S1: Unsupervised Learning is a podcast about trends and ideas in cybersecurity,
S1: national security, AI, technology and society, and how best to
S1: upgrade ourselves to be ready for what's coming. All right,
S1: welcome to Unsupervised Learning. This is Daniel Miessler, and we're
S1: going to start off with this really cool story from
S1: Reversing Labs. So basically what their team found was that
S1: it's possible to exploit local models on hugging face if
S1: they use the pickle format, which is used by TensorFlow models.
S1: So it's used by a lot of different models. And
S1: basically what pickle is, is it's a Python library for
S1: parsing model files. Essentially it's a parser, right? It's a
S1: parsing library. And everyone knows in security that parsing is
S1: the root of all evil. So what they figured out
S1: is that the scanning system, the security software for hugging
S1: face would basically break. If you get over a certain
S1: size or if you have like a broken file. So
S1: what they figured out is that somebody had actually embedded
S1: malware in a couple of these models. And this kind
S1: of breaks people's brains because you think essentially that if
S1: you're running a local model, it's safe, right? That that's
S1: what everyone has been saying. If you run a local model,
S1: it's completely safe. It's the services that are dangerous, right.
S1: Like the deep seek service obviously that's in China, so
S1: it's dangerous. But if it's a local model, it's fine.
S1: What they found was look, it's still software, right? Running
S1: a model is still software. You have a parsing library
S1: involved if it's a pickle file based model. And yeah,
S1: they were basically able to find malware inside of this
S1: thing that was trying to dial home. It was trying
S1: to dial home to an IP address inside of China.
S1: So really, really cool finding and it's going to be
S1: in the newsletter next week. But in the meantime, you
S1: can get it from this URL right here. They they're
S1: calling the attack nullify which is pretty good name. Nullify nullify.
S1: And yeah it nullifies I guess hugging face security. So
S1: yeah that was that was cool. All right. Continuing down here.
S1: Oh yeah. We did the augmented version three. We talked
S1: about Telos Files. This was last Friday. It was a
S1: great class. Best of the three. It was definitely the
S1: best of the three courses in my opinion went a
S1: full four hours. It was quite good. The next one
S1: I think is going to be online, although I said
S1: that for the last one. Um, so it might be
S1: another live class but haven't announced that one yet, so
S1: don't worry about that. Um, going back to roots on
S1: the story format here. So I'm basically if a story
S1: is only one sentence, It's going to be one sentence.
S1: I went back and looked at a whole bunch of
S1: my old episodes where I just felt really comfortable with
S1: doing that writing, and I was surprised at how short
S1: a lot of the things were. I would just be like, hey, yeah,
S1: this thing happened. I think it's kind of cool because
S1: of this reason. Boom, whatever. That's like 12 words or whatever.
S1: And I had a link in boom, that was it.
S1: And I'm just going to kind of go back to that.
S1: I've been so I focused, I want to write more
S1: because I could use AI to help with summarizing, but
S1: I want to focus more on manual writing of that
S1: first sentence and use the AI more to like, gather
S1: data and gather support and sources for the sentence that
S1: I write myself, which I'm already writing a whole lot
S1: of the sentence, but I just want to start from
S1: scratch and write the sentence completely myself, which is how
S1: I was doing it, obviously going back to 2015. So
S1: that's a little bit of a change there. Uh, put
S1: a bunch of new fabric patterns focusing on analyzing your
S1: Telos file. And this is part of the the the
S1: course just put out. And they all start with t underscore.
S1: So if you look for those patterns those are telos oriented.
S1: Um yeah. Had some loud music in my raycast video.
S1: I'm re-uploading that I've been talking to the team about it.
S1: Sometimes you might hear in the podcast edit, you're never
S1: supposed to hear that the team is supposed to take
S1: that and edit that out, which is why I say
S1: the word. So I've had some talks with the team
S1: and they are working on fixing that. But apologies in
S1: the meantime. And yeah, I had some shenanigans with an
S1: automated post to my X account a few days ago,
S1: and it turns out it was like an automated like
S1: Twitter application that looks like it might have been compromised
S1: on the back end. Maybe it not sure exactly, but yeah,
S1: it was really kind of weird. And I got an
S1: email out to the security team to see if they
S1: want to fix it. See, what have we got here? Um,
S1: someone's using 2.8 million. This is under security. 2.8 million IPS.
S1: To brute force the passwords of basically every type of
S1: VPN and firewall device out there, and most of the
S1: IPS are in Brazil, but lots of other countries as well.
S1: Apple just patched another zero day that Citizens Lab says
S1: was being used in extremely sophisticated, targeted attacks against specific
S1: journalists and dissidents. Ken Wong from CSA released a detailed
S1: framework called maestro. And the thing that this does, it's
S1: a threat modeling framework, but it's specifically focused on AI agents,
S1: and it's addressing gaps in things like stride and pasta
S1: and other frameworks that just were pre AI. So they
S1: don't really handle AI that well. Uh, also uh, deals
S1: with emerging threats like goal misalignment, model extraction, adversarial attacks,
S1: stuff like that. And researchers at Watchtower discovered 150 abandoned
S1: around 150 abandoned S3 buckets used by a whole bunch
S1: of software companies like governments. Romance, various types of infrastructure pipelines.
S1: And the concern is if those S3 buckets and the artifacts,
S1: the assets inside of those S3 buckets are being consumed
S1: as part of a pipeline, well, that's ripe for a
S1: supply chain attack. Cloudflare had a significant outage because someone
S1: tried to block a phishing URL, accidentally turned off their
S1: entire R2 storage, which R2 is basically S3. It's cloudflare's
S1: answer to S3. And yeah, Cloudflare always has really good postmortems,
S1: so you definitely want to check that one out. While
S1: ARM released a report on API security that includes a
S1: bunch of stats on AI services that use APIs, and
S1: the big takeaway for me, which I kind of already
S1: believed is AI security right now is largely API security,
S1: and with the caveat being that it's AI API security,
S1: so that your API has to be strong because that's
S1: like that's the parsing system for going into your application.
S1: But the added twist with AI is it's not only
S1: API security, it's also whatever is being consumed through that API.
S1: You also have the problem of prompt injection. And prompt
S1: injection can like travel and like detonate multiple times or
S1: get stored and detonate later. It's kind of like a
S1: stored cross-site scripting type of vibe, except for it's even
S1: more nuanced because it's English and it can detonate at
S1: multiple levels, and different parsers can detonate the content differently, right?
S1: It could be that you have like a five layer
S1: nested prompt injection attack, and maybe some systems peel off
S1: two of the layers, or some systems peel off only
S1: one of the layers. Some systems peel off four of
S1: the layers, but the fifth one gets through. So there's
S1: a lot of extra complexity because you're using English to
S1: try to trick systems. But big, big focus, however, on
S1: AI security or API security with AI security. Ex-google engineers
S1: facing espionage charges for passing confidential IP to China, Estonia,
S1: Latvia and Lithuania just cut their last major tie to
S1: Russia by switching their power grids from Soviet era systems
S1: to the European continental network. That is great to see
S1: that independence happening. And a bunch of Russian drone operators
S1: were attacked with kind of like that, um, Hezbollah attack
S1: where they attacked the pagers, but they were receiving booby
S1: trapped headsets. But the problem was when they opened up
S1: the packages which they were going to use, the packaging
S1: was not perfect. And because the packaging was not perfect,
S1: they they detected tampering and they were like, hey, something
S1: is weird here. And of course, they probably thought of
S1: the Hezbollah situation and they did not use them, but
S1: if they did, it could have been similar to like
S1: the Hezbollah attack where a bunch of Russian drone operators
S1: get killed or injured from modified headsets. I in tech,
S1: Gumroad says they're no longer hiring junior or mid-level engineers
S1: because AI is handling most of that work. Now, this
S1: is colossal. And also this is not an AI company.
S1: So Salesforce said something like this. But Salesforce also makes
S1: agents for or what is that thing called agent Force
S1: or something like that. It's they have their own product.
S1: So when the head of Salesforce says, hey, you know,
S1: we don't even need engineers because our product is so
S1: awesome that maybe it's true, maybe it's marketing. In this case,
S1: this is just a regular company. Gumroad they're saying they
S1: are not hiring junior or mid-level engineers anymore. The only
S1: people they're going to hire are senior people, senior devs,
S1: or senior architects who are really good with AI. I've
S1: been saying this since very early 23, like February of
S1: 23 and so have a lot of other people, right?
S1: I'm not the only one. It's it's kind of obvious
S1: where this is heading, right. And you get into a
S1: real big problem with like the pipeline. But at the
S1: same time this seems a little bit extreme. It seems
S1: like they might be overstating their case, because I do
S1: know the current state of AI agents, and it's not
S1: quite at the level of replacing fully replacing junior engineers.
S1: I don't know, in some tasks you can mid-level engineers?
S1: I don't think so. I don't I don't think so.
S1: Not right now. Not in February of 25. Maybe in
S1: two months, maybe in six months, maybe in a year,
S1: maybe inside of 2025. Yes. And of course, the details
S1: are nuanced based on the use case, but I would
S1: say junior engineers maybe, but not quite. Mid-level engineers? No,
S1: and definitely not senior engineers. So I think this might
S1: be a little bit padded, but, um, yeah, I would
S1: say there's a lot of daylight between these tools and
S1: a human developer with 105 IQ. There really is there's
S1: a there's a lot of daylight between those two things
S1: still in February of 25. So one of Chatgpt's main architects,
S1: John Schulman, left anthropic after only five months. And the
S1: rumor is he's going to join Mira at her AI startup.
S1: I'm not sure if that actually happened, but seems like
S1: a lot of people are leaving both anthropic and OpenAI
S1: to go work with Mira. Uh, new demo shows OpenAI
S1: assistant giving remarkably natural sales calls, handling objections and questions. Yeah,
S1: if you're a mediocre salesperson, you should be afraid. You
S1: should be afraid and either do something else or get not. Mediocre.
S1: Anthropic released an anthropic economic index report on how AI
S1: is being used in the workforce. They see 36% of
S1: people use AI for at least a quarter of their tasks. Interesting.
S1: Good report. I like the content coming out of anthropic.
S1: I feel like their their paper about like how we
S1: view agents really good essays. I like the essay that
S1: came out from the CEO Dario. Yeah, I like the
S1: thought leadership that they're putting out in addition to their models,
S1: by the way. A new model is supposed to be
S1: coming out from anthropic. I would have bet money that
S1: it would have been in January. Not a lot of money.
S1: I would have put it at 70 or 80% chance
S1: of it being in January. So I am quite surprised
S1: that they have not released a new model family, or
S1: just an update to sonnet or opus or haiku or whatever.
S1: I think they're probably going to do a big family upgrade,
S1: maybe even a new family. I think they're going to
S1: do something big, but I thought they would have wanted
S1: to do it in January, so I'm surprised that it's
S1: not out yet, but the rumor is basically that it
S1: is coming soon, maybe in the next couple of weeks.
S1: Lee Robinson says AI is finally enabling truly personal software,
S1: where people can build exactly what they need without extra bloat. 100%
S1: agreed their LinkedIn is testing an AI tool where you
S1: just talk to the interface about what you're looking for,
S1: and it returns results. Another way to say this is
S1: like LinkedIn is working on an interface that everyone's going
S1: to have soon. Like so many people, especially developers are
S1: just talking to like cursor or to Visual Studio or
S1: to whatever AI tool. You just talk to it and
S1: it's like it figures out what you mean and it
S1: just starts working. All software is going to be like that, right? Um,
S1: in my opinion, you're going to be talking to your, uh,
S1: your own AI model and it's going to be the
S1: interface to this tool. But you could also talk to
S1: the tool directly in the meantime, because we don't have
S1: full Das yet. but it seems obvious that voice is
S1: going to become more and more of our interface to things.
S1: Because as nice as a keyboard is, and we'll still
S1: use the keyboard for some things, and some people will
S1: prefer the keyboard, but it is friction compared to just talking,
S1: especially when there's lots of back and forth and stuff
S1: like that. Chick fil A is using drones to fly over,
S1: study and optimize their drive thrus, helping them achieve the
S1: highest per restaurant revenue in the US. So they got
S1: an aerial film studies unit, and it helped one location
S1: boost drive thru sales by 50% in 2022. So they've
S1: got a new Atlanta location serving 700 cars per hour.
S1: If you ever go there during a rush, it's like
S1: it disrupts traffic on the street outside. So now they
S1: got drones flying over like optimizing the thing. Mad respect
S1: to chick fil A. Mad respect to chick fil A.
S1: They're just like, yeah, they know how to run a business.
S1: Same with In-N-Out, right? Same kind of vibe. Like really
S1: focused on optimization. Apple's making a smart home display called
S1: the home Pad. Basically a seven inch square display. Um, also,
S1: there's a big announcement coming out. When is it? The 19th.
S1: Apple is teasing some kind of big product. So it
S1: might actually be this might actually be this. It's like
S1: a seven inch square display that you put different places
S1: in the house. So it's like a touch display for
S1: managing your, your home. So it could be that or
S1: it could be like a new surprise product. Not sure
S1: what that's going to be. Uber is in a weird
S1: spot because they're just the middleman between users and a
S1: service like Waymo. So if you're anywhere near San Francisco,
S1: you're coming to visit or you live there, you should
S1: be using Waymo. Waymo is way better. Uber is just
S1: it's amazing. It's absolutely great. Car comes and picks you up.
S1: There's no driver. It's extremely safe. It's like the best
S1: driver you've ever seen. It's way better than a human
S1: Uber driver. Probably better than you as a driver or
S1: me as a driver. It's just extraordinarily high quality. And
S1: the question is, if Waymo gets big and becomes the
S1: big thing, why wouldn't you just have the Waymo app
S1: like I do? I don't I why would I use
S1: the Uber app to call Waymo? Now one answer is
S1: maybe I just want one app. And if it's the
S1: same user experience or better, then I would use the
S1: one app. But the problem is if you have a
S1: DoorDash app and you have a Waymo app, those are
S1: direct lines into the thing. I will tell you the
S1: answer though. I'll tell you the answer, which is going
S1: to be one or 2 or 3 years out, which
S1: is you won't need any of those because your single interface,
S1: going back to the previous point, your single interface will
S1: be your Da, your digital assistant will be the single interface.
S1: So you won't be calling Waymo. This is what people
S1: don't realize. This is the book that I wrote in 2016.
S1: I don't talk about the book enough. I should talk
S1: about it. I literally predicted this stuff in the book
S1: in 2016, which is why I wrote the book. It's
S1: kind of a crappy book, honestly. It's more like a
S1: structured blog post. It's very short, but I literally wrote
S1: it down because I saw it so clearly, including the
S1: AI stuff, including the Da stuff, and it just seems
S1: logical to me. It seemed logical to me then. It
S1: seems logical to me now. There won't be a Waymo app,
S1: or they there will be, but it will be a
S1: Waymo API. Companies become APIs, okay? Companies become APIs. That
S1: is what's going to happen. Waymo is just an API.
S1: Uber is just an API. If I go to the
S1: corner and I have had a few Moscow mules with Tito's,
S1: Which is my go to drink, and, um, I'm not driving.
S1: My car is right there, but I'm not going to
S1: drive because I've had too much to drink, and, um,
S1: I need to go home. I'm going to say to
S1: my da, give me a ride home. It is then
S1: going to look at all the different services it's going.
S1: First of all, it might know that I have a preference,
S1: but anyway, it has all the different things available. All
S1: the cab companies have an API, Uber has an API,
S1: Waymo has an API. Maybe there's a competitor to Waymo,
S1: maybe it's BYD. Hopefully it isn't. But let's say there's
S1: a Chinese competitor. Oh, Tesla. Tesla will have an API
S1: because there will be Tesla auto driving cars as well.
S1: So that's a competitor to Waymo. All these things have
S1: an API. My Da knows my preferences. It knows what
S1: I like inside the car. It knows the cars that
S1: I like. It knows when I got angry about an
S1: experience before. It's judging all those things based on my
S1: current AI I state it's selecting from which one. Also,
S1: it could be which one can get to here the fastest.
S1: Maybe it's raining. Maybe I need a car immediately. And
S1: a car is literally like 100ft away from me and
S1: it can pick me up in 30s. Maybe it selects that,
S1: but it makes the choice for me. I literally say
S1: I literally walk out of the thing and I say,
S1: give me a ride home. And 28 seconds later, a
S1: car stops and opens up and says, hey, Daniel, um,
S1: I'm here to take you home. And it's an automated car.
S1: It's autonomous and it takes me home. I did not
S1: pick up my phone. I did not open an application.
S1: That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. I will not be
S1: opening apps. I will be talking to my da. My
S1: da is the proxy. It is my interface to the world.
S1: My da is looking around at San Francisco at the
S1: millions and millions of demons which are APIs for objects,
S1: including the objects which are businesses. It has the ability
S1: to see and read and interpret and manipulate and interface
S1: with all of those millions of APIs to create the
S1: best possible experience for me, which in this case involves
S1: getting me home quickly while not driving drunk. That's it.
S1: If you think about the future of AI and the
S1: future of tech, this is the biggest thing that nobody's
S1: talking about because they haven't figured it out yet. They
S1: just haven't figured this out yet. Like, it's I don't
S1: see anybody talking about it yet. I keep talking about
S1: it every once in a while, like I am now,
S1: but in a couple of years, people are going to
S1: be like, you know what? I tell you what? You know,
S1: it's going to be cool. Everything's going to have some
S1: sort of interface. And then the AI on the individual's
S1: device is going to interact with those services on behalf
S1: of the user. And I'm going to be like, yeah, yeah,
S1: that's exactly what's going to happen. And the next piece
S1: on top of that, okay, I'm just going to pull
S1: it up. The next piece on top of that is
S1: going to be the interface. Okay. What's this thing called
S1: invoking raycast. Going to do this real quick. Digital assistants.
S1: Step one digital assistants are personal AIS know everything about
S1: us and they are everything to us. That is our
S1: single interface. Then two everything gets an API, which is
S1: a demon or an aura or an API. Whatever we
S1: want to call that, I will call it a demon
S1: for a person, which is Greek for soul. Three our
S1: Das will mediate everything. This is the point that I
S1: was just making. We'll say what we want in our
S1: Das will manipulate external demons APIs to make it happen,
S1: for our Das will become our active advocates and defenders.
S1: They will actively monitor, filter and manipulate the world to
S1: protect us, to advocate on our behalf. Okay. That's four.
S1: And millions of examples in here. You should definitely go
S1: read this one. I'll try to link to it somewhere.
S1: And five A thriving ecosystem of Da modules. These Da
S1: modules are the APIs. The companies become the APIs. The
S1: companies are the APIs. The companies put themselves into the
S1: world via the APIs. Six AR interfaces show us the
S1: demons around us through an interface that our Da is
S1: providing us. So some companies will provide the filters through
S1: which we see the demons. So for example, this filter
S1: that my Da is using, let's say it's from a
S1: company called chroma. Okay. This company called chroma displays people's
S1: demons in really cool, colorful ways. That's the only thing
S1: this company does. So my Da knows that I like
S1: to use the chroma interface. So when I walk around
S1: and I see people's demons, this girl, for example, this
S1: girl is super creative. She's hyper creative. And the chroma
S1: interface when it reads a demon. When my da reads
S1: a demon, it reads her demon. We're in a Starbucks.
S1: I look over at this girl. This is what I
S1: see in my visor. This is what I see in
S1: my apple glasses, or my meta glasses or my Google glasses.
S1: Whatever the company is, this is what I see. I
S1: see this glowing fire around this girl and I'm like,
S1: Holy crap, she must be an artist. She must be
S1: like a musician. She's like on fire with like, creativity.
S1: My Da knew that because it read the thing, but
S1: most importantly, it went through the filter of the chroma interface,
S1: and that's what made the display inside of my visual.
S1: Inside of my. Ah, right. So some people don't want
S1: to see this. They want to see a more tech version.
S1: They want to see a more minimalist version. They want
S1: to see a green outline for creative people or whatever. Right.
S1: So those filters are themselves separate companies with separate APIs
S1: and software that run on the, ah, interface, etc.. Right.
S1: So it's all this giant marketplace of filters and demons
S1: and companies that are available to me. Right. And if
S1: I go back up here, look, this is where the
S1: the this is all the demons. I can't read that.
S1: That is millions of demons literally on the screen right now.
S1: I as a human cannot read this. My Da is
S1: reading it for me and advocating on my behalf. Right?
S1: So you have this giant ecosystem of these things. You
S1: have the ah, R interface. Here's another way of viewing
S1: a person. This is another way of viewing a person.
S1: This one I think it yeah, this is very human.
S1: This is somebody going through hard times. So if I
S1: look over and I see this on somebody, I'm going
S1: to be like, hey, can I buy this person a coffee? Hey,
S1: how are you doing? Like you're going through some shit.
S1: What's going on? Do you need somebody to talk to? Right.
S1: But this is why I. And to me, and tech
S1: is a human thing. I want to be able to
S1: connect with this person. And maybe I should read it
S1: on their face. Right. But this is a public demon
S1: that she's broadcasting, so she's allowing this to go out
S1: into the world. That life's messed up right now. So
S1: I'm going to go say hi. Right. I'm going to
S1: go see if they need a friend. So these are
S1: the different demon options. Look there's going to be a
S1: whole ecosystem around this. But anyway, I digress. Okay. Ted's
S1: Chris Anderson is looking for somebody to take over the
S1: entire Ted organization, and he's running the search like a
S1: Willy Wonka contest where anybody can apply. Interesting. Christie's is
S1: doing their first AI only art auction, and it's a
S1: lot of traditional artists getting really mad about this. Yeah. Understandably,
S1: Google says they are getting rid of their diversity hiring
S1: targets for 24, saying it was positive discrimination, which yeah,
S1: it might technically be true. That is the purpose of
S1: affirmative action is because that particular group needs extra help.
S1: So I you got to keep in mind what Dei
S1: is for. Like I agree, Dei has caused damage. It's
S1: it's been poorly implemented. The concept is not broken. The
S1: concept is great and we should still continue doing it.
S1: I think what they are saying, I'm giving you a
S1: charitable reading here. What they're saying is that we're still
S1: doing Dei the correct way, which is we still want
S1: to hire everyone who's capable and who's best qualified for
S1: the job, and we are absolutely looking for underrepresented groups
S1: to do that. What they are saying, charitable interpretation, again,
S1: is that we are not specifically going to say we
S1: must hire this many of this particular group, and we
S1: exclude other qualified candidates because they are not those groups.
S1: They are saying they are discarding that because they're getting
S1: sued over it. And it's not a good idea and
S1: it's reverse discrimination and all of that. So the question
S1: is how does this look in a few years? Is
S1: it that they're actually getting rid of all Dei, all
S1: affirmative action and they're just using this as cover? Yeah.
S1: So here's here's my comment on this surprising not surprising
S1: that all these programs disappeared overnight on January 21st. What
S1: does that tell you? And like I say here, it
S1: tells me that they couldn't wait for a reason or
S1: opportunity to do this, so they've been wishing they could
S1: do it already. So what I'm hoping is it doesn't
S1: just get rid of all affirmative action, which like I said,
S1: the core concept is correct and we need to continue
S1: doing it until we actually have equal opportunity, which we
S1: do not right now. Doctors are now a major client
S1: base for weight loss drugs like Ozempic. This link said
S1: something like 40% of doctors are on Ozempic. I like that,
S1: although few decades ago all doctors were smoking camels, so
S1: doesn't necessarily mean it's perfect advice. New York City is.
S1: Subway crime dropped by 36% in January because they added
S1: 1200 more police? Yeah, only 147 subway crimes in January 25th,
S1: compared to 231 in January. And they got 300 specifically
S1: for overnight trains. Love it. Yeah. More cops like it.
S1: Measles outbreak is hitting the least vaccinated parts of Texas,
S1: with nine cases in an area where only 82% of
S1: kids are vaccinated. You actually need 95% for herd immunity.
S1: We're also in the worst flu season the last 15 years. But, uh,
S1: but Covid was actually super annoying. So let's not talk
S1: about let's not talk about, uh, flu or pandemics or
S1: anything like that that could actually benefit humanity because Covid
S1: was annoying. I think that's a good policy. One of
S1: my favorite thinkers, Robin Hanson, breaks down how different social
S1: circles value different status markers. And specifically, he's looking at
S1: his own friend group and how people that he hangs
S1: out with pursue and signal value. And he says most
S1: intellectuals that he knows are actually chasing fame and prestige.
S1: He's not talking about his core friends, his core friends.
S1: The highest sort of social status is two polymaths who
S1: follow evidence across disciplines. That's who I like to hang
S1: out with, too. I think we should all like that.
S1: After 12 years of Walmart domination. Amazon just jumped ahead
S1: with 187.8 billion in quarterly revenue. Compared to Walmart's expected
S1: 180 billion. So that's revenue. I'm curious about profit, but
S1: not curious enough to look it up because why do
S1: I care? Ideas paralyzed by crisis I'm a bit paralyzed
S1: by what's going on right now in politics and specifically
S1: with the government. I basically cycle between depressed, apathetic and
S1: very angry. Did the government need to be audited and
S1: cleaned up? Yes. Is the best way to start from
S1: scratch and be aggressive with it? Possibly. Yeah, I'm kind
S1: of excited about that. But you lose me when I
S1: don't see you being careful about the programs that matter.
S1: Like this whole. What was it? NCIS, NCIS. I didn't
S1: look into it. I get depressed about the stuff, so
S1: I just like I tune out. But there's no question
S1: to me that a bunch of that stuff was bad
S1: and needed to be removed. And there's also no question
S1: to me or for me that a bunch of stuff
S1: in there was actually really good and it wasn't very expensive,
S1: and you should not have turned it off. Right? So
S1: you lose me when you just throw everything out. And
S1: maybe they didn't do that. They're claiming that they're putting
S1: everything on the Doge website and it's all public and
S1: it's all visible. I went and looked yesterday for the
S1: first time, because I couldn't bring myself to pull up
S1: a government website called Doge, having lived through Dogecoin. So
S1: I'm just like, I don't want to go to that website.
S1: But anyway, I go there, it's dot gov. I don't know,
S1: it looked like there might have been some data published.
S1: I'll probably use AI to figure out if it's like
S1: actually publish if it's like legitimate transparency. I saw Elon
S1: talk from the white House the other day on YouTube
S1: in the middle of the night, which I should have
S1: been going to sleep instead. But anyway, he looked honest
S1: about it. He looked like he was actually trying to
S1: uncover things and do the right thing, which is what
S1: they were claiming they were doing. When I read the
S1: media about it, it's like, oh, this is the Antichrist.
S1: I don't think Elon is good at lying. When I
S1: see him saying that he's trying to do the right
S1: thing and he's trying to uncover this stuff, and he's
S1: making it public. And this is exactly what they were
S1: elected to do. I agree with him. However, you add
S1: in Nazi salutes, you add in his personality on X
S1: and how it's like slam dunk and like mean and rude.
S1: It doesn't rhyme with the authenticity. I just saw him
S1: giving about trying to do this doge thing correctly. So
S1: I'm very torn on the whole thing. I'm very like,
S1: you know, how how much can I actually believe what
S1: I'm hearing right now from from him? Um, I do
S1: know that the media portrayal of it, I believe it's wrong.
S1: I believe he's they and a bunch of them and
S1: a bunch of them are pure garbage. It just outright
S1: pure garbage. I actually don't think Trump is nearly as
S1: bad as a lot of people around him, and I
S1: don't think Elon is nearly as bad as a lot
S1: of the people around him. But at the same time,
S1: I can't fully trust Elon. And after the the Nazi
S1: salute stuff, honestly, I'm looking for a new car because
S1: I don't want to go political here. I already did,
S1: but I can't dig on Nazi salutes. I don't think
S1: he's anti-Semitic, which is why so many Jewish people still
S1: like him. He's very pro-Israel. He's very pro Jewish, very
S1: pro Jewish hostages. So I don't think he's anti-Semitic. Why
S1: are you doing Nazi salutes if you're not anti-Semitic? The
S1: answer is the answer is he's appealing to AfD about
S1: a culture war in Europe, and he's signaling to them
S1: that he's on their side. Problem is, it's a fucking
S1: Nazi salute that has implications that motivates neo-Nazis in the US,
S1: in Europe, all over the world. And it's not nuanced
S1: along the lines of like, oh, he's trolling and he's
S1: actually not anti-Semitic. neo-Nazis are anti-Semitic. Hate to tell you.
S1: So very upset with him looking for a new car
S1: because of this. At the same time, I think the
S1: narratives around what they're doing is pure evil. They're actually
S1: trying to ruin the country. They're going to go off
S1: their authoritarian. I don't think that's actually accurate. I think
S1: they're actually trying to do good inside of the government.
S1: This it's actually not the title of this little piece
S1: I'm doing right now. Um, it's actually one I'm must
S1: not have published that one yet. I'm still working on it.
S1: This complexity, the ability to hold multiple conflicting things in
S1: your mind is a thing that I believe that we
S1: actually need my North Star. I guess I'm going here.
S1: I didn't plan on going here. My North Star is
S1: Star Trek the Next Generation. I want a multiracial, multicultural
S1: future in which everyone has equal opportunity to thrive. I
S1: believe in government programs. I believe in taxation. I believe
S1: it is society's purpose and responsibility to make sure that
S1: everyone growing up and even into adulthood, if they didn't
S1: get this, they get the nurturing that they need to be,
S1: even with everyone else. Then they can launch. They can
S1: go to their the limits of their discipline, the limits
S1: of their talent, the limits of their creativity, whatever. But
S1: you can't have certain groups get left behind and then
S1: just be like, oh, well, whatever. No, not whatever. If
S1: we are successful, it is our job to lift them.
S1: That is what a society is. That is what a
S1: government is. That's what taxation is for. And if you
S1: listen to somebody like Rogan, he was on with someone
S1: who I really disagree with right now about vaccines. Weinstein,
S1: one of the one of the Weinstein brothers. The other one, not, uh,
S1: not Eric, his brother. Anyway, very much disagree. Very angry
S1: with him about vaccines, very much disagree with him about vaccines.
S1: And they, him and Joe, who are considered like extremely
S1: right at this point by all my very left friends,
S1: they are both like, we need government programs. We need
S1: those government programs to help people who need them. We
S1: cannot get rid of taxation. Taxation is great because it
S1: helps people lift up to the bottom. And I'm like,
S1: see these people? Look, these people all used to be liberals,
S1: including Elon, including Joe. This is why I disagree with
S1: Harris and I might be wrong about this. I also
S1: disagree with my friend Marcus. Marcus Hutchins about this. He's
S1: very much in the camp of Sam Harris about this.
S1: And sorry, I ended up going very, very politics on
S1: this one. Feel free to skip ahead to the discovery
S1: section if you don't want to hear me, close this out.
S1: But it's top of mind for me and I want
S1: to mention it. I want to rescue center people. I
S1: consider Elon a center person. I consider Joe a center person.
S1: I consider, well, Sam Harris is definitely a center person,
S1: but these people who I feel like have strayed and
S1: gone crazy with vaccines and like gone crazy with conspiracies.
S1: If they are still core liberal like I am, who
S1: believe society's responsibility is to help everyone and lift them up,
S1: and they want to build a multiracial, multicultural future which
S1: also lifts people up and is humanistic in nature and
S1: is based on maximizing benefit for all of humanity. That
S1: means there are liberal. That's why I am a liberal.
S1: If they believe that, then I will stick with them
S1: through the nastiness of all this other crap. The moment
S1: I see, the moment I see that they are actually
S1: not going for that. And what they're actually going for
S1: is like a white race is better thing where it's like,
S1: does it matter where you came from? It doesn't matter
S1: what you get. Um, your identity is what matters more.
S1: Guess what? Those are the same on the far left
S1: and the far right. It's most known on the far right. Right.
S1: You must be light skinned. You must be white. You
S1: must be whatever. You must be Jewish. You must be
S1: whatever it is that they're obsessed with. They think that's
S1: the best one. And they think everything else should fall
S1: under that. That is that's a zero for me. That
S1: is a do not pass go if that is the
S1: world you are trying to build, I do not support
S1: you and I will not support you. So the reason
S1: I continue to support to some limited degree people like Joe,
S1: people like Elon, is because I believe they're going for
S1: the other one. They're going for the one that I'm
S1: going for, which is this mutual lifting up of everyone
S1: into a multiracial, multicultural future. And the moment they stop
S1: supporting that, the more in anything they do that doesn't
S1: support that, I fight them on because I'm not confused
S1: about what my morals are. I'm not confused about my politics.
S1: They have not changed. They will not change. This is
S1: why I voted for Kamala, because somebody tried to change
S1: the vote on vote verification day, and they're claiming that
S1: it's not a crime. I'm not cool with that. I
S1: can't vote for him. End of story. So all of
S1: this to say that complexity is required to make sense
S1: out of a complex world, right? There is criticism of
S1: people like myself who try to manage this complexity of like,
S1: looking at all sources and all claims and everything in
S1: like multiple levels and multiple layers and trying to find
S1: the good in it and trying to find the bad
S1: in it. People, there are people who say, and these
S1: are like my far left friends and my far right
S1: friends who are like, um, you're both sides. No, no,
S1: the world is both sides. Like, if you judged the
S1: actual deep moral character of everyone that you hang out
S1: with based on the worst thing that they've done, you
S1: would not talk to anybody. You understand that? You would
S1: not talk to anybody. Like a lot of the people
S1: that we hang out with, they would become horrible people
S1: if they had the power of the people who have power. Right?
S1: And that's just reality. That's just like how the world works.
S1: So I think we should focus on and I talked
S1: about this somewhere else. I think we should focus on
S1: figuring out this person that you're talking about, this person
S1: that you are supporting, this person that you are criticizing,
S1: this person that you think is the Antichrist, whatever. Figure
S1: out the ideal world that they are trying to build,
S1: then think about your world that you are trying to
S1: build and see how similar they are. I would argue
S1: if those two worlds are similar, then the work that
S1: we need to do is to try to help them
S1: and help yourself muddle through the garbage, muddle through the
S1: the chaos, muddle through the noise, muddle through the emotion,
S1: whatever to get to this mutual place. And this is
S1: why I still support people who my friends on the
S1: far left have abandoned and completely abandoned a long time ago.
S1: I support them because I think, I think, and I
S1: could be wrong about this. And the moment I'm wrong
S1: about this, I switch to this fast. Okay. I think
S1: that the thing they are trying to build is very
S1: similar to the liberal thing that I want to build,
S1: and I want to see happen. That's it. It's that simple.
S1: If I think the world they are trying to build
S1: is this liberal world and that they are wrong about it,
S1: they are misguided about it. They don't know something. They're
S1: super dumb about a thing. I don't care about any
S1: of that. I care about what's inside of them. I
S1: care about their soul. I care about what they're trying
S1: to actually build. Right. So that's what I'm trying to
S1: figure out. This is why I am less worried about
S1: Trump now, because I see much more clear the thing
S1: that he's trying to build. It's actually not that bad.
S1: I don't like the guy because he's an egomaniac and like,
S1: half the things he says like, drive me absolutely crazy.
S1: And I think he's being influenced by Russia. I don't
S1: think he's I don't think he's a Russian asset at all.
S1: I don't think he's being, uh, directly manipulated by anyone
S1: at all. I think he's being side manipulated by narratives
S1: that are in his brain that could actually help people,
S1: that we don't want to help. But the point is,
S1: I think he wants a world, first of all, and
S1: this is really a tangent, he actually wants less nuclear weapons.
S1: He wants peace time. The downside for this guy is
S1: he wants a statue, and he wants people to stand
S1: up and salute when he walks in the room. The
S1: guy's he's a narcissist. Okay, but half the world is
S1: created by narcissists. If he's a narcissist who wants to
S1: build an amazing world where Literally the whole planet loves him.
S1: Does not fear him. He doesn't put everyone in jail.
S1: He doesn't kill everyone. He's not stalling. He's not Hitler.
S1: If that's the world he's trying to build, I'll take
S1: those floors. I will take those floors. He wants to denuclearize.
S1: He wants. He wants to, like, have all these countries
S1: get along. If that's the world he's actually trying to build.
S1: And I'm not sure of that. But if that is,
S1: then I put him in a much lower threat level.
S1: There are people around him in this administration who are
S1: not trying to build that world. They are trying to
S1: build something nasty, nasty, and they're using him and his, uh,
S1: naive naivete to try to get what they want. And
S1: so when I find those people, I'm like, yeah, that's garbage.
S1: Total garbage. Elon, I think he's going for a better version.
S1: I think he's going for a good world. I think
S1: it rhymes in is very similar to mine. Very angry
S1: with what he's currently doing, his actual actions. Right. But
S1: if I find out that he's not trying to build
S1: that world, he's trying to build this other world, this
S1: race centered one, or this inequality built one or whatever,
S1: that's it. I'm done with them. That's it. Right. That
S1: is that is how I operate in this world. And
S1: I would recommend I would appeal to you, especially if
S1: you're one of my friends on the left and also
S1: one of my friends on the right. Think about what
S1: they're trying to build and let everything else fade away.
S1: Let that be the center that you focus on in
S1: your political conversations. And don't let media or noise or distraction,
S1: you know, pull you away from that central conversation. What
S1: are we trying to build? How can we get there?
S1: And again, apologies for going into it is in the
S1: ideas section. So it's not in a news section, but uh,
S1: hopefully you didn't have to sit through that if you
S1: didn't want to hear here politics, but hopefully it's a
S1: good message that you got at the end. Moving on
S1: to discovery Lmics. This is probably the coolest AI library
S1: that you've never heard of. This thing abstracts your LLM
S1: calls to a universal config. So basically you have a
S1: little piece of like JavaScript or JSON like config. And
S1: you can send this to any back end. It speaks
S1: all the different AI back ends. Right. So you use
S1: this in like a proxy and like a lambda or
S1: like some sort of like AI function. So this is
S1: for people like myself who are building AI. But you
S1: don't have to write that code yourself. You have that
S1: thing implemented in this LLM X library, and then every
S1: single app that you build, every single component that you build,
S1: all these different multi-level, uh, agent systems and everything, they
S1: all have prompts. They all have models. They all have
S1: configs being sent to the models. You do that in
S1: this tiny little piece of config. That's what gets sent
S1: to Lmax and it handles everything for you. And the
S1: return comes back in a super clean way. It's the
S1: coolest thing ever. It's from a friend of mine who
S1: put this out, and it's like not getting near the
S1: coverage that it should get. You should absolutely check it out.
S1: MTR this thing combines traceroute and ping. I put this
S1: in here every year or so. It's like a really
S1: cool utility. It combines traceroute and ping and shows you
S1: connection quality between hops in real time. So it's just
S1: a cool geeky tool. RPG Map Bundle collection of print
S1: and play RPG maps for your next role playing game.
S1: Especially if you're doing like a one off and you
S1: just need maps real quick. A blog and pure text files.
S1: I think it's a cool idea. Just write however you
S1: do it. Science is a strong link problem. Very cool
S1: essay and a frustrated Redditor asks what career options exist
S1: for those who consider themselves less intelligent. I thought this
S1: was a really fascinating discussion on Reddit. Recommendation of the week.
S1: Remember that there's only so much that one person can do.
S1: Good books are always there for you. Go to the classics.
S1: If you're wondering what to read because you don't want
S1: to like current events or politics or anything to seep in.
S1: Go to the classics. Read the classics. Maybe not political ones,
S1: but tons of books. Books that are there to cradle
S1: you and save you and enrich you while you get
S1: some needed separation from the shit show that is reality.
S1: And supplement this with journaling. Um. My friend Clint Gibler
S1: really has continually emphasized how important journaling is to him,
S1: and it's got me writing more journal entries, so I
S1: highly suggest that as well. Especially combined with separating and
S1: possibly reading good books, the good books will give you
S1: ideas which you could also combine with your life experience
S1: and turn that into journaling. And the combination of the
S1: two is really beneficial. And the aphorism of the week.
S1: It is one of the blessings of old friends that
S1: you can afford to be stupid with them. It is
S1: one of the blessings of old friends that you can
S1: afford to be stupid with them. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Unsupervised
S1: learning is produced on Hindenburg Pro using an SM seven
S1: B microphone. A video version of the podcast is available
S1: on the Unsupervised Learning YouTube channel, and the text version
S1: with full links and notes is available at Daniel Metzler
S1: Comm Slash newsletter. We'll see you next time.