Six Links That Make You Think #798

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

AI Will Not Make You Rich – Jerry Neumann – Colossus. “AI is definitely an innovation. But is it more like the microchip (which created thousands of very rich people) or the shipping container (an innovation that had an incredible impact on productivity, but whose gains were distributed widely, rather than concentrated?) Jerry Neumann argues the latter, in a great piece that frames both historically. Ironically, the obvious value of AI means there’s less time to ‘corner the market’, similar to containers. It was the obscurity of the microprocessor – long the stuff of homebrewers and geeks – which gave an industry time to form and build moats. ‘For decades, the way to make money was to bet on what the new thing was. Now, you have to bet on the opportunities it opens up.’ Of course, AI companies have the benefit of hindsight when thinking about the openness and distribution of their technologies, but will they use it?” (Alistair for Hugh). The Militia And The Mole – Joshua Kaplan – ProPublica . “This reads like a true crime documentary, and offers a fascinating look into the militias South of the Border. In an era of gun violence and calls for protesters to be labelled terrorists, it’s a sobering read, and frankly, astonishing that the mole got their story out.” (Alistair for Mitch). Hope External: Phil Christman’s Prophetic Ambivalence – Todd Shy – Pittsburgh Review Of Books . “I am a long-lapsed Catholic agnostic/atheist. But, I cannot help but wonder if the moral/philosophical rot we seek overtaking our society is not somehow related to the disappearance of organized religion from daily life. What’s amazing in this time is the quasi-religions that have supplanted the old ones, whether MAGA or wokism, or climate apocalysm. I just hope Peter Thiel doesn’t get anointed pope of the world.” (Hugh for Alistair). With The Em Dash, A.I. Embraces A Fading Tradition – Nitsuh Abebe – The New York Times . “I cannot tell you how outraged I am about the anti-em dash ignoramuses out there. ChatGPT knows how to use one of our greatest punctuation marks. The fact that most people couldn’t tell you the difference between a hyphen, en dash and em dash is their fault not GPTs. It’s possible I will only link to em dash controversy articles from now on.” (Hugh for Mitch). Inside A Real Genius Club: The Santa Fe Institute – Big Think – YouTube . “A fascinating documentary about an institute I had only heard about tangentially. This is where smart people go to do smart work with other smart people working on different types of projects. I’ll take a guess and figure that places like this exist everywhere? Maybe not (bu tthey should). Spaces like this are so inspiring. I’m not sure if you’ve seen this documentary before (ht to Sentiers for this one), but what a beautiful look at people really digging deep and spending time thinking about big problems (and solving them). As a sidebar: It’s amazing how much envy one can have about a world that is both connected, where people spend their time not worrying much about being that connected… or (said another way) the good stuff ain’t happening on their phones…” (Mitch for Alistair). Why 95% Of AI Commentary Fails – Jon Evans – Gradient Ascendant . “I’ve been a long subscriber to Jon Evans’ thinking (we actually hung out a couple of times decades ago when his sister and I circuled the same orbit), and I’ve loved his writing and thinking ever since. There is a now-famous MIT paper circulating that 95% of AI projects fail. When you actually dig into this and spend some time looking beyond the headlines, you start getting to the same place that this commentary gets to. Which is that the headline isn’t reality. In fact, as this article points out, AI usage is actually everywhere in enterprises and a lot of it is still growing and adding value. So… whether this is a bubble or not… dig in beyond headlines… lots if insights here.” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

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