Hi, everyone! I'm grateful to have another edition of SemperViernes to share with you today. I'd like to extend a special welcome to the new subscribers joining us this week; I hope you find the content in this newsletter as interesting and thought-provoking as I do. This week, the runners-up include two Economist articles and a Bloomberg Opinion piece (six-minute read) that discusses the concept of disruption, and its accompanying waves of creative destruction, from an economics point of view. I especially appreciated the Bloomberg op-ed's multiple contemporary examples of "non-disruptive innovation," which I find an interesting concept especially with regard to AI (is AI-driven innovation that also saves jobs and industries even possible?). The first of the Economist articles, entitled What would humans do in a world of super-AI?, is the first futurism article I've seen that mentions WALL-E; I've been waiting for this for ages. The second article, which tells us how Artificial brains are helping scientists study the real thing, explains how researchers have learned about a new region of the brain because an AI told them that the region existed. Apparently, an artificial neural network, a computing system whose structure mimics that of the human brain, knew before humans did that our brain includes a region specifically reactive to images of food. Yum!
First
The most mind-bending news I heard this week (other than seeing this triangle-wheeled bicycle) was that Neuralink, Elon Musk's company that builds brain-computer interfaces, tweeted that they received FDA approval to begin their first in-human clinical trials. CNBC covers it to a moderate depth (4-minute read). Neuralink's website describes their work as building "general-purpose brain-computer interfaces with the potential to help restore independence to individuals with disabilities." Note that their marketing approach, including within the tweet linked above, is that they're looking to help restore brain function for people who've suffered brain damage and the like; also note that they're building "general-purpose brain-computer interfaces," with 'general-purpose' here meaning "for every part of human life". I think this presumption is correct because I first heard of Neuralink back in 2017 on one of my favorite blogs, Wait But Why, where Tim Urban (the blog's author) interviewed Elon Musk directly about his goals for Neuralink's work at that point. Neuralink's goal, as shared in the long-form interview (complete with Urban's characteristic conversational phrasing, stick figures, and swear words), is to permanently modify our brain structure to include Neuralink's brain-computer interface technology. As with most WBW posts, this one is super long; I'd recommend doing Ctrl+F/Command+F and searching for the phrase "The Wizard Era"—this fifth section is when Urban really dives into what Neuralink plans to do (15-minute read for this section; 1.5 hours for the whole post). In this section, Urban shares that Musk doesn't see a brain implant as a significant transition from how people operate relative to technology nowadays; Urban quotes Musk as saying, "The thing that people, I think, don’t appreciate right now is that they are already a cyborg. You’re already a different creature than you would have been twenty years ago, or even ten years ago...I think people—they’re already kind of merged with their phone and their laptop and their applications and everything." Interesting to consider. In this interview, Musk also mentioned that he thought (again, back in 2017) that we were "about 8 to 10 years away from [Neuralink technology] being usable by people with no disability." Depending on how you count, that could mean that with the regulatory approval and clinical trial success Musk is hoping for, he foresees people without disabilities using these devices in as few as...two years from now.
Second
I have come to love the podcast On Being over the past several years. For [hopefully] an element of calm, inspiration, and hope, I'm excited to share this episode of On Being, where host Krista Tippett interviews music producer Rick Rubin, co-founder of Def Jam Records. Rubin has worked with artists as wide-ranging as Adele, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, Tom Petty, Shakira, Johnny Cash, Linkin Park, Eminem, the [Dixie] Chicks, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and others. Fun fact: I first learned of Rick Rubin from wondering who 'that nodding guy with the beard' was in the music video for Jay-Z's song "99 Problems". In this conversation that is both refreshingly emotionally intelligent and even somewhat mystical, Rubin speaks humbly of how the seven-year process of writing his recent book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, allowed him to reach clarity on some truisms that he knows, even if he only knows them for the fleeting moments when he jots them down. He discusses the importance of noticing and expressing one's emotions through art, as well as his practices of and experiences with meditation, therapy, and personal reflection. Since a major part of my work as college counselor (not personal counselor) is to help facilitate students' meaningful, reflective self-expression in the realm of college app essays, I decided that this week's edition of SemperViernes didn't need to be all futurism. Thought it could be helpful for anyone in the process of cultivating their own creativity to hear from Rubin, who's spent a career helping others do the same.
Third
I didn't think I'd be repeat-featuring two people I've mentioned previously so early in the life of this newsletter, but because both Tristan Harris (co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology) and Kara Swisher (New York Magazine journalist and intense-question-asker-extraordinaire) are two of the clearest, most efficient, and most successful information-excavators and -conveyors I've come across, I felt I had to share this episode of On with Kara Swisher (I only had time to listen up until minute 32:00; I recommend minutes 14:40-32:00, so about 17 minutes). For an example of Tristan's excellent communication abilities, here's something he says in the interview: "well, these are separate topics; I want to make sure we really slow down and actually distinguish here." My brain always feels healthier after listening to either Tristan or Kara talk, so both of them together is a really energizing listen, at least for me. If you haven't yet watched Tristan's A.I. Dilemma video from the first edition of this newsletter a few weeks ago, I'd recommend watching it now, both because it's [def] jam-packed with dense and significant content, and also because it'll help make this podcast I'm sharing here make more sense. I actually had to slow down the podcast to 0.8x speed at one point so I could process everything Tristan was saying; he packs a lot of dense content in there. Tristan explains how AI companies are competing to secure an intimate place in people's lives—he calls this the "race to intimacy," whereas the competition among social media companies was more of a "race to the bottom of the brain stem." Harris also clarifies that the "let's please pause AI for six months" letter that he, Steve Wozniak, the creator of Siri, and numerous others (including Elon Musk) signed would have been more aptly characterized as a request to redirect AI labs' work and energy into safety research and design of regulatory guardrails. I appreciate his willingness to continually find the clearest and most effective phrasing to communicate his ideas, and I can't wait to listen to the rest.
