Definite Optimist Roundup - April 11th
Back with our (semi) regularly scheduled programming
Hello Dear Reader,
We are back with regularly scheduled programming. This week, we have a roundup of some of my favorite links for you which include my new favorite podcast, e/acc people to follow, & content that will help you manage your own AI anxiety (or excitement - depending on how you’re feeling 😁)
My New Favorite Podcast
I’ve been listening to David Senra’s Founders podcast obsessively. It’s approximately 300 episodes that are each a wealth of timeless lessons pulled from the biographies of great founders. David is remarkably passionate about what he does. He picks out books from the some of the best founders in history, and pours over them for dozens of hours per week - generating highlights from only the best of what he’s read. He then pours back over his highlights on 3 separate occasions before he reads back through many of them for a 5th time during his recording.
It’s such a joy seeing people get so excited about their work. David has a deep respect for the listener’s time, and ensures that every second you spend listening to Founders is designed to deliver you value. Here are 3 episodes which resonated with me:
1 - David’s guest appearance on The Acquired podcast where he walks through why he does what he does & how he thinks about his own business as a podcaster. This episode made me realize that I can up my game with this newsletter (and my own podcast) 100x.
2 - The 3 episodes on Paul Graham’s essays are absolutely fantastic. There are 3 total episodes on Paul G’s essays. Hundreds of essays are compressed into a few hours of passionate summarization by David. Graham’s essay on finding work you love was a catalyst for David - it pushed him to go all in on Founders, and it’s worked out. It also served as a reminder to me about how much effort it takes to find work you love. I’m still in the process of figuring this out, but I can feel that I’m getting close.
3 - This newsletter’s name was inspired by Thiel’s “You are Not a Lottery Ticket” chapter from Zero to One, and this episode was a fantastic refresher for me on Thiel’s ideas. My primary takeaway from re-engaging with Thiel’s work is that that shockingly few people working in startups take power laws seriously. If you work in technology, you must realize that power laws rule everything around you. They’re counterintuitive, but if you internalize the implications of power laws in technology startups, you will have a competitive advantage.
Epistemology, AI, and David Deutsch
David Deutsch was interviewed by Naval Ravikant & Tim Ferriss in a podcast episode that I found to be insightful and timely. Deutsch’s worldview has had a major impact on my own thinking. I’ve read the Beginning of Infinity & the Fabric of Reality multiple times over the last 2 years.
Two things that really stuck with me from this episode: Deutsch’s thoughts on the current state of AI are the most sane I’ve ever encountered, and he has perhaps the greatest definition of wealth I’ve ever heard:
“Wealth is not a number. I don’t think it can be characterized very well by a number. It is the set of all transformations that you are capable of bringing about. That is your wealth. And if optimism is true, then there’s no limit to wealth.” - Deutsch
You Should Not be Afraid of GPT[x]
The LLM is one of the most powerful innovations created in my lifetime (i.e. since 1997). What’s most interesting about them is that they’re directly useful by 99% of the general population. This puts the LLM on par with social media and the iPhone in terms of broad impact & utility.
But unlike the smartphone and (early stage) social media, AI is the source of much angst. There’s a movement that is calling for aggressive regulatory intervention to slow down AI progress, European countries have started banning ChatGPT, & much of the population seems to believe that AI will lead to something bad.
AI will not come without its challenges, but I encourage you to read the likes of David Deutsch to understand the best existing counterarguments to the doomers. GPT-4 is not as close to AGI (artificial general intelligence) as most pundits seem to believe, and the same will likely hold true for GPT-4’s descendants. And even if it were, the arguments that AI will become sentient and opt to kill us all are shoddy at best. There are real risks, but many of them involve the incoming flood of fake content that’s inevitable. This started with Tom Cruise deepfakes, but it’s progressing to Balenciaga memes and soon may progress to a proliferation of targeted fake content that aims to generate political instability.
I use ChatGPT daily to help me to write code. You can use them to learn and to be better at your work. Remember that the entire world has access to these systems too. If you don’t use them, your competitors will.
I’ve started to think about it as a universal tutor that’s wrong about 10% of the time. You can’t rely on everything that LLMs say. They still hallucinate, but you can use them to ask specific questions about technical topics and speed up your learning process. Try this prompt (and follow Mckay to stay up to date on the state of the art in AI development)
I’m doubtful that this current AI paradigm will get us to true AGI, but we should milk LLMs for all they’re worth. And another great (very e/acc) point from Mckay: do we really think that all of the tech industry should be mastering CSS and python/node.js backends for the rest of our lives? Or should we be working on nuclear fusion, flying cars, longevity, and space travel? The technology industry must expand beyond its limited identity as a world of SaaS founders & software engineers. Software will forever be a great thing to work on, but we should be using our software to master the universe instead of chasing high valuations in already crowded sectors.
Speaking of e/acc
The e/acc mindset is a fascinating trend in response to AI ‘X risk’ & EA culture. To the e/acc folks, we should be stepping on the gas when it comes to AI and technological development. The e/acc worldview is similar to Deutsch’s worldview, and just as optimistic. Both view the growth of societal wealth & knowledge as a moral imperative. Solid e/acc follows include Bayeslord, Based Beff Jezos, and the official e/acc newsletter here:
We Are Living in Moving History
Tyler Cowen put out this piece in March about how most people alive today are not prepared to operate in ‘moving history.’ I don’t know that I’d say that the last 20 years have been tame per se (the internet + GWOT + COVID + the rise of China have been chaotic), but most people, especially young people, have a sense for what he means. As a young person, many of the stories we were spoon fed in our youth don’t seem like they’ll be valid for the next 70 years of our lives. No one alive in the US has had any meaningful life experience outside of the 1945-2020 USA bull run. We have no cultural memory of world war or the Great Depression. Every living generation (in the United States) cut their teeth in a time of domestic peace and 8 decades of long term growth in the US stock market, with relatively little innovation outside of the internet & purely digital domain.
AI might seriously change the nature of work within the next 5 years. I just said earlier that you shouldn’t be afraid of it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t recognize that it’s going to change things. Our stories about the US stock market & the nature of the firm might change as well. I’m personally bullish on America in the long run, but I’m admittedly sensing that turbulence is ahead for the rest of the 2020s.
So what should you do? What should I do? The reality is that nobody has the answer for us. The only thing that’s probably true for most people is that they need to be willing to act. When the earth moves beneath your feet, you’d be insane to be flat footed. The way to thrive is to be dynamic. Take risk, think for yourself, and make moves when it’s time to make moves. That’s my plan.
We don’t know how knowledge is going to evolve, and we can’t predict the future growth of knowledge or what other people are going to do. But we can control our own destinies, and make our own plans. So I’m going to keep producing this newsletter, and dedicate time to helping the world to understand technology. I’m also in the midst of much reflection on what *won’t* change over the next few decades. Jeff Bezos treated this as foundational to his strategy with Amazon:
“I very frequently get the question: 'What's going to change in the next 10 years?' And that is a very interesting question; it's a very common one. I almost never get the question: 'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?' And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two -- because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. ... [I]n our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that's going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection.
It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, 'Jeff I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher,' [or] 'I love Amazon; I just wish you'd deliver a little more slowly.' Impossible. And so the effort we put into those things, spinning those things up, we know the energy we put into it today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”
-Jeff Bezos.
So be willing to act. Be willing to make big moves and take risks (especially if you’re young). But when things are changing rapidly, it’s more important than ever to ask: what won’t change? What constants can I bet on? What will matter in my business, and in my life in the coming decades? It’s worth reflecting on these questions. I know that I’ll be keeping them top of mind.
Thanks for reading.
-Sam