Daniel Miessler's Blog, page 17

Why I'm Not Getting a Humane AI Pin

Pressing to active the Humane AI Pin

I should be all about the new Humane AI pin. But I’m not, and I think it’s worth thinking through why that is.

First, it’s a pin you wear all day, activate with your finger, and then give commands like you would give your OS or an assistant. Like reading and sending texts, getting the latest news, looking up information, etc.

It’s honestly really cool.

So why don’t I like it?

Thinking about it for a while this last week I realized it’s because it confuses multiple different problems.

Problem 1: We should be able to ask for things instead of having to do them ourselves.

Problem 2: We shouldn’t have to take our phones out of our pockets to do cool phone stuff like display things.

Problem 3: We shouldn’t have to remember things. AI should just capture everything that happens around us and create summaries and be able to recall things if we need them.

The Humane AI pin seems to solve Problem 2, but I don’t have Problem 2. I have Problem 1 and Problem 3.

Problem 1 is being addressed by AI being added to our operating systems, like the fact that Apple is currently working to build GenAI into everything.

The pitch for Rewind

Problem 3 is being addressed by awesome companies like Rewind, which basically record everything and create searchable knowledge that you can interact with via AI.

Also very cool. Not sure I trust the security enough to record my screen 24/7, but it’s cool.

But replacing my phone? When I know this type of AI is being built into iOS and macOS very soon?

I am afraid products in the Problem 2 space are going to end up being fads. Doesn’t mean they’re not super innovative and awesome.

I just think more people have problems 1 and 3 than problem 2.

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OpenAI's November 23' Releases Are a Watershed Moment for Human Creativity—and Prompt Injection

AI Agents + API Access + Prompt Injection

So I want to talk real quick about the recent announcements from OpenAI.

Without hyperbole, I think what they announced represents both the greatest boon for business and the biggest problem for security that we’ve seen injected in a single day in many decades.

There were many announcements, and many of them—such as model updates—are wonderful but relatively inert. But what is not without implication is the unbelievably massive expansion of API calling capabilities. On this front, they announced two main things:

Custom GPTs

Assistants

Custom GPT’s are basically a front-end version of assistants. And importantly, they both have the same functionality of being able to call Code Interpreter, browse the web, and call arbitrary APIs.

Let me say that again–they can call any API.

I’ve been saying for a long time that the #1 threat AI security, from a cyber security standpoint, is AI agents having the ability to call APIs.

What they did yesterday was open that up to the entire world.

I just saw an interview with the head of API’s at Zapier, and they are now fully integrated with the new Assistant API, so everything that you can do in Zapier you can now do inside of an assistant.

And just to refresh everyone, you can basically do ANYTHING in Zapier.

Again, just to be clear, this is extraordinarily awesome for humanity, and for business, and for the economy, and for developers, and for so many people going forward. It was an amazing conference and a fantastic set of announcements.

But for us in security, we better get ready.

The amount of prompt injection we’re about to see propagate across the Internet is going to be staggering.

We are talking about injections on websites being crawled automatically by agents, consumed by the agents, executed by the agents, sent onto other APIs, which then connect to other APIs, which ultimately land on sensitive data back ends.

The possibilities for attack just became endless. And again, I’m not saying they shouldn’t have done it. I’m not saying this is bad.

I’m just saying as security people, get ready.

We're entering a world where everything is about to be parsed by AI Agents that have code execution and action-taking capabilities, and the implications are going to be massive.

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Why We'll Have AGI by 2025-2028

👉 Read this issue as a webpage (to avoid the email cutoff issue)… 👈

People are thinking a lot about when we’re going to get AGI, and I think it’s coming faster than most.

My prediction is a 60% chance of AGI in 2025 and a 90% of AGI in 2028.

But we can’t even start talking about it without defining what we mean by AGI.

Here’s Sam Altman’s definition:

This is a decent definition, but I think it has a couple of problems. First, it seems to focus on knowledge work but it doesn’t say so. Like this isn’t an average construction worker he’s talking about. AGI things are not robot things.

Second, the word “median” is problematic. Why not say average? Because mean and median are two different types of average, and they have different meanings, that’s why.

Anyway, here’s my definition that I think is more in line with what people really mean when they talk about AGI:

An AI system capable of replacing a knowledge worker making the average salary in the United States.

Daniel Miessler

I think this is a better definition because it’s more specific. Payscale did a study of 302 different knowledge worker salary profiles, and found the average salary to be $87,342.

Cool, so let’s say that an AGI is a system that can replace an average knowledge worker in the US making an average salary.

So how could that happen?

Paths to AGI

A lot of people are skeptical of imminent AGI because they’ve made the mistake of thinking it has to come from one component.

They’re imagining some new model like GPT-6 being AGI-capable by itself. That’s one way to get there, but it’s not the only way. And I’d argue it’s not how we’ll get there first.

I think we’ll get there through an AGI system, not an AGI component.

Systems vs. components

Systems do most of the work we see in the world.

Ant colonies are more powerful than ants

Families are more powerful than dads

Companies are more powerful than employees

This isn’t just numbers. It’s the combination of having objectives at different levels, the division of labor, and the execution of those roles that all make progress toward a shared goal.

And here’s the crazy connection to AGI:

We don’t need a single ant to become a colony. Or a single kid to become a family. Or a single knowledge worker to become as capable as a company.

We just need a system of AIs that works together to accomplish a shared goal.

So, if it’s a Customer Service AGI, it might have:

a top-level agent

an agent over multiple sub-departments

multiple teams of actual service representatives under each sub-department

The teams of agents will be trained in a particular region, on a particular language, and they’ll be accustomed to certain types of questions and problems. They might have slightly different goals as well. But they’re all unified by the goal of the tier above it. Same thing all the way up the tiers to the top.

So what you end up with is a system of AIs that are not individually AGI-capable, but the system as a whole is.

And remember, the standard is pretty low here. Our AGI definition is something that replaces a single worker! But a system like this, with all the various tiers of agents, will likely be able to replace an entire department.

There’s another way in which this bar is low. If you want to replace the head of customer service for Bank of America, that’s a very senior position, and the person you need to find will have years of experience in very similar roles. You can’t just grab someone who has a career running accounting teams.

So we don’t even need the Customer Services AGI system to be the same system that we use for Accounting or Threat Intelligence. We can hire a separate AGI system for that.

But it’s still AGI.

Why? Because it has (at least) replaced the capabilities of an average knowledge worker making an average US salary, which is our definition.

Summary

This is why AGI is coming sooner rather than later.

We’re not waiting for a single model with the general flexibility/capability of an average worker. We’re waiting for a single AGI system that can do that.

To the human controlling it, it’s the same. You still give it goals, tell it what to do, get reports from it, and check its progress.

Just like a co-worker or employee.

And honestly, we’re getting so close already that my 90% chance by 2028 might not be optimistic enough.

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UL NO. 406: OpenAI Launches Custom AIs, Okta's New Breach, EFF's Browser Privacy Checker

Unsupervised Learning is a Security, AI, and Meaning-focused podcast that looks at how best to thrive as humans in a post-AI world. It combines original ideas, analysis, and mental models to bring not just the news—but why it matters, and how to respond.

Hey there!

The thing I’m most excited about this week is OpenAI’s DevDay, which is today (Monday, November 6th). Why am I so excited? Because I’m hoping for big announcements. OPENAI ANNOUNCEMENT

My wishlist:

OS-Integrated, Standalone AIs: The ability to create a personal digital assistant like I talked about in my book in 2016. So like my recent TARS and Samantha AI configurations, but way better and more integrated in the OS. I want to provide it tons of context about me, and a personality for it like TARS, a custom voice as well, and a list of tools such as browsing, researching, shopping, communicating with people, etc. A deal with Apple to allow me to call it directly from iOS would be brilliant.

Tool Use Via API: I don’t want to have to use ChatGPT. I want to have all my APIs have access to browsing, researching, shopping, and a thousand other tasks.

Larger Context Sizes: Ideally like 64-128K, but I’m not holding my breath on this one. They just now starting making 32K available to Plus users. I need more. I need to fit a book in there!

Dependable Output: A better native way to make output more deterministic/dependable.

Updated Training Date: An updated training date across the board would be nice, but I think this is harder than it sounds.

If we get any 3 of these I’ll be SUPER happy.

🚨OMG Sunday Night UPDATE! — I was about to go to sleep when I went to ChatGPT and noticed this!

They’re calling them GPTs

They Launched Custom GPTs Early, Before the Conference!

I’d heard a rumor about something similar, and sure enough!

So they have instructions similar to Custom Instructions, but I no ability to add voices. : (

But look at the capabilities section!

They can browse and create images and help you code

But most exciting is the “Add Actions” button! It looks like you can actually give it specific tools via API definitions!

The interface for adding Actions in CustomGPTs

It doesn’t look like they’re OS-integrated in any way but whatever. I’m sure they’ll keep improving them. Here’s my first one, called Samantha for obvious reasons.

My new custom AI based on the movie Her

Can’t wait to play with these and see what else they release!

And in the meantime, I hope you’re crushing it, and let’s get into this week’s show…

MY WORK

Our Personal AI Assistants Will Soon be Our Interfaces to the World

My new short piece on personal AIs and manipulation. When our AIs know everything about us, they'll be the easiest way to get things done but also the easiest way to manipulate us…

danielmiessler.com/p/personal-ai-assistants-will-soon-interfaces-world

How to Lower Your Heart Rate Before Public Speaking

My short tutorial on how to lower your heart rate before speaking. There are many types of stress around public speaking, but if you have the over-excitement kind I have a fix…

danielmiessler.com/p/lower-heart-rate-public-speaking

SECURITY NEWS

Russian attackers breached 632,000 DOJ and Pentagon email addresses via MOVEit, which one of OPM’s vendors was using. MOVEit is rapidly catching up to Solarwinds as the big one in supply chain hacks. MORE

48 countries, including the US, are trying to agree to stop paying ransoms. The idea is like not negotiating with terrorists so they’ll stop taking hostages because nobody will pay. It’s a good idea, but it only works if everyone is doing it. MORE

Some Russian hackers got arrested by the FSB for helping Ukrainian forces by disrupting Russian critical infrastructure targets. These two individuals were taken into custody in different regions of Siberia and are now facing high treason charges that could land them in prison for up to 20 years. MORE | MORE

Sponsor

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Watch Now

Okta has reported another security issue, which brings the total for the year to way too many. Nearly 5,000 employees were alerted to a data breach that exposed their personal information, including full names, Social Security Numbers, and health insurance plan numbers. I'm starting to get LastPassy / Mariotty / T-Mobiley vibes. MORE | COMPANY RESPONSE

MITRE's just dropped the 14th version of ATT&CK. v14 covers 760 pieces of software, 143 activity clusters, and 24 campaigns across enterprise, mobile and industrial control systems (ICS). MORE | ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Sponsor

CISOs Are Confidently Incorrect About SaaS Security Maturity

Think your SaaS security is top-notch? We surveyed over 600 global security practitioners and many thought the same.

Yet 79% experienced SaaS security breaches and incidents in the past year.

Learn the latest trends and findings in the AppOmni SSPM 2023 Report.

👉appomni.com/saas-security-report-2023👈

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Vulnerabilities

🪳F5 is warning about active exploitation of a critical security flaw in BIG-IP. | CRITICAL | CVE-2023-46747 | CVSS Score: 9.8 | BLEEPING COMPUTER ANALYSIS | COMPANY RESPONSE | VULNERABILITY DETAILS 

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Ok, well this is interesting. It’s a concept for a new AI-based OS called Dot, kind of. Honestly it’s just like the personal AIs we talked about above, but it’s way more ambitious because it’s at an OS level. I signed up. MORE

DeepMind's co-founder Shane Legg thinks we've got a 50-50 shot at achieving AGI by 2028. I agree. My timeline is faster, actually. I put it at 60% by 2025, and 90% by 2028. MORE | MY ARGUMENT

Toyota is cutting its electric vehicle (EV) sales forecast by nearly 40%, which is insane. I'm starting to worry that only Tesla is doing well in EVs, which either means everyone gets out and the whole EV thing fails, or Tesla becomes a unicorn snowflake juggernaut because they’re the only game in town. MORE 

Fusus is a camera feed integration technology that can turn any camera in America into a node in a unified surveillance system, and police departments are actively deploying it. This system not only funnels live feeds from usually siloed cameras into one central location, but also has the ability to scan for people wearing certain clothes, carrying a particular bag, or look for a certain vehicle. MORE | COMPANY

Apple confirmed on their earnings call that they’re going heavy into AI. Very happy to hear it, but it seriously better mean an overhaul of Siri. MORE

HUMAN NEWS

Something is causing banks to abruptly close down people’s accounts, often resulting in them not being able to pay bills. It appears related to increased monitoring and enforcement of suspicious transactions. MORE

Researchers at Northwestern found that after a sleepless night, mice became more aggressive, hyperactive, and hypersexual. I’m listening. It basically counteracted depression. I wonder what the tradeoff is since we already know the lack of sleep is categorically bad. MORE

The US only added 150,000 jobs last month, which is almost half of the 297,000 jobs created in September. MORE

Maersk is cutting around 10,000 jobs because there's too much capacity and not enough demand. That seems bad. MORE

Meanwhile, a number of economic markers are trending positive. So are things getting better or worse? It’s sad that we can’t really ask economists because they don’t know either. MORE

IDEAS & ANALYSIS

This is a powerful concept. So here’s the question: who are we not allowed to criticize?

NOTES

I just bought and finished David Brooks’ new book, How to Know a Person. It won an instant spot on my bookshelf. 10/10. I absolutely love every book he’s ever written, and this one is just as good as the others. THE BOOK

Currently working on a major open-source coding project that I’m doing my best not to tell you about before I release it. It’s going to be unspeakably sick. Wait, did I violate the “telling people” rule if I didn’t tell you what it was?

I’m looking for another developer skilled with React and RAG AI stuff. If you know anyone solid, let me know. PING ME

Gmail keeps cutting off our newsletters, and it’s pissing me off. Sorry about that. It’s worth the click to keep going.

DISCOVERY

⚒️ Cover Your Tracks — The EFF tool for testing your browser to see how easy it is to track you. MORE

⚒️ Arsenal — A quick inventory and launcher for pentest commands, making it easier to remember and execute complex commands. | by Orange-Cyberdefense | MORE 

⚒️GSec— A web security scanner and exploitation engine based on custom scanners and Nuclei. TOOL

⚒️ EMBA v1.3.1 — A firmware security analyzer that now includes a firmware diffing mechanism. | by E-M-B-A | MORE | MORE

⚒️ Phind's AI Model — Phind's new AI model is claiming to outperform OpenAI’s GPT-4 at coding, and 5x faster. They're still ironing out some consistency issues, but the speed is evidently impressive. MORE

⚒️PatentPal — PatentPal is an AI tool that helps you create patent documentation. TOOL

💼 LinkedIn's AI Job Hunter — LinkedIn is rolling out an AI-powered "job seeker coach" for premium members, aiming to match job candidates with openings, prep for interviews, and more. MORE

🔍 Docus.ai — This tool allows you to diagnose medical issues quickly with AI and then verify with top human doctors. MORE

🎨 The online creative opposite of TikTok. MORE

📚 Morise AI — This tool reads your videos and generates everything you need for YouTube publishing. MORE

🐦 Postwise — A tool that creates viral Tweets. MORE

Caricatures of Security People MORE

Analyzing Threat Actor Profiles Using Social Media Intelligence MORE

Tesla network traffic. MORE 

Washington D.C. is giving out free AirTags to reduce car thefts. MORE

Cloudflare's R2 is an S3 competitor that charges less per gigabyte of storage and doesn't charge for data egress. MORE 

A cool visual showing the hierarchy of AI Agent capabilities. MORE

Planting milkweed sends an invitation to butterflies. MORE

Transmitting energy from star to star using gravity lenses. MORE

🔥 Change macOS to always match the destination style when pasting. MORE

A blog is a search query to find interesting people. MORE

Quit Your Job MORE

RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Try adding dedicated quiet time to your life. LIke an hour or so a week to start. This is a regular habit of many very creative people, and I don’t do it enough either. So like…walking, or sitting, but just with your thoughts.

The shower shouldn’t be the only place where thoughts bubble up uncontrollably, and if it is, that probably means you’re not giving your mind enough quiet time.

APHORISM OF THE WEEK

This is one of my top 10 quotes of all time…

Thank you for reading.

UL is a personal and strange combination of security, tech, AI, and lots of deep and human content. 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 it with them. 🫶 

Share UL with someone smart and curious…

Yours,

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How to Lower Your Heart Rate Before Public Speaking

There are two kinds of stress associated with public speaking. I have one, but not the other.

The first one is really bad and it’s basically what people commonly refer to as the fear of public speaking. This is the idea where you get super nervous and even panicky the moment you think about being on stage.

I don’t have that problem, and I’ll talk about how I solved that in another essay. But here I want to talk about the second kind, which is one that I still have sometimes.

This is the kind where you love public speaking and actually enjoy being in front of other people and talking about your ideas. But you still get over-excited at the exact moment that it’s time to get on stage.

I consider this to be a healthy form of stress. I don’t even think about it as stress; I consider it excitement.

Anyway, the problem is, if you are over-excited, and your heart is beating extremely fast, you are likely to speak too quickly and not deliver at the pace or in the tone that you wanted to. You could also have voice quavering in the first couple of minutes, which sounds like nervousness and a lack of confidence.

I don’t like those symptoms and I just recently found something in the last year or so that has reduced them by 70-95%

The short version is: Wim Hoff breathing.

The longer version is one to three cycles of deep, fast breathing of around 30 repetitions (which used to be known as hyperventilating), followed by a very long and deep exhale which you hold for as long as you can (safely of course), and then followed by a super deep inhale, which you then hold for as long as you can.

So:

Like 20-30 super deep and fast hyperventilating breaths

On the last one, hold the exhale as long as you can

Then take a super deep breath and hold that as long as you can

That’s one cycle.

If you do one cycle of this, your heart rate massively comes down and you feel a powerful sense of calm and control. Honestly, it works for any situation in which you want a bit of extra peace and relaxation, but it’s really good for public speaking.

If you can do 2-3 cycles of this in the 10 minutes leading up to your talk, and if you have any response anything like mine, you’ll have an 80-95% reduction in your early-talk-over-excitement.

That’s really it.

If you want to know how I handled the bigger, nastier, more common fear of public speaking, let me know, and I’ll write that one shortly.

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Our Personal AI Assistants Will Soon be Our Interfaces to the World

Something I captured back in 2016 is that much of the marketing that’s now done on you will soon be done against your personal AI assistant.

Your AI will have your preferences, and it will constantly adjust those based on continued interactions over time. And at that point it will be your primary filter for reality.

what media you watch

what news you read

what events are highlighted and amplified

This will all be determined by your AI. And your AI will be interacting with thousands of APIs that represent reality so that it can act on your behalf.

Those APIs include:

new news stories

new analysis of that news

all the new books coming out

the lists of new music

new artists

new releases from existing people you follow

the services from every business near you

the personal daemons of people near you (think ai-ai wingpeople)

You will be served a curated list of these things by your AI.

So the way to influence you will be to get seen by your AI, and to convince your AI that you want to see THIS thing. Influence campaigns (marketing, propaganda, education) will be human directed but AI generated and managed. And it’ll be continuous.

The main interface to reality will be you, me—everyone—all talking to our AIs and telling it what we want to do, and then our AIs using a thousand different tools and APIs and services on the backend to make that happen.

There, of course, will be direct human engagement, but even then, each of our AIs will be there monitoring, validating, summarizing, integrating, and otherwise enriching those experiences.

But most of our time is alone. With our thoughts. Our memories. Bouncing ideas. Contemplating. Iterating. Perhaps preparing to release to a greater audience. And our DAs will be the primary filter for all of that.

You want to be a better partner?

Want to be less gullible?

More creative?

Smarter in a subject?

Better in business?

Your AI will Augment you towards any and all of that that you’re trying to accomplish. Continuously and in both directions. Both in curating your inputs but also in sharpening your output to make you more effective and successful.

Our AIs will be the filter layers between ourselves and reality.

And the security issues there—with compromises, manipulation, and basically any integrity issues with our AI’s will be extraordinary. Because the extent to which you control someone’s personal AI will largely be the level of control you will have over them as well.

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The Left's Reaction to Israel/Hamas Has Positioned Trump as the Protector of the West

A protester waves a Jihadist flag at a Pro-Palestine protest

I think the war in Israel, and the way much of the Left in the West has responded to it, has just created a new culture war.

Or, to be more precise, it’s encompassed and magnified all the previous culture wars going back to 2014 or so, and turned it into a new monster.

We have massive protests that seem to be celebrating Hamas, not just the Palestinians, many of which include violent slogans and signage, and we don’t see widespread condemnation from the Left.

So what’s happening is polarization, with people in the West across the US, Europe, and elsewhere picking sides.

And the sides are (generally and sloppily) pro-West and anti-West. Here are some very imprecise and perhaps flawed associations:

Anti-West

Pro-Islam

Pro-Palestine

Anti-Jewish

Anti-Israel

Anti-US

Pro-BLM

Pro-Critical-race-theory

Anti-business

Anti-rich

Anti-police

Pro-protest

Pro-violence to enact change (not everyone, obviously)

Narrative: Despite all its success, the West still today represents colonialism, oppression, and is the reason so many people are suffering on the planet.

Pro-West

Pro-Israel

Pro-business

Pro-police

Pro-Jewish

Pro-Judeo-Christian

Pro-order

Pro-discussion

Narrative: Despite its flaws, the West still represents the best place in the world for people of all types to come and pursue happiness and success, and it should be celebrated rather than torn down.

Those lists themselves aren’t what’s so important. And obviously not everyone fits into one or the other, and there are actually many columns, not just two.

But in a world where we’re often forced into X or Y, what’s crucial is how different groups of people in the US are slotting into one side or the other as we head into the 2024 election. Normally there wouldn’t just be two sides. Normally people would resist being forced to pick one. But right now isn’t normal. Right now the pressure is so high I think tons of people are going to literally “pick a side”.

So here’s the question. How are most people in these groups going to go?

Middle-America whites

Hispanic immigrants

West-coast Techie Types

American Jews

Asian Americans

African Americans

Asian-Indian-Americans

Blue-collar workers

The top 10% in income/wealth?

All this to say, I think a whole lot of Americans are going to go Pro-West, and guess who’s about to become their new spokesperson for the next 13 months?

Trump.

I think this war in Israel, and the response we’ve seen to it, is about to galvanize the Pro-West side massively by pulling tons of center and left-center people to the Pro-West side, which will be lead by him.

This deeply troubles me, since I think a second Trump presidency is an extraordinary risk to civilization. The West absolutely needs a champion right now, but I really wish it weren’t going to be him.

This is what I see happening, though—basically the Islamacists (defined as extremist theocrats, not the majority of peaceful Muslims), US academia, the general group of “down with America” types, and tons of young idealistic people who have no idea what they’re talking about, are going to get increasingly vocal, and likely violent as well.

And the other side is going to say, “See!?!? This is the same thing as before with BLM and such! And this is why crime is rising. And this is why Israel was attacked! And the attacks in Paris! And this and that!” Etc. All this complexity and contradiction will get collapsed down into overly-simplified sides.

So it’ll be:

Trump (The Savior of The West according to his fans)

vs.

Biden (the Fragile Beacon of Subtlety and Nuance)

Who do you think is going to win that?

Basically, we’re fucked. Not just in the culture war that’s about to ensue, but in the fact that this might very well get Trump re-elected.

P.S.: Since I know you want to know, I’m on the Pro-West, Pro-Jewish/Israel/Palestine/Secular/Humanist, Anti-Trump side. Meaning, not cleanly in the two columns as they’ll likely play out, but mostly Pro-West.

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Extracted Wisdom: Riva Tez vs. David Perell

ExWis is a project that Extracts Wisdom from textual content, whether that’s a podcast conversation, an interview, a presentation, an essay, an article—basically whatever.

The project takes the input and turns it into a list of things I would have captured if I had 2-3 hours to watch it slowly and take meticulous notes.

—

SUMMARY: 

The conversation involves David Perell and Riva Tez discussing various topics related to technology, AI, free-thinking, reading historical texts, and authenticity in writing. They delve into the importance of questioning conventional wisdom, exploring new ideas, and finding meaning in a world full of technology.

IDEAS:

1. Free thinking is a valuable tool in navigating a world filled with technology and AI.

2. Reading historical texts can provide valuable insights into current societal and technological trends.

3. Authenticity in writing resonates more deeply with readers than manufactured narratives.

4. The current societal obsession with optimization can stifle creativity and free thinking.

5. The ability to ask unconventional questions is a crucial skill in exploring new ideas.

6. Understanding the past can provide a framework for understanding present phenomena.

7. The value of deep reading extends beyond mere acquisition of knowledge to a deeper understanding of concepts.

8. The concept of consciousness is still largely unexplored and misunderstood despite advancements in technology.

9. The current trend towards specialization in education neglects the importance of holistic learning.

10. The importance of humility in acknowledging that we do not have all the answers, especially in complex fields like AI and consciousness.

11. The role of technology in shaping human culture and societal norms.

12. The influence of historical texts on contemporary thought processes and societal structures.

13. The potential of technology, especially AI, to redefine what it means to be human.

14. The importance of introspection and per

sonal reflection in understanding oneself and the world.

15. The influence of societal structures and norms on individual thought processes and creativity.

16. The potential dangers of an over-reliance on technology and AI in shaping our understanding of reality.

17. The importance of questioning and challenging societal norms and conventional wisdom.

18. The role of philosophy in shaping our understanding of life and existence.

19. The potential for technology to either enhance or diminish human fulfillment and thriving.

20. The value of diverse experiences and perspectives in enriching our understanding of the world.

QUOTES:

1. "Part of her brilliance is the way she combines her love for Rilke’s poetry with an interest in philosophy, theology, and consciousness."

2. "In a world of people who are obsessed with optimization, Riva is passionately unoptimized."

3. "I'll start watching Netflix when I've read the whole of human history."

4. "If you're an ecstatic person, then yes."

5. "I think we've had this conversation previously, which is that I've probably read Atlas Frye, like every two years, but like 15 years."

6. "I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster."

7. "I'm like, cool. I'll start watching Netflix when I've read the whole of human history."

8. "If you lived forever, you wouldn't have one job, right?"

9. "It's like, there's no such thing. We don't want to have superiority."

10. "It's like, all observable reality is 5 percent of what we can see."

OPINIONS:

1. Riva Tez believes that free thinking is a crucial skill in a world dominated by technology and AI.

2. David Perell agrees with Riva's view on the importance of reading historical texts to gain a deeper understanding of current societal and technological trends.

3. Riva opines that authenticity in writing is more impactful than manufactured narratives.

4. Both Riva and David believe that the societal obsession with optimization can stifle creativity and free thinking.

5. Riva holds the opinion that the ability to ask unconventional questions is a crucial skill in exploring new ideas.

INFLUENCES:

1. Rilke’s poetry has had a profound influence on Riva Tez, inspiring her to question dogma and explore under-explored ideas.

2. The teachings of philosophers like Descartes and Nietzsche have shaped Riva's approach to questioning societal norms and exploring new ideas.

3. The writings of Ayn Rand have influenced Riva's views on individualism and the importance of questioning consensus.

4. The works of Euripides, Homer, and other classical Greek writers have influenced Riva's appreciation for historical texts and their relevance to contemporary issues.

5. The writings of C.P. Snow, William of Ockham, and other thinkers have shaped David's understanding of the divide between humanities and STEM fields.

HABITS:

1. Riva Tez habitually immerses herself in deep reading, often revisiting books that have moved her in the past to uncover new insights.

2. David Perell practices deep reading daily, focusing on understanding the Bible at a deeper level.

3. Riva has a habit of spending hours each day just thinking, creating a mental space for ideas to come to her.

4. David practices journaling daily, using it as a tool to reflect on his readings and understand how they apply to his life.

5. Riva makes it a point to spend time alone and in nature, which she finds helps her get into a different state where new thoughts and ideas can emerge.

FACTS:

1. The oldest complete New Testament manuscript, Codex Sinaiticus, is believed to have been written in the fourth century.

2. The Ottoman Empire was a historical empire that spanned three continents, lasting from the 14th to the early 20th century.

3. The Federalist Papers were a series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

4. The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was a continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

5. The term "Occam's Razor" is derived from the philosophical principle proposed by William of Ockham, which states that simpler explanations should be preferred over more complex ones.

RESOURCES:

1. Book: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand - A novel that explores themes of individualism and questioning consensus.

2. Book: "Alan" by Alan Harrington - A book that explores the concept of immortality and how it could impact society.

3. Book: "The Immortalists" by Alan Harrington - A book that discusses the possibility of achieving physical immortality through scientific means.

4. Book: "The Federalist Papers" - A collection of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

5. Podcast: "Fallof Civilizations" - A podcast that explores the collapse of different civilizations throughout history.

NUGGETS:

1. Free thinking is a valuable tool in navigating a world filled with technology and AI.

2. Reading historical texts can provide valuable insights into current societal and technological trends.

3. Authenticity in writing resonates more deeply with readers than manufactured narratives.

4. The current societal obsession with optimization can stifle creativity and free thinking.

5. The ability to ask unconventional questions is a crucial skill in exploring new ideas.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Cultivate the habit of free thinking and questioning conventional wisdom.

2. Read historical texts to gain a deeper understanding of current societal and technological trends.

3. Aim for authenticity in writing to create a deeper connection with readers.

4. Resist the societal obsession with optimization to foster creativity and free thinking.

5. Develop the skill of asking unconventional questions to explore new ideas.

SCORE:

CSR (Consume Slowly Rating) — As Soon as Possible (This Week)

- The content is filled with high-quality insights that align well with the interests provided.

- The conversation covers a wide range of topics, providing a comprehensive look at various aspects of technology, AI, free-thinking, reading historical texts, and authenticity in writing.

- The insights are not only insightful but also thought-provoking, stimulating further exploration and discussion on the topics covered.

- The content provides a unique perspective on these topics, offering a fresh take that is not commonly found in other sources.

- Despite the length of the content, it remains engaging throughout, making it worth consuming in its entirety.

NOTES

This is AI-generated, so there is a potential for things to be incorrect. Don’t use this as authoritative. Rather, use it as an onramp to the source material.

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How to Get Samantha from Her or TARS from Interstellar on Your iPhone/Android

Pick between Samantha from Her or TARS from Interstellar

Ok, this is insane.

OpenAI just added super-high-quality voices to ChatGPT, and you can now start a 2-way conversation with iOS shortcuts! And you can make the AI behave just like AIs from the movies!

This means you can have a live, back-and-forth conversation with your AI instead of just asking it a question and getting a single response.

Install

First, if you don’t have the actual ChatGPT app (not the website), you can get it here:

iPhone

Install ‎ChatGPT on iPhone

‎Introducing ChatGPT for iOS: OpenAI’s latest advancements at your fingertips.

apps.apple.com/us/app/chatgpt/id6448311069

Android

Install ChatGPT on Google Play

With ChatGPT, find instant answers, professional input, and creative inspiration.

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openai.chatgpt&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1

Invoke it using an Apple shortcut

You can start a ChatGPT conversation using your voice by invoking Siri. I named mine “Scarlett”, so I just say,

The interface when you’re talking back and forth with your AI

…and she starts listening.

Make it sound like Scarlett Johansson or TARS

But that’s not the coolest part. The coolest part is that the voices OpenAI used ACTUALLY SOUND JUST LIKE SCARLETT JOHANSSON and TARS from Interstellar!

Sky = Scarlett Johansen

Cove = TARS

I prefer Her to Interstellar, but my buddy Tim likes TARS

So now you basically have a replacement for Siri that you can actually interact with in a two-way conversation.

It can teach you a subject

You can just keep exploring and deep-diving on topics and it never gets tired of your questions

You can ask its opinion on how to handle something in your life

And people are even using it as a therapist! (be careful with that one)

Imagine how many kids are going to learn more by using this! So many kids will have less anxiety taking to an AI like this vs. a teacher at school, or parents that are gone or busy.

Personalizing your new AI

You can also customize not just how Samantha or TARS talks, but what they know about you.

I use Scarlett because Her is my favorite movie about AI. And I tell her about myself a bit (but not too much), so she can occasionally use my first name, knows what I am interested in, etc.

I even told her I like EDM and the use of analogies in explanations, etc.

My Custom Instructions

But my buddy Tim (@detsecorg) has used the Custom Instructions to make his sound JUST LIKE TARS.

Here’s what he used:

The Custom Instructions in ChatGPT to make your AI behave like TARS

Now your Siri-invoked AI will not have a back-and-forth conversation with you, but it’ll sound and act like TARS!

Shortcuts to call your AI

But there’s one last tweak here that makes it even slicker.

Setting up your shortcut on your iPhone

If you have an iPhone 15 Pro you can map this to the new Action Button for one button access

Even if you don’t you can map the shortcut to a double-tap on the back of the phone

Summary

This is the biggest AI upgrade to everyday life that I’ve seen since ChatGPT launched. 

I have had several long, high-quality conversations with my AI about super interesting topics, and it’s insane every time.

You can now chat with super high-quality voices in back-and-forth conversations

You can basically replace Siri with this

You can make it sound like Scarlett Johansson in Her, or TARS

You can invoke the shortcut in multiple ways

1️⃣ “Siri-(Samantha or TARS)”

2️⃣ Action button

3️⃣ Tapping the back of your iPhone

This is a major life upgrade. Go play with it!

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Quotes

Updated: October 2023

I enjoy having my own list of quotations for two reasons:

I hate not remembering my favorites.

Favorite quotes serve to define a person rather quickly, which helps others who resonate at the same frequencies realize that we share perspectives.

Here is my current list.

You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out he hates the same people you do.

Anne Lamott

To find out who rules over you, simply determine who you’re not allowed to criticize.

Voltaire

Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

Bertrand Russell

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.

Voltaire

When process is lost, there is good practice. When good practice is lost, there are rules. When rules are lost, there is ritual. Ritual is the beginning of chaos.

It is better to want what you have than to want what you have.

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition…is…the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

Adam Smith

I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of his children for their numerous stupidities, for which he himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only his non-existence could excuse him.

Albert Einstein

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Hanlon’s Razor

We’re even wrong about which mistakes we’re making.

Carl Winfield

Never offer what you’d hate someone for accepting.

Tara Ploughman

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Mark Twain

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Albert Einstein

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

Brandeis

The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.

Tara Ploughman

Most interesting phenomena have multiple causes. ~ N.P. Calderwood

Focusing is about saying no.

Steve Jobs

Jews, Muslims, and Christians claim that their holy books are so profound, and so prescient of humanity’s needs, that they could only have been written at the direction of an omniscient diety. An atheist is simply someone who has considered the claim, read the books, and found the claim to be ridiculous.

Sam Harris

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

If you don’t care about quality, you can meet any other requirement.

Gerald Weinberg

Set aside half an hour every day to do all your worrying; then take a nap during this period.

Anonymous

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

Robert Frost

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Carl Sagan

Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you’re a consultant.

Scott Adams

It’s better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to always be right by never having any ideas at all.

Edward de Bono

Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.

Abraham Lincoln

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.

Bill Hicks

Don’t believe everything you think.

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

Keynes

Hire curious people. Even if they don’t have the exact skill set you want, curious, passionate people can learn anything.

Jason Fried

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.

Albert Camus

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Yeats

Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.

Chomsky

We are what we only pretend to be. So we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Vonnegut

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

Sagan

To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin.

Cardinal Robert Bellarmine

If you want to do good work, what you need is a great curiosity about a promising question.

Paul Graham

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

Writing is a little like crawling from a car crash to be greeted by a panel of strangers holding up score cards.

Keith Ridgway

When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, Sir?

John Maynard Keynes

If a nation expects to be ignorant — and free — in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Thomas Jefferson

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

Douglas Adams

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Helen Keller

If I look over my life, every single step of maturing for me, every single one, has had the exact same common denominator: accepting what was true over what I wished were true.

Julia Sweeney

If you watch ‘Jaws’ backwards, it’s a movie about a shark that keeps throwing up people until they have to open a beach.

You don’t truly understand something until you think it’s obvious.

Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

Arthur Miller

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

I’d drag my dick through broken glass for a mile just to hear that woman fart over a walkie-talkie.

Irish Saying

Be yourself, because the people who mind don’t matter, and the people who matter don’t mind.

Dr. Seuss

As all these results were obtained, not by any heroic method, but by patient and detailed reasoning, I began to think it probable that philosophy had erred in adopting heroic remedies for intellectual difficulties, and that solutions were to be found merely by greater care and accuracy. This view I have come to hold more and more strongly as time went on, and it has led me to doubt whether philosophy, as a study distinct from science and possessed of a method of its own, is anything more than an unfortunate legacy from theology.

Bertrand Russell

The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

Gibbon

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

Hypatia of Alexandria

Change breaks the brittle.

Jan Houtema

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Albert Einstein

A danger sign that fellow-obsessionals will at once recognize is the tendency to regard the happiest moments of your life as those that occur when someone who has an appointment to see you is prevented from coming.

Peter Medawar

However little television you watch, watch less.

David McCullough

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word.

Stephen King

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

Goering at the Nuremberg Trials

As it turned out, the obvious clearly stated, and combined with new observations, was sometimes close to revolutionary.

Wallace Stegner

The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Republicans are the leading cause of underage drinking.

Marianne Terrot

Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

Edsger Dijkstra

I don’t like your I-can-use-anything-as-an-adjective attitude.

Larry Wall

It is easy to keep secrets by being honest in an ironic tone of voice.

Andrew Solomon

Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again.

Mike Meyers

I’m not okay and you’re not okay, but that’s okay.

If Bush was president during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we would all be dead.

Talk doesn’t cook rice.

ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS, MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC, but now I’m sadly lowercase, with the occasional italic.

Roger McCough

In a way, the most morally troubling thing about killing chickens is that after a while it is no longer morally troubling.

Michael Pollan

In the information age, it’s not just whose army wins, but whose story wins.

Joseph S. Nye Jr.

One farmer says to me, ‘You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;’ and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

Henry David Thoreau

When I type the word “queue”, I just type “q’ and start alternating u’s and e’s for a little while and hope something good happens.

Daniel Miessler

It’s just endless what you can learn from a single work of art. You can fill up the crevices of your life, the cracks of your life, the places where the mortar comes out and falls away–you can fill it up with the love of art.

Vincent Price

If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, “What would I do if I were a horse?”

Ely Devons

The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine.

JBS Haldane

As I was going up the stair I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. I wish, I wish, he’d go away.

Hughes Mearns

Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers.

If only one person in the world held down a terrified, struggling, screaming little girl, cut off her genitals with a septic blade, and sewed her back up, leaving only a tiny hole for urine and menstrual flow, the only question would be how severely that person should be punished, and whether the death penalty would be a sufficiently severe sanction. But when millions of people do this, instead of the enormity being magnified millions-fold, suddenly it becomes ‘culture’, and thereby magically becomes less, rather than more, horrible, and is even defended by some Western ‘moral thinkers’, including feminists.

Donald Symons

Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.

A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.

A fault tolerant system must report the faults even as it tolerates them.

An algorithm must be seen to be believed.

Donald Knuth

If I look over my life, every single step of maturing for me, every single one, has had the exact same common denominator, and that was accepting what was true over what I wished were true.

Julia Sweeney

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

Richard Feynman

He who is unaware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.

Richard Whatley

When white men first effect contact with some unspoilt race of savages, they offer them all kinds of benefits, from the light of the gospel to pumpkin pie. These, however, much as we may regret it, most savages receive with indifference. What they really value among the gifts that we bring to them is intoxicating liquor which enables them, for the first time in their lives, to have the illusion for a few brief moments that it is better to be alive than dead.

Bertrand Russell

Sources

I have collected these quotes over time from dozens of sources, but there are a few worth noting.

Aaron Swartz

Paul Graham

Alan Silverstein

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