ZD 26.29: The Last Human Skill
Sparse data, high context, one person at a time.
🧠 Efficient Social Learning is the Human Advantage (David Deming)
Humans learn faster and cheaper than training AI. Our efficient brains provide humanity with a durable economic advantage. Moreover, LLMs might understand the rational and repeatable, but they repeatedly flunk tests and fail to learn from the irrational or improve outcomes.
🔥 The Post-Literate Age is Here (Adam Singer)
Pleasure reading is down 43%. A third of adults cannot draw an inference from a few pages. Sentences keep getting shorter and shorter. The advantage goes to the readers who can smell slop and use AI to build superarguments.
🍾 The OpenAI Bubble (Ed Zitron)
OpenAI is promising to spend billions on CapEx. If that does not materialize, the whole AI spending story collapses along with billions of dollars of Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle obligations to vendors. How much do you trust Sam Altman? He needs to close the $122B fundraising round to start paying the bill.
🧥 The Silicon Valley Sweater Set (Sean Monahan)
OpenAI opened a merch store. It is about as bad and overpriced as you think.
🪖 Drones Break Tank Warfare Economics (RealClearDefense)
The US Marine Corps scrapped all 452 of their tanks in 2020. Now $1000 drones are destroying $10 million tanks, and armies are welding cages on top in a desperate race to preserve their investments.
🖥️ Bloomberg’s Last Stand (The Terminalist)
Every data vendor not named Bloomberg is rushing to ship AI integrations to embed their tool in your workflow. Is the venerable terminal vendor missing the boat or defending their market advantage?
Why San Francisco Isn’t Bigger (Works in Progress)
Americans once built a lot of new land. We stopped around 1976 when a thicket of environmental regulations took effect. Meanwhile, China, Japan and Singapore keep expanding into the sea.
🏗️ When Your AI Disappears, What Happens to Your Work? (Dr Sam Illingworth)
Fable’s appearance and disappearance reminded everyone that the model you depend upon is one policy change away from disappearing. Build resilience into your workflow and rely upon vendor-neutral plain text to keep your process as portable as possible.
🧯 How To Follow the X Firehose (Zvi Mowshowitz)
X is a firehose of thought, if you know how to look at it. Here is how one of the most interesting people in the world uses tools like well-curated lists to follow subjects in chronological order.
🦢 What are London’s Medieval Guilds Up To These Days (weird medieval guys)
England holds on to many traditions, apparently including some 114 London livery companies descended from medieval guilds. When they are not having strange events or doing charity, they might be running the City of London.
The Look
Author David Epstein tells us how the best of the best don’t think. They build mental maps and see the proverbial big picture in a way the average player does not. They see in sets not components.
Did you enjoy reading this post? Hit the ♥ button above or below because it helps more people discover great Substacks like this one and it helps train your algorithm to get you more posts you like. Please share here or in your networks to help us grow!