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S1: Welcome to Unsupervised Learning, a security, AI, and meaning focused
S1: podcast that looks at how best to thrive as humans.
S1: In a post AI world. It combines original ideas, analysis,
S1: and mental models to bring not just the news, but
S1: why it matters and how to respond. All right. Welcome
S1: to unsupervised Learning. This is Daniel, episode 432. Can you
S1: summarize your work in a sentence? All right. Lots of
S1: stuff here. Got a new fabric pattern called git wow
S1: per minute. This is basically like an estimation of the
S1: value density of any piece of content. So what you
S1: do is you essentially take the content and you send
S1: it to this fabric pattern, and it'll give you a
S1: score from 0 to 10. And if it's anything above
S1: like a five, it's got really it's got decent value. Okay.
S1: So 5 to 7 is like decent value and then
S1: like eight, 9 or 10, 8 or 9 even is
S1: like top. I've not seen a ten yet. So just
S1: consider nine to be like the top. So it's like
S1: how much value am I going to get for this thing?
S1: And basically what it's doing is it's looking at novelty,
S1: it's looking at insights, ideas, novelty, surprise and wisdom and
S1: basically collecting all those together and saying those are all
S1: instances of value. And then it's kind of putting all
S1: those together into a score between 0 and 10, and
S1: it is really working well. I put it through some
S1: stuff that I knew was going to be weak sauce,
S1: and it scored like a two or a three, and
S1: I put it through a couple things that I knew
S1: were super high value, and they scored eights and nines.
S1: So highly recommend this if you want to like, test
S1: your gut or use it programmatically for something to rate value.
S1: And importantly, it's doing it value per time, right? So
S1: that was key to me. So OpenAI did some cool
S1: stuff on Monday. So new model the O stands for
S1: Omni GPT four O. It's not a zero. It's not
S1: GPT 40. And it's about as smart as four, but
S1: four times faster and twice as cheap. So half the cost.
S1: And the big thing is that it has vision capabilities
S1: and better audio. And this is not fully released yet,
S1: but what it's going to allow you to do is
S1: basically just talk with it like a normal person. And
S1: even better, they released a desktop app which will soon
S1: have the capability of monitoring your screen. So I could
S1: be like scrolling through this right now and just like
S1: looking at stuff and it'll be like, oh yeah, so
S1: here's this. Don't forget to mention this. I could say,
S1: give me a summary of what's on the screen right now,
S1: and it'll just talk to me. And even cooler is like,
S1: if I'm looking at a data visualization or some math
S1: or something, it could, like, walk me through that math.
S1: It's just unbelievable. I've seen a couple of demos of this.
S1: I'm not sure if they were internally built or if
S1: they were third parties. Actually, I saw one by Khan
S1: from the Khan Academy and he was walking his son
S1: through like teaching him geometry. It's literally you're just talking
S1: to this thing. And what's really crazy about this release
S1: is that this is going to be for free users
S1: as well. So they opened GPT four to free users,
S1: which is absolutely incredible. And I'm just super excited about
S1: this whole thing. It's it's really, really exciting. Again, one
S1: of the things I've been talking about here with AI
S1: stuff is that it's extraordinary when AI is used to
S1: do things that everybody needs, but very few people have
S1: access to, so that's creating movies, that's creating ideas, writing books,
S1: but it's also things like getting a mole looked at,
S1: most importantly, education. I mean, the education use case for
S1: AI currently is insane. And it's really, really incredible when
S1: you start doing this for Zero Vibe, where one they
S1: made the whole model free. I'm not sure what the
S1: usage is going to be for that. Hopefully it'll be decent,
S1: but not only do they make it free, but it's interactive.
S1: So you could literally just say teach me calculus, teach
S1: me this infinite patience. It doesn't get mad at you.
S1: In fact, it now detects emotions, so if it hears
S1: you getting frustrated, it's going to be like, hey, let's
S1: slow down. Let me explain it in a different way.
S1: Let me use an analogy that is unbelievable. We're talking
S1: about massively multiplying the percentage of people on this planet
S1: who are educated because they have access to an extremely
S1: high quality superhuman intelligence, superhuman patience, tutor everyone in the
S1: world having access to this. And I'm not sure everyone
S1: in the world has access to GPT yet. And of course,
S1: you need a computer and you need internet. So that's
S1: not exactly true, but the barrier is massively lower as
S1: a result of this. It's just unbelievably positive and awesome.
S1: And obviously that doesn't take away any of the negatives
S1: or the dangers or the alignment problem or superintelligence. Like
S1: we've got issues coming up, no question. But the positives
S1: are just undeniable. And this model becoming. Free. I mean,
S1: and having these interactive conversation capabilities and emotion detection. Just unbelievable.
S1: I predicted there would be more agent stuff, which I
S1: think that will be coming soon. I still believe in
S1: these predictions, not so much about like what OpenAI specifically
S1: is going to do. I'm making broader predictions about what
S1: OpenAI and anthropic and probably Google and all other people
S1: will do, which is essentially moving prompts into or no
S1: moving agents into prompts. So basically, prompting is the most
S1: natural way to interact with an AI, and I believe
S1: that it's the most natural place to build agents as well.
S1: In fact, you'll just describe what you want. Like I
S1: want a team of 100 people creating ideas. I want
S1: a team of ten people filtering through those ideas to
S1: figure out the best ones. In fact, you won't even
S1: have to say 100 or 10. It'll just figure out
S1: based on how much money you have to spend, based
S1: on how much time you have and the time constraints
S1: and your deadline or whatever. It'll spin up more, spin
S1: up more or fewer based on all those constraints, right?
S1: So when you say, I need a team of people
S1: to do this, a team of people to do that,
S1: team of people to do this, then I need the
S1: final result to be rated and tested and validated. It'll
S1: just go and build all those pieces, which are actually
S1: teams of agents all collaborating together. And all you had
S1: to do was put that in the prompt. And that's
S1: why I think prompting is everything. It's an article I
S1: wrote earlier called prompting. Most of AI is prompting or
S1: something like that a couple of weeks ago or a
S1: week ago. So I would check that one out. And yeah,
S1: they got a desktop app. And yeah, they basically created
S1: digital assistants, which I've got a book out from 2016
S1: that was basically talking about this. And it's also in
S1: the Predictable Path video, which you might have seen, which
S1: is kind of like an updated visual version of that book,
S1: but with lots of new stuff, because I didn't know
S1: about Gen AI back in 2016, obviously, but they basically
S1: built her. Not only did they built her from the movie,
S1: but they're also using for the demos the voice that
S1: I use for my personal AI with OpenAI, which is Skylar,
S1: which is the voice of Scarlett Johansson, essentially. I doubt
S1: that it actually is, but maybe it is. Maybe she
S1: got paid for this. RSA was fantastic. Really good. Caught
S1: up with a lot of people, did a couple of
S1: talks and panels. Probably should have brought something to sell.
S1: I didn't really like go in there trying to sell anything,
S1: which I guess I should have. But I did talk
S1: a little bit about threshold, so that was cool. The
S1: energy and optimism around RSA was extraordinary. I think this
S1: is largely in part to AI, and there were tons
S1: of products talking about how much they're using AI and
S1: everything like that. So we've all made those jokes already.
S1: But speaking of threshold, holy crap, I am absolutely in
S1: love with this product. Okay, I am in love with
S1: this product. And yes, it is a paid product and
S1: it is my product. But look at this. This is
S1: my current feed right now. I didn't plan on showing this,
S1: but whatever. So how do I blow this up? Yeah.
S1: So how to cope with the fear of aging? I
S1: haven't looked at that one yet. 2025 models will be
S1: more like coworkers than than search engines. Again, this I
S1: did not explicitly go follow this person. What is this?
S1: This is. Uh dwarkesh.
S2: I think in 1 or 2 years we'll find that
S2: you can use.
S1: So this is Dwarkesh Patel, who's doing these interviews, and
S1: he's talking to really smart people about AI or whatever.
S1: He's talking about lots of different things. But this particular
S1: conversation is about coworkers and search engines and AGI and
S1: like all this super interesting topics. But here's the thing, okay?
S1: In order to show this to me, it came into
S1: the top of threshold and all my different AI stuff
S1: ran against it to assess it and determine what the
S1: content was and how high quality the content was, and
S1: it had to be above a certain threshold in order
S1: for it to even show up. Now I have it
S1: set to 50, which is the minimum because I want
S1: to see a lot of content, but I can move
S1: this up and I could turn off a lot of
S1: these things here. This is the first time I've actually
S1: showing threshold kind of interesting. So I can move those
S1: and I can say save and then look at this
S1: completely change the feed. But now it has to be
S1: above an 80 and it has to be in these
S1: categories or these categories have to apply. So just I
S1: mean every single thing listen to me, every single thing
S1: I click on here, I love I absolutely love it.
S1: And I don't have to stress about oh did I
S1: watch all the. Tests, from leks and from Huberman and
S1: all these different people and all these different I people. No,
S1: I just put them into the top of the funnel.
S1: I put them into the top of the funnel for threshold,
S1: and the whole I pipeline runs against it and I
S1: get the analysis. Oh, and I forgot to mention watch this. Okay,
S1: this is the sickest video. I want to talk about
S1: this anyway. So this is the sickest business video that
S1: I've ever seen and I forget how long it is.
S1: Soon we're going to have duration things in here. But
S1: watch this. If I go click on the video, obviously
S1: it's going to open up.
S3: In the engineering room and said these.
S1: Basically this guy Alex talking about stuff for an hour
S1: and 29 minutes okay. It is fantastic. But watch this.
S1: I could go like this. This is a major feature
S1: of threshold that no other platform has. You click on
S1: it and it tells you a summary of it, the
S1: ideas and a recommendation, and it gives you a review
S1: of it so you don't even have to go watch
S1: it if you don't want. But watch this. That was
S1: surface level. Watch this. If I go to middle level,
S1: gives me a deeper summary. It breaks out more ideas
S1: and more recommendations. And if I go to deep level
S1: auto updates, summary, core ideas, core recommendations. Unbelievable. I mean,
S1: I've always wanted this and that's why we actually created it.
S1: I've always wanted this as a tool and the stuff
S1: that we're about to be adding to this, the I'm
S1: not even going to talk about that yet, but insane
S1: stuff along the lines of everything I've been talking about
S1: for this last year and a half with with AI
S1: content rating, all that stuff like the new features that
S1: are coming are just going to be insane. And again,
S1: the guiding light that I'm using here, like I haven't
S1: raised any VC money. I'm not worried about investors. I'm
S1: worried about making the best possible tool for me. And
S1: this is the tool that I've always needed, and that's
S1: why it exists. And of course, when people are like, hey,
S1: I wish I had this. Well, if it's something that
S1: really resonates with me and I think everyone's going to love,
S1: then yeah, we put that into the pipeline and we
S1: actually build that. But ultimately it's it's a thing that
S1: solves a problem that I've had of collecting as much
S1: information as possible, as high quality as possible, but at
S1: a threshold level that I could control the flow. So
S1: I could basically go in here and say, you know what,
S1: I need it to be a 90 or a higher,
S1: and I want it to be only about AI. So
S1: watch this. And that pulls it down even further. It's
S1: just it's just unbelievably useful. So that's my pitch for that.
S1: It is a paid thing. So yeah. Whatever. Is that
S1: even called a sponsor post. Is it a sponsor if
S1: it's your own product? I have no idea. But anyway,
S1: highly worth it. I would pay thousands of dollars per
S1: year to buy this product. No joke, I absolutely would.
S1: Oh yeah, and this is the email. So I have
S1: it set to a daily email. So you get this
S1: email that basically shows you the stuff. Because sometimes like
S1: I'll forget to check, I'll just be super busy in
S1: meetings or whatever, and I'll be super busy. And then
S1: at the end of the day I get this, look
S1: at these. How strong is AI as a tool, as
S1: a successor? Deferred happiness syndrome? This thing is unbelievable. And
S1: then I click on view right here and it goes
S1: yeah this is the business truth one. That's how I
S1: found that video. Also from what's it called. This is
S1: from Peter Attia on VO2 max and muscle mass. Anyway
S1: it's it's fantastic. I just love it. I got a
S1: sponsored conversation had with BlackBerry and Cary Ransom about maritime security.
S1: My dad just went on a podcast in, uh, in
S1: a studio in San Francisco. I was actually giving a
S1: talk a couple of blocks away. My dad's in the
S1: studio talking about his music, showing his music, just really,
S1: really cool. And I got a link here to the
S1: full show, which is this one or no, this one.
S1: And then this one is him playing one of my
S1: favorite songs that he's ever written called children of the nights,
S1: and you definitely want to check that one out. It's fantastic.
S1: And security Dell got hacked real bad through an API.
S1: I think if I could invest in any sort of
S1: legacy non-ai tech, which I guess it's quite AI related
S1: at this point. And that's kind of the point, is
S1: that API security is like everything, because everything is becoming
S1: APIs that get wielded by AI, and your company is
S1: essentially about to be mostly your API. So you've got
S1: to lock that down. So I feel like of all
S1: the traditional security spaces that I would want to be
S1: in right now, which I don't want to be in
S1: any of them, but if I did, it would probably
S1: be API security. And speaking of that, my buddy Joseph
S1: Thacker has put out a couple of different pieces about
S1: API security assumptions about AI, and also one about agents
S1: and authentication. So check that out. Both of those and
S1: CSA has a new alert system. They're basically allowing companies
S1: to sign up. And then they send them Kev alerts
S1: if they see something associated with their company. Attackers are
S1: using Microsoft Graphs API for malware comms. I love these
S1: side channel things, I just. Absolutely love them where you could, like,
S1: use something in a way that's not expected. The best
S1: example of this that I remember is Gmail drafts. You actually,
S1: you you have a shared email account. You create a
S1: draft on one side, you don't send the email, and
S1: then someone else has access to that email account and
S1: they just log in and read the draft so the
S1: email never gets sent. So that's another example of just
S1: like using a a platform in a way that's sneaky.
S1: All right. So one password. Thank you for sponsoring. That's
S1: Collidin one password and Russian influence campaign looking at magnifying
S1: and taking advantage of the campus protests. Google's making MFA
S1: setup smoother by letting you skip phone number for options
S1: like authenticator or keys. Marines are testing robot dogs with
S1: AI aimed rifles. Awesome awesome awesome awesome 95% of international
S1: data travels through undersea cables. Okay, so this is one
S1: that's really interesting. I've never understood why undersea cables weren't
S1: more targeted and just like totally abused by terrorists. I
S1: guess there is the small matter of like you're in
S1: a boat, you're way, way above this cable. It takes
S1: time and money and skill to get down there. So
S1: I guess that's a barrier. But once you're down there,
S1: Holy crap. I mean, it seems pretty easy to do
S1: damage to these things, and the amount of disruption you
S1: could do if you're disrupting international internet traffic is is
S1: pretty serious. Plus, you think this has got to get easier. Like,
S1: if you can send drones down there like underwater water,
S1: drones with like explosives, this wouldn't be easy for low
S1: level attackers to do. But for a state actor to
S1: want to just continuously like send drones after it or
S1: teams or whatever, it seems so easy for any state
S1: actor to basically sever internet communications through undersea cables. And
S1: the US just closed another door essentially for Huawei getting
S1: AI stuff with Intel chips. So another attack against the
S1: Chinese trying to get AI chips. And someone from Andreessen
S1: Horowitz basically says half a Google staff or just pretending
S1: to work, they're not actually doing anything. Yeah, and a
S1: lot of people are talking about this trend of fake work,
S1: and I think it's a giant mess. It's fake in
S1: multiple ways. Right. So I talked about David Graeber's bullshit
S1: Jobs book. Really, really good. Basically, we have all these
S1: jobs that shouldn't exist. You have all these people with
S1: massive salaries, hardly doing anything and somehow being justified, especially
S1: in Google where like they're not making much new stuff
S1: at all. Because they don't have a product management focused
S1: product teams. They're just like engineering focused teams. It's a
S1: total mess. And you add AI to this and it's
S1: just it's going to be a total mess. The safest
S1: thing to do, in my opinion, the safest place to
S1: be is building new things, creating new things. Be a programmer,
S1: definitely be a programmer. But more so be a thinker
S1: who focuses on problems. Solve those problems. Have the tech skills.
S1: Have the humanities skills. You want to be broad. You
S1: want to be general. I recommend everyone has tech skills.
S1: Everyone has programming skills. Everyone has AI skills. Everyone has
S1: writing and speaking and presentation skills. These are like the universals,
S1: and I'm actually working on a big post around this,
S1: which is going to be a member post around this.
S1: That's going to be super key of like how to
S1: get ready for what's coming, what skills you need. So
S1: that's pretty much a teaser for that. Mitra is partnering
S1: with Nvidia to create a $20 million AI supercomputer to
S1: to make US government operations more efficient, which is cool
S1: and terrifying. Joe Biden is converting the Foxconn debacle, which
S1: didn't go well in Wisconsin into a $3.3 billion Microsoft
S1: AI center. I feel like this administration is doing well
S1: on AI, both in countering China but also building ourselves up.
S1: And the acquired podcast is basically like biographies of people,
S1: except for it's for companies. So a lot of people
S1: are super into that. In the Bay area, Biden is
S1: quadrupling tariffs on Chinese EVs. These things are a real
S1: threat to the American car industry. So he's going to
S1: tariff them quite a bit. This one said 400% but quadrupling. Yeah,
S1: this one said quadrupling. But I've seen it say doubling.
S1: So I'm not sure the exact numbers. But he's definitely
S1: increasing the tariffs. California is going to start charging your
S1: bill for electricity based on your income starting in 2025.
S1: Scientists have found all DNA and RNA bases in meteorites,
S1: basically hinting that building blocks might be extraterrestrial. This is
S1: not surprising in the slightest. To me, it just seems
S1: logical and there's life floating around everywhere. I don't think
S1: life is that special. In one characterization of special in
S1: terms of special of like, oh, we're we're a snowflake
S1: and we're the only ones who have it. I don't
S1: think we're special in that way. That does not mean
S1: it's not special in terms of having high, interesting, unique value.
S1: I think we absolutely have. That doesn't mean it has
S1: to be unique. Does it mean it has to be
S1: one of a kind? Okay. Scientists constructed a one millimetre
S1: square piece of the human cerebral cortex at a nanoscale resolution.
S1: So they basically get to see the actual neurons and
S1: I believe synapses as well. I haven't looked at this
S1: document fully yet or this image fully yet. I'm not
S1: sure I would even understand it, but I love the
S1: fact that we could see that. I love the fact
S1: that it's only one millimetre square and we're getting all that,
S1: all those, you know, millions of different cells and neurons
S1: and everything in there. The study says very large study,
S1: 154 million deaths prevented due to vaccines. Streaming is basically cable.
S1: Now there's a racket around emotional support animals. That was
S1: quite hilarious and disturbing. And I think Mark Andreessen is
S1: mistaken about paradox applying to AI. This this podcast here.
S1: He basically says that AI will not make it easier
S1: to build companies because of Jevons Paradox, which basically says
S1: that you think if you make roads wider, it would
S1: reduce the amount of traffic, but in fact it just
S1: makes more people drive on them, which actually increases traffic.
S1: Now Mark basically said, well, I think that means that
S1: AI making it easier to start a company will make
S1: it actually harder to start a company because more people
S1: will be doing it and the standard will be higher.
S1: And I think he is misunderstanding that. And so basically
S1: what I say about that is it's only when it's
S1: a resource. Jevons paradox applies to a resource. It basically
S1: says if you make that thing cheaper, it won't reduce
S1: the total amount of usage across the world because more
S1: people will use it. So usage actually goes up. That's
S1: the limit of the paradox, at least as I understand it.
S1: And the situation with AI helping startups is actually a
S1: friction issue. It's reducing friction to get into the market.
S1: It's not about there's only so. Much of X or
S1: so much of Y, and if it were, the thing
S1: that would be talking about is there's only so much energy.
S1: There's only so much compute. So that's a limited resource
S1: that would actually apply to Jevons paradox, but not friction
S1: of getting into a market. So I think he was
S1: wrong about that. And that basically cleared that up. Courage
S1: is everything I've been throwing around this three level system here.
S1: Courage is action versus fear. Discipline is courage versus laziness.
S1: You see how they build on each other. This one
S1: is this one. And then success is discipline versus mediocrity.
S1: So it goes from courage to discipline to success. So
S1: everything you want is on the other side of courage,
S1: whether it's courage against fear or courage against laziness. And
S1: this applies to all sorts of real life situations. So
S1: it's like hard conversations, you know, getting more healthy, eating right,
S1: not wasting time doing the wrong things, or quitting a
S1: soul crushing job. So if you're trying to quit a job,
S1: it's like you're scared if you're eating right, it's a
S1: matter of discipline becoming fit. It's a matter of discipline.
S1: You got to go to the gym. You got to,
S1: you know, eat right. You got to exercise. Not wasting
S1: so much time with games. It also discipline, having a
S1: hard conversation. That's courage. I guess what I'm saying here
S1: is all of these can be thought of as courage.
S1: And what I'm trying to do here is build a frame.
S1: I want to build a frame that says when I'm
S1: being lazy, I'm not being courageous. So I want to
S1: frame this to myself as have the courage to not
S1: be lazy, have courage to go to the gym. So
S1: if I'm presenting that as there's somebody to go save
S1: in a fire and I'm going to get burnt and
S1: that inflames my my interest to be a moral person, well,
S1: that can motivate me. I will walk through that fire
S1: to go do that thing because that's what my identity is.
S1: I want that to be my identity. And it is.
S1: So that's the thing I want to do now. I
S1: don't naturally, and most of us don't naturally have that
S1: for going to the gym. It's not a moral issue.
S1: I want to turn it into a moral issue. I
S1: want to frame it as a moral issue so that
S1: I'm like, look, oh, you don't want to go to
S1: the gym. Okay, well, that's because I don't want to
S1: use bad language, but I basically want to talk to
S1: myself in this bad language of, you know, man up,
S1: go do it, have the courage to do the right thing.
S1: And I think that can massively help. Recommendation of the week.
S1: Know yourself. Think about what someone should say when they
S1: introduce you. So this is Sarah. Sarah does this do
S1: you want them to say about Sarah? What do you
S1: want them to say about you? Mine is something like
S1: he has a company that builds products and services that
S1: help people transition to something called human 3.0, so they
S1: can survive what's happening and thrive with what's happening with AI.
S1: It's something like that, and it's different for different audiences.
S1: But that's the basic vibe. And you basically want to
S1: know what this is for you, not only so that
S1: you can deliver it, but that other people can do
S1: it when you're not there. And the aphorism for the
S1: week where your fear is, there's your task. Where your
S1: fear is, there is your task. Carl Jung. Unsupervised Learning
S1: is produced and edited by Daniel Meisler on a Neumann
S1: U87 AI microphone using Hindenburg. Intro and outro music is
S1: by zombie with the why and to get the text
S1: and links from this episode, sign up for the newsletter
S1: version of the show at Daniel meisler.com/newsletter. We'll see you
S1: next time.