Nathanael Yellis

On the train home the other night, I listened to yet another interview with Dario Amodei, the thinking person's AI hype man. At the very beginning of the interview, he gave a little background on himself (neatly omitting stints at Baidu and Google and OpenAI) as a biophysics degree-holder who'd previously done research in microbiology. I thought more about this as he described the monitoring his company does of its LLMs by talking about seeing their "neurons lighting up" in their "brains." It's not the worst analogy, but it illuminates a bit more about the observer (biology guy) than the observed (computer programs).

Today's reading gives you two troubling trends. The first piece below argues, fairly compellingly, that we're all becoming the same. The second wonders if the human species might've numerically already peaked. Both authors, one from data and the other from taste, are not-so-subtly telling us that what's happening isn't good. Both critiques rely on an unfavorable comparison the present has with the past.

I spent the time that I normally use to write this email reading a book. Sometimes good literature grabs you and tells you to ignore your plans and keep reading. Normally I steer clear of genre fiction, but when two people told me I had missed out by not reading Dune, I put it on the shelf. Picking it up this week proved to be the undoing of my train podcasts, my writing time, and my "early to bed" aspirations.

They say that "you make your own luck." But the people who say that typically are showing you their winning lottery ticket or just after their story about how they hit it off with a guy in the elevator who ended up being the interviewer for their first job. Or maybe those are the sour grapes from beginning my career during the financial crisis. While luck has something to do with it, there's wisdom in preparing for a big break or, to put it in nerdy terms, in increasing the surface area for your luck. When it comes to career, a successful friend of mine gave me this formula: doing good work, networking, and Fortuna.

I read and relate positively to a surprising proportion of Buddhist and specifically Zen literature. It's surprising because I practice (poorly) another of the world's great religions. I'm drawn in by the way in which the wise people from Zen Buddhism decisively sweep away the things that do not matter and incisively describe the things we all experience but don't often consider. As a wisdom tradition, they've got something to say. Their wisdom cuts neatly against our culture's endless affirmation of everything we think, feel, and say—they tell us to quiet the mind, notice and ignore our feelings, and, to be blunt, to stop. In an accelerating and frenetic pace of activities and considerations, the Zen title says, "don't just do something, sit there." Instead of telling us that our reactions are physical and important, the Buddha tells us our needs and wants hold us captive.

Happy New Year!

As I mentioned the other day, while giant and immediately broken resolutions are fun, for my New Years, I'm thinking again about small habits. What we're up to moment-to-moment, or what we're actually thinking about during our frequent bursts of downtime, say a lot more about our character than any big giant choice. Who we are to the people around us when "no one is watching" is a lot more predictive of who we actually are than our annual review documents or our big essays about the forthcoming year. Among the small habits I like is this little practice of reading widely and finding some well-written essays on interesting topics to send to you. Thank you for reading!

When you ride the train to or from Boston's North Station, just over the bridge immediately after the train yard, there is a signal tower. There are actually two: the Boston & Maine Railroad Signal Tower A, built in 1931, and a small temporary signal tower on metal stilts. The latter is in use for trains, the former apparently still houses the drawbridge controls. Signal Tower A is a beautiful brick building outlined in copper. The facade overlooking the rail junctions and bridge is a hexagonal gable. It's not in great shape: big wooden poles hold up the sagging side closest to the tracks. The other building looks like an over-sized deer blind: it's a metal box on metal stilts. All ugly functionality. The new one is Lego Technic; the old one is brick-built.

What if the motivational speakers are right? What if your attitude does predict how the world will manifest itself for you?