ZD 24.17: Approaching the Co-Intelligence Threshold?

Are we getting close to truly useful AI?

In the Issue: New and interesting Olympic Sports; why China might be more interested in destroying the Taiwanese fabs; the network Ma Bell built. To finish we explore the oncoming co-intelligence threshold and how you can stay on the right side of it. Enjoy!

Production note: NEW SECTION — introducing a ‘graph of the week’ called Graphic Zeitgeist. The intent is to find one interesting graph a week that illustrates where the world is going. Let me know what you think, and I do entertain suggestions!

Graphic Zeitgeist

👷‍♂️ US Job Creation by State in the 2020s.

The Distilled Spirit

🎾 Olympic Sports to Explore (

Read Rodge

)
After a glorious few weeks, we have run out of 4-match-a-day soccer. I’ve got the shakes; I;m not sure what to do with myself after that much quality football. Thankfully,

Rodger Sherman

has some ideas about how to fill this void in my sports life. Table Tennis at the Olympic level is an amazing sport, even if Team USA does not have much of a chance. I’ve been meaning to get into Team Handball for a while; the Olympic Team Handball preview is just what I needed to get going.

🏭 The Last Fab Standing (

Semiconductor Business Intelligence

)
It is widely presumed that China wants to capture TSMC’s crown jewels — the clusters of world-leading semiconductor fabrication facilities on the island. This supposition might be a misguided notion. What if, rather than looking to capture the factories, the Chinese goal is instead to destroy them? With those factories a smoking ruin, they would effectively corner the market on semiconductor supply.

Claus Aasholm

illustrates why this might be the case. Are you feeling the zugzwang yet?

🖼 What Ma Bell Built (

Construction Physics

)
The telephone network was an amazing feat of engineering and driver of technology in the 20th century. Creating and operating a network of that scale out of whole cloth necessitated a massive amount of invention and investment. Tools like the semiconductor and the cellular telephone network are products invented in Bell Labs. The descendant of this nation wide phone network delivers this publication, Olympic Handball and much much more.

Brian Potter

dives into what it took to build out this network and how relentless AT&T had to be to get the network built.

Sharing things the old-fashioned way. Clicking the button is more fun.

The Focus

🤖 Watching Practical Co-Intelligence Threshold? (

One Useful Thing

)
AI is a proverbial General Purpose Technology. Not unlike things like the steam engine, telecommunications or semiconductors it can be applied to many human endeavors. Those advances, not unlike AI, required a combination of factors to position the technology to be good enough, fast enough and cheap enough to change humanity’s trajectory.

NYT best-selling author and Wharton professor

Ethan Mollick

looks at how AI today is rapidly approaching this threshold and in many cases exceeding it. He sees it as a jagged frontier where some things will get surpassed and other problems — like video generation — are harder. The direction, however, is clear and we will see effective use of AI in many more products doing many more things in the coming years.

If you are thinking about how to employ AI yourself, I strongly recommend Ethan’s recent book. Co-Intelligence is an eye opening look into how you can employ AI as a coach and partner for your work and how to think about the tool in general. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐!