Karan Thapar: “[The aggressive interview format] is pretty close to death in India at the moment. This wasn’t the case 6-7 years ago. But those were the days when TV channels believed that you could treat politicians reasonably toughly. You interviewed a politician either by placing him between the horns of a dilemma, or by taking a view opposite to his. Today, we interview politicians by virtually sitting in their lap and asking questions that they may have paid you to ask.”
Shane Parrish: “When people’s actions have outcomes that don’t line up with how they see themselves, they tend to insulate their egos by blaming other people or unfavorable circumstances. Phrases like, “It was a great idea just poorly executed,” “We did the best we could,” and “We never should’ve been in this situation in the first place,” are often manifestations of this self-preserving tendency. Here’s the thing: it might be true. Maybe it really wasn’t a bad idea, just bad execution. Maybe you really did do the best you could. Maybe you never should have been in that situation in the first place. It doesn’t really matter. No one cares. None of it changes the outcome or solves the problems that still remain. Just because something happened that was outside of your control doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility to deal with circumstances the best you can.”
Bryan Caplan: “There is a general rule that even when a technology seems awesome, it usually takes a lot longer to have big economic effects than you would expect. The first phones were in 1870; it takes about 80 years before this technology is even giving us reliable phone calls to Europe. Electricity seemed like it took several decades for widespread adoption, and the internet also seemed like it took longer than it should…Whenever human beings are involved in the adoption of the technology, there’s just a bunch of different problems, different snags. So as to whether GPT is going to really transform the economy in a few years, I would still consider that pretty amazing. It’s almost unprecedented.”
Wired: “What’s the future of the phone itself in this era of slowing sales?…We asked more than half a dozen technologists, builders, designers, analysts, and futurists their thoughts on what’s next for the smartphone. Some focused on the form factor. Others said sophisticated silicon will help us identify “real” media versus fake or AI-generated facsimiles. And a few predicted that actual phone calls will fall by the wayside. Still, almost all of them believe that the smartphone is something we’ll continue to carry with us, both literally and metaphorically. The smartphone market may never see the same meteoric rise that it did in the 2010s, but the all-powerful pocket computer is here to stay.”
Techcrunch on the key takeways from Stanford’s State of AI report: “AI development has flipped over the last decade from academia-led to industry-led, by a large margin, and this shows no sign of changing. It’s becoming difficult to test models on traditional benchmarks and a new paradigm may be needed here. The energy footprint of AI training and use is becoming considerable, but we have yet to see how it may add efficiencies elsewhere. The number of “AI incidents and controversies” has increased by a factor of 26 since 2012, which actually seems a bit low. AI-related skills and job postings are increasing, but not as fast as you’d think. Policymakers, however, are falling over themselves trying to write a definitive AI bill, a fool’s errand if there ever was one. Investment has temporarily stalled, but that’s after an astronomic increase over the last decade. More than 70% of Chinese, Saudi, and Indian respondents felt AI had more benefits than drawbacks. Americans? 35%.”
