If You Don't Use It Right, AI Will Make You Dumber
Plus: Anger, acne masks, and How Solomon would rule Iran
TL;DR
Fans of socialism are nuts
AI-induced cognitive debt
A few interesting AI tricks
Roaring lions and charging bears in Iran
Anger and Joy are both viruses, but only one consumes you
Apols for being late with this one. Between a bank holiday and client commitments, last week was chocker-block with activity, and something had to give. I won't let a client down as long as it's in my power to deliver on time, and last week, that came at the expense of the
.HUMAN
thinks western fans of communism are (1) Nuts, or (2) Wanting to be the despotic dictator at the top of a communist state (in short, not nuts but evil). She puts it more eloquently, but that's the essence. I agree with her. I have two pals who left Russia around 2000, both searching for a better life in a free economic system. Both would say to anyone keen on socialism in the west that they're bananas.
Alex Hormozi’s published a list of his highest ROI spends. It includes a cooling bed, black-out curtains, house cleaner, laundry service, meal prep, landscaper, driver/Uber, and semi-private flying. Very subjective list. For example, I'd have no use for a cooling bed or black-out curtains - I have no trouble falling or staying sleep. And this list boils them all down to a cost and POI, which is fair, and but aassumes ROI is the only thing worth measuring - it obviously isn't. It also presumes you have a certain income level - I can't afford semi-private flying. But it's not the specifics that interests me. What's underlying this list is careful thought about how he wants to spend his time, and recognition that time is the only non-renewable resource. LINK
TECHNOLOGY
Cal Newport's latest podcast discusses the idea of intellectual obesity. A study has published data showing that heavy users of ChatGPT for writing tasks, who then stop using it, actually write worse than those who never used ChatGPT in the first place. In short, using ChatGPT has incurred an AI-Induced Cognitive Debt in them - they've lost some intellectual capacity that they now have to work to build back up.
In parallel with that,
's really interesting. He keeps using AI tools to ask better questions, and challenge his thinking, i.e. he's using AI as a thinking buddy, not as a productivity enhancer. (This is also exactly what is doing.) finds that an AI thinking buddy doesn't suffer from the same cognitive biases that a human thinking buddy does. He uses AI to help him think more deeply and clearly about a problem, not solve the problem better or faster.At least, he thinks he does.
He may well be right, and I intend to test this approach. I'm just allowing for the possibility of a hidden cognitive debt.
Back in May, I was at a steam rally in south Wales. Lots of old steam engines puffing away. I've always been amazed at the intricate designs of these old steam engines, and that they were manufactured by industrial-revolution-era men, many of whom couldn't read or write. Their skills didn't need literacy or numeracy - they could eyeball stuff, and use good old-fashioned engineering judgement through to a workable design. Today, with computer-aided design and modern manufacturing tech, we've lost a lot of those skills now - that's a cognitive debt. We can't eyeball our way to a new steam engine now.
One could argue: Does it matter? Perhaps it doesn't ... most of the time.
You'll hear pilots talk about "airmanship". (The expression "flying by the seat of your pants" was literally devised by pilots in the early days of manned flight, who used the sensation of one's backside on the seat to know what their aircraft was doing.) What with electronic cockpits, fly-by-wire tech, and flight control laws ... airmanship is almost unnecessary ... until the day when the cockpit goes dark, all your instruments are dead, and you need to rely on basic airmanship, which only comes from experience.
IDEAS & DISCOVERIES
’s posted a repo of AI agents for you to learn from. Really cool. There's an interesting (and critical) comment against her post, arguing that any agent you haven't built yourself should not be relied upon for any client work. And he's right, but @Nina makes clear from the get-go that this is a collection of agents "to learn from" - she's not for a minute suggesting you use them out of the box.Ask me clarifying questions until you’re 95% confident you can complete the task successfully
What would a top 0.1% person in this field think?
Reframe this in a way that changes how I see the problem.
You can use more than one of those, back to back, to 10X the quality of your results. These are not the be-all and end-all of great suffixes - you can just see how to improve the quality of your prompting. Thanks
!WHAT I’M DOING
Last week and this, I'm learning from Dan Kurtz, who's assembled an impressive (proprietary) set of AI code, tools, and prompts for vastly speeding up content production. In the process, I decided to cough up for a paid version of Perplexity, which will allow me to start playing with Perplexity Labs. Can't wait. Watched
's YouTube vid on Perplexity Labs last week, and it looks very juicy. Greg is one of the dudes who jumps on every new AI tools coming our way. He's here on Substack, but not particularly active; on YouTube, he's prolific.FROM THE SOURCE
I'm still thinking about the people of Iran.
In Proverbs ch 28, Solomon starts railing at The Wicked. (That's what he calls them.) Actually, he started back in ch1, but he picks it up with renewed fervour in ch28, only this time with a particular angle.
Chew your cud on these awhile:
“A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops.” (Proverbs 28:3)
“Whoever increases wealth by taking interest or profit from the poor amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.” (Proverbs 28:8)
“When the righteous triumph, there is great elation; but when the wicked rise to power, people go into hiding.” (Proverbs 28:12)
“Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a helpless people.” (Proverbs 28:15)
“A tyrannical ruler practices extortion, but one who hates ill-gotten gain will enjoy a long reign.” (Proverbs 28:16)
“When the wicked rise to power, people go into hiding; but when the wicked perish, the righteous thrive.” (Proverbs 28:28)
None of this is particularly heady stuff. Most of us read those, and think, Yeah, so what else is new?
But just remember who and where Solomon was.
Some have described him as the richest man who ever lived. Others, the wisest. Both are probably, and arguably, not far from the truth.
When he inherited his throne, he had to do a little jockeying for position, and put one or two political enemies, and his half-brother pretender to the throne, to death (some on the advice of his father David, who was probably still alive for it - David effectively abdicated the throne, though he knew as well as anyone that he remaining days were few).
But it didn't take Solomon long to get a firm grasp on his new position. And for most of the rest of his reign, things were peaceful. (It was only towards the end, when he abandoned God's ways, that he had to start fighting again.)
He would not have had time to reach the above conclusions as he was consolidating his position. Nor was he, for most of his reign, "a roaring lion or charging bear" of a king. He did conscript foreigners into building his palace for him, but when you read the fine print, the conscripts had a pretty cushy time of it.
How, then, did he reach these conclusions?
We're not told. But given the extensive trading network that he established, and the numerous wives and concubines he acquired, it's fair to assume that he gathered a lot of intelligence (read: he quizzed his wives, and he had spies abroad).
What's heartening to me is that you get from his proverbs a compassion for the common man, which is remarkable for someone with his privileged ivory-power vantage point. Did David tell him stories of his shepherd-boy upbringing? Fair chance of it. In 1 Kings ch2, he "gives a charge" to Solomon, and it is cool reading; he basically give Solomon the best advice he can, on how to preserve his throne, and rule well.
So somehow Solomon developed a real heart for the common people, and sought to reign for their benefit, not just his own. Somehow he realized that he held an awesome power over them, and if he allowed himself to become "wicked" ... a lot of innocent people would suffer great pain.
So spare a thought today for the common people of Iran. People who are being "oppressed like a driving rain that leaves no crops", run over roughshod "by roaring lions bears and charging bears", who are living "in hiding".
O God, do not hide your eyes from what the present rulers of Iran are doing to innocent people. Call them to account, and teat them down.
VIEW FROM THE LAPTOP
This story on
was a troubling (but insightful read).
In 2017, a California high school student and serious footballer (Holden Highes) suffered from bad acne (as you do when you're a teenager). Had to wear a dark green acne mask to treat it. Posted a photo of him and some pals with their acne maskes on, and stuck it on Snapchat.
Blackface wasn't the lightning rod in 2017 that it became in 2020 ... but that was irrelevant to the BLM witch hunts that ensued.
Through no fault of his own, Holden’s suddenly tarred as a racist. The school expelled him - their primary concern was preserving the school's reputation. He had to move states to escape the furore and stigma ... and keep alive any hope of a serious football career. So far, so good. But the school and a lot of people back in California are unrepentant, and convinced he is a hard-bitten racist.
It made me start thinking about the raw emotion at the core of the story.
Anger, especially mass anger, needs an object to start. An offence, an insult, a slur, etc.
But it doesn’t need one to continue … or put better, it doesn’t need the SAME object to continue.
An angry person suddenly is given a place on the moral high ground, an injustice to correct, a purpose, a cause to live for ...
And if there are people lauding you from the sidelines, feeding your ego (not just your rage) …
And if your ego is enjoying it enough ...
… that position on the moral high ground is very hard to give up.
You will go out of your way to maintain it. The angry person imediately looks for another object, similar to the initial one ... as fuel to pour on the fire, to keep the game going as long as possible.
It's possible to stoke it like that. (Ironically, it's the same raw emotion that makes competitive physical-contact team sports possible, e.g. football.)
That's what enables feminism, marxism, socialism, BLM, woke, cancel, etc ... all of which start simply and honestly enough ... go toxic. The offended people don't want to let go of the life purpose they've been handed. Forgiveness ... which ironically would allow them to feel Joy ... is that LAST thing they want, even though the Anger is consuming them.
Anger and Joy are both emotions that are simultaneously dangerous, and vulnerable.
Both can quickly transform individuals, groups, and entire nations.
Both require fuel (and therefore continual effort) to be kept alive, and to spread.
Both are therefore emotional viruses.
But only one eventually consumes its host.