File to Rule Them All
Imagine keeping all your knowledge nuggets in one massive, sprawling text file—simple, yet surprisingly effective. This approach turns the digital clutter of countless notes and documents into a singular, searchable, and highly efficient knowledge base. MORE
Breaking Up the Big Show
The US Justice Department is gearing up to dismantle the Live Nation-Ticketmaster giant. So overdue. MORE
California Solar Over 25%
California's solar power has hit a new milestone, now powering over 13.9 million homes and making up more than a quarter of the state's electricity. MORE
Sword Fighting is Not What You Think…
An argument from one expert claiming everything we think we know about historical sword fighting is pretty much wrong. MORE
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
IDEAS & ANALYSISMy Favorite Paul Graham Essay
This is my favorite part of my favorite essay from Paul Graham:
Great work usually entails spending what would seem to most people an unreasonable amount of time on a problem. You can't think of this time as a cost, or it will seem too high. You have to find the work sufficiently engaging as it's happening.
There may be some jobs where you have to work diligently for years at things you hate before you get to the good part, but this is not how great work happens. Great work happens by focusing consistently on something you're genuinely interested in. When you pause to take stock, you're surprised how far you've come.
Paul Graham
This rhymes with a realization I’ve been having lately that the best leaders and founders have something in common: obsession.
It’s not just that they’re disciplined. They might be. And probably are. But they might just be obsessed, which tends to look a lot like discipline because they both produce consistent effort in a direction.
I find myself increasingly looking for people who are obsessed with things. Life. An idea. Whatever. They can’t stop thinking about it, and the million different ideas they have, tend to revolve around that same concept.
—
Most people think life when they were around 10 was the best. Thanks to Joel Parish for the link.
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEKBecome able to articulate who you are and what you’re about in 25-50 words.
APHORISM OF THE WEEKThank you for reading.
UL is a personal and strange combination of security, AI, tech, and lots of content about human meaning and flourishing. And because it’s so diverse, it’s harder for it to go as viral as something more niche.
So—if you know someone weird like us—please share the newsletter with them. 🫶
Share UL with someone like us…Happy to be sharing the planet with you,
Powered by beehiiv
May 20, 2024
UL NO. 433: China's Flawed Strategy
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
SECURITY | AI | MEANING :: Unsupervised Learning is a website, newsletter, and podcast about how to survive and thrive as humans in a post-AI world.
TOCNOTESHey there,
Hope you’re doing well!
We added a new Fabric Pattern called explain_terms, which takes an input, finds the difficult terms, and gives a definition, an analogy, and why it matters. MORE
Had a great weekend at my annual EDC pilgrimage of music and friendship at EDC in Vegas. So tired. So refreshed.
If you don’t have one or two friend trips planned per year, I recommend you get them going. Even if it’s local camping or something. Just get your friends together away from devices to enjoy each others’ company, music, nature, or whatever.
I’m thinking of writing a short book about what people will need to be anti-fragile in a world full of AI. My working title is: Human 3.0 — The skills and mental frames required to thrive in a post-AI world. Let me know your thoughts on the title, and if you’d be interested in reading a book like that.
Ok, let’s get to it…
MY WORKSECURITY
I'm pleased with how well this AI Attack Surface Map has held up since May 2023.
I still think this is the clearest way to think about real-world risks to AI applications.
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
May 14, 2024
FBI seizes hacking forum BreachForums — again
The FBI, along with international partners, seized BreachForums again—this time also hitting its Telegram channels. They were hit last year too, but bounced back under new management. MORE
Chinese Brain Drain
Microsoft is moving nearly 10% of its China-based tech talent to relocate, signaling a potential tech exodus amidst U.S.-China tensions. This move could lead to a significant brain drain from China, especially since these employees are in the critical fields of AI and Cloud. MORE
💡I am very happy about this.
This is a bigger point than just that story, but it seems like the US is set up to win in so many ways right now. Which is weird, because the US is a mess too.
Europe’s economy is suffering from missing the innovation boat because they’re obsessed with regulation, and China is making their country so hostile that the West is pulling away from it, while the smartest Chinese find ways to get away.
This leaves the imperfect US (and Canada) as the only ones leaning into pure innovation and attracting talent. Nowhere is this more clear than with the Bay Area AI boom.
China is at a major disadvantage with AI because government control over its population depends on a government-controlled narrative that falls apart under scrutiny and analysis.
I feel like AI somehow encourages people to question things, and push what’s possible. To grow, and build, and create. And if the smartest Chinese do that in China they’ll run into obstacle after obstacle. And eventually they’ll just leave, which is great for the West and horrible for China.
So between China hacking everyone, threatening everyone, not having enough kids, and controlling narratives and innovation, they’re potentially building their own implosion.
The world will pull away from them, and their best minds will flee.
Autonomous F-16 AI Pilots
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recently flew in an AI-controlled F-16, finding its capabilities nearly on par with experienced human pilots. MORE
Sponsor
Mythbusting Quiz: Is ITOps Automation Safe?
‘IT automation’ has reached buzzword status in the IT community, propelled by its promise to streamline operations, reduce manual errors, and enhance efficiency across diverse IT environments. Automation is defined as the use of software to create repeatable instructions and processes to replace or reduce human interaction with IT systems. However, automation in IT is not just about saving you time; it's also about performing tasks more consistently and rapidly, enabling you to focus on more strategic work.
The hype around IT automation has given rise to numerous myths. We’ve compiled a list of some of the most common myths we’ve seen. Do you think you can tell what’s true and what’s false?
discover.automox.com/ul/2024-it-automation-quiz
Take the Quiz NowSponsor
Secure Your Assets with ProjectDiscovery
Discover ProjectDiscovery, the ultimate platform for vulnerability detection and management. Our cloud-based solutions empower your security team with automated, continuous scanning and seamless integrations. From AI-generated templates to CI/CD implementations, our tools ensure your tech stack is protected against the latest threats. Join thousands of developers who trust ProjectDiscovery for robust, scalable, and open-source security. Stay ahead of vulnerabilities and secure your critical assets today.
Learn More Today👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
TECHNOLOGYGoogle I/O 2024: everything announced
Everything announced at Google I/O. MORE
It’s just impossible for me to get excited because they’re so bad at product management. They’re like an idea lab instead of a company.
So I’m like, “Wow, that’s cool. Can’t wait for OpenAI or Apple to productize that!”
A lot of the AI stuff Google showed was cool. But I find myself unable to care.
- Their products are far harder to use
- They have a “throw it at the wall” feel
- If I like it they’ll probably cancel it
They’ve simply lost my trust.
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
May 14, 2024
Avoiding the Mediocre Success Trap
Interesting idea about how a home run or striking out is far better than the limbo of a mediocre success. It’s about getting a strong signal, which partial wins don’t really give you. MORE
📃Ilya Sutskever suggests mastering these 30 papers to grasp 90% of crucial machine learning knowledge. MORE
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
HUMANSAncient Stars in Our Galactic Backyard
MIT researchers stumbled upon three ancient stars, some of the universe's oldest, casually orbiting our Milky Way. MORE
Whale's Secret Code
Scientists just found that whales have their own 'alphabet' in their songs. My buddy Marc has been working on deciphering this stuff for years. Super interesting. MORE
Swiss vs. American Parenting: A US Mom's Perspective
A US mom shares how Swiss parenting's emphasis on independence and freedom was a culture shock compared to American ways. In Switzerland, kids as young as four are encouraged to walk to school alone. MORE
👉 Continue reading online to avoid the email cutoff issue 👈
IDEAS & ANALYSISSmall Therapy?
I think the magic amount of therapy (for most people—not all) might be some relatively small amount that untangles your knots, but doesn’t point your lens permanently on yourself and your troubles. I feel like too much therapy has the approach of bad Chiropractors—where the goal is more visits, not on getting to where you don’t need the visits.
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
Interesting idea I just had about therapy:
The people not getting any might need some, and the people getting a lot might be getting way too much.
I think there’s probably some magical, moderate amount that sits squarely between Untangled Knots and Rumination.
🤔
— ᴅᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴍɪᴇssʟᴇʀ (@DanielMiessler)
May 16, 2024
Make sure you have 1-2 friend trips planned per year. Even if it’s not everyone, and even if it’s not some extravagant thing.
Like 2-3 days. Camping. HIking. Whatever. Even just a role-playing weekend away from computers with friends.
Maybe have a rule of no tech during the time, with the focus being on friendship and the activities you’re doing together.
Super replenishing.
APHORISM OF THE WEEKThank you for reading.
UL is a personal and strange combination of security, AI, tech, and lots of content about human meaning and flourishing. And because it’s so diverse, it’s harder for it to go as viral as something more niche.
So—if you know someone weird like us—please share the newsletter with them. 🫶
Share UL with someone like us…Happy to be sharing the planet with you,
Powered by beehiiv
Daniel Miessler's Blog
- Daniel Miessler's profile
- 18 followers
