Category: Random, But Interesting

The Withline

 

The Withline

I spend a lot of time engaged in the craft of writing – I’ve penned more than 1.5 million words on Searchblog alone. Writing anchors nearly all my projects, from teaching at universities to my board and investing work, not to mention the hundreds of pieces I’ve either authored or edited at places like P&G Signal and DOC. I write a few pages nearly every day in longhand journal (I’ve filled nearly 30 of them over the past four decades), and I recently embarked on a long-form writing project that may (or may not) produce another book over the coming months.

So writing matters to me, and I’ll admit I’m uncomfortable with how generative AI is changing my chosen field. I recoil from the idea of AI-written articles, blog posts, or academic assignments. And I support the various efforts by authors, journalism institutions, and creative groups who are pushing back against what feels like wholesale theft of our work to train LLMs.

Read More
Leave a comment on The Withline

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER

Stay up to date on the latest from BattelleMedia.com

I’m Sorry, LinkedIn!

I’m sorry, LinkedIn!

Earlier this week, as a major storm took aim at the little island where I live, I saw a story in which Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, defended his company’s energy use by comparing it to how much energy humans use to do similar tasks.

“…it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” he argued, when asked about AI’s insatiable – and destructive – appetite for energy. “It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you.”

Read More
Leave a comment on I’m Sorry, LinkedIn!

Thriving in an AI World: The Importance of Good Questions

Every so often I am asked to participate in a survey fielded by Elon University’s Center for Imagining the Digital Future. As you might expect, this year’s survey focuses on the impact of AI, and includes this prompt:

  • If you do think it is likely that AI systems will begin to play a much more significant role in shaping our decisions, work and daily lives: How might individuals and societies embrace, resist and/or struggle with such transformative change? As opportunities and challenges arise due to the positive, neutral and negative ripple effects of digital change, what cognitive, emotional, social and ethical capacities must we cultivate to ensure effective resilience? What practices and resources will enable resilience? What actions must we take right now to reinforce human and systems resilience? What new vulnerabilities might arise and what new coping strategies are important to teach and nurture?

It’s rare that a survey asks its respondents to actually write something cogent and long form, so I figured I’d publish my response here. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts! If you’d like to participate, the link to the survey is here.

Read More
Leave a comment on Thriving in an AI World: The Importance of Good Questions

The Standard, Part 1 – The End and The Beginning

A good place as any to lose your company.

Note: Third in a series. First post, second post.

The Oak Grove cemetery in Tisbury, Massachusetts encompasses roughly ten acres of rolling woodlands and narrow dirt roads. Its 1,800 or so headstones date back two centuries, making Oak Grove a relative newcomer as New England graveyards go. I’ve been visiting this sacred, spectral spot on the island of Martha’s Vineyard for nearly five decades. Half my family is buried there. 

Read More
4 Comments on The Standard, Part 1 – The End and The Beginning

Get Wired: The Launch (1992-93)

The launch issue of Wired.

(continuation of a previous post)

If you ever have a hit on your hands, my advice is to take notes. Living in the whirlwind of blinding success is a little like experiencing your own wedding – everyone tells you to enjoy it, to remember every detail. But decades later, all you can recall is leaving the reception, relieved that everyone seemed to have a good time. 

Read More
5 Comments on Get Wired: The Launch (1992-93)

One Fateful Phone Call: How I Ended Up At Wired

The Iron Door, California’s Oldest Saloon. (It had a pay phone in the back).

Living at the cutting edge of technology in the early ’90s required either a magical token forged of copper and silver, or the capacity to memorize a ridiculously long string of numbers. Either the token or the code would connect you to a vast telecommunications network driven by immense computers housed in bunker-like buildings scattered around the world.

Labor Day 1992. I squeezed into a pay phone behind the oldest bar in California, The Iron Door, pride of Groveland, California – the “gateway to Yosemite.” I never could remember my access code, but I did have a token – also known as a quarter – which I slipped into the pay phone, then dialed my voicemail, a state of the art service that cost me an extra five bucks a month. Back then everybody used voicemail, it was an asynchronous lifeline to the rest of the world.

Read More
6 Comments on One Fateful Phone Call: How I Ended Up At Wired

Wait, What’s This DOC Thing You’re Doing?!

An old friend asked me what I was up to the other day, and despite two years having passed since I started getting that question (here’s my first post on the subject), I realized I’ve not made much progress on a concise answer. Usually I’ll list the various projects that currently fill my day – working on the P&G Signal conference, trying my best to be a good board member at a number of media, tech, and data companies, managing various investments, and running a new health event I co-founded last year called DOC. 

“Wait,” my friends invariably ask. “Why are you involved in a health project?!”

Read More
1 Comment on Wait, What’s This DOC Thing You’re Doing?!

Should AI Write Our Fiction?

I’m going to try to write something difficult. I don’t know if I’m going to pull it off, but that’s kind of the point. This is how writers improve: We tackle something we’re not sure we can do. Along the way, I am committing a minor sin in the world of writing – I am writing about writing.

But wait, don’t bail, here’s a topical tidbit to keep you engaged: I’m also going to write about AI, and who doesn’t want to hear more about that?! My prompt, as it were, is “Audience of One,” a post by Mario Gabriele, who writes the interesting and hyperbolic newsletter The Generalist. Gabriele’s optimistic prose focuses on venture, startups, tech, and tech culture. I find his work thought provoking and sometimes infuriating. “Audience of One” falls into the latter category.

Read More
4 Comments on Should AI Write Our Fiction?

The University of Peers and Elders

For the past ten or so years I’ve harbored a mostly secret desire to return to graduate school. Part of this is because I’m a frustrated academic – when I was a senior in college, I seriously considered the PhD program in Anthropology at Berkeley, thinking I’d write a masterful ethnography of the nascent technology industry. But I was put off by a doctoral candidate’s admonition that, should I choose her path, I “better get used to eating ramen for the next seven years.” 

Instead I went to work covering the tech industry as a reporter, then pursued a Master’s in Journalism, also at Berkeley. Despite its status as a two-year program replete with a thesis, journalism at Berkeley – or anywhere – happens to be one of the least academic fields of study possible. I did write a rather lengthy (and quite dry) paper on the future of publishing as it relates to new digital technologies. But by the time I was finished, all I really wanted to do was start a magazine. 

Read More
6 Comments on The University of Peers and Elders

Facebook Goes Backward. Why?

Earlier this week I met a fellow who, among very many other things, is a member of a bicycling group based where I live. Given that I live in a pretty small community, I was stunned I’d never heard of the club, which has 900 active members and runs four or five organized rides a week. How’d I miss it?

Well, the fellow told me, it’s a Facebook group. You should join! For the first time in ages, I fired up Facebook with the intention of actually doing something useful. I applied to join the group, then promptly forgot about it. I lost the habit of checking into Facebook more than a decade ago, and I have all notifications from the app turned off.

Read More
Leave a comment on Facebook Goes Backward. Why?