Misc

Collection of thoughts

Minor things I’ve thought about:

I’ve spent over 2 years now working on AI risks, and for a lot of that time I felt like I inhabited a different world to my friends; when I told people I worked on AI they’d usually tell me they’d used chat GPT, and found it wasn’t that good. They were correct. At the time, I’d been convinced in an argument that claimed AI capabilities would continue to rise at their current, rapid, pace: I spent most my time in AI thinking “ah yes, there’s no risk from chatGPT now - but if trends continue we’ll soon be in trouble”. It’s easy to type those words, but I spent a lot of this time riddled with self-doubt; as I’d go around Government telling people that AI capabilities looked like they were set to keep rising, I often wondered whether this was all a hoax. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was wasting my time and if my job would achieve nothing - or indeed be counterproductive. Indeed, it could have been. Indeed, it may well still be. Past returns do not guarantee future results; just because AI capabilities have risen a lot in the last 3 years does not mean they’ll continue to do so. But, they’re feeling more present now.

I’ve started to ‘feel’ the AI revolution this last week. Coming back from holiday, I’ve had many separate interactions where people have told me their worries about AI capabilities: consultants talking about the uncertainty of their profession, I spotted a self driving car out on the road, CEOs telling me about how they can’t imagine graduate work ever looking the same again Taiwanese people using chatGPT waiting on the train, hearing stories about addiction to AI, AI adverts at the 6 nations, AI being used multiple times a day and lay-offs. All in one week. In fact, I cycled through London as it dawned on me that now my friends - people working normal jobs - were starting to share the fear I’ve held for two years now, then I arrived at the murder mystery dinner party where I learned the whole event had been scripted by ChatGPT (very well, I might add). I no longer feel like chicken little worrying about this when no one else did; I thought I’d find value in others sharing this view, but alas I preferred when no one else worried about this.

I feel listless when I don’t have anything to work towards. Whenever work is quiet I find myself getting unhappy quite quickly; this is due to a general feeling that I’m not achieving anything and just watching lie slowly pass me by. A good way to work against this is to do something productive-feeling, practising chinese, life admin, tidying or exercise. I find that doing something for my own enjoyment wares thin very quickly, and I can’t really enjoy it for long. I need that sense of working towards something, and when work is quiet I lose the obvious place that comes from; so I find that I need to be gettig that sense of movement from somewhere else. I read a great line recently: running is always painful, you just get faster. It encapsulated the idea that to get better at something you need to be in this state of discomfort like you’re pushing yourself, and I find myself getting bored quickly if I don’t have it. That being said, the advantage of the Civil Service is that I can feel challenged but still log off relitively early - and collect flexi time. I’ve found myself quite happy recently as I’ve decided I’ll seriously get into Chinese again, and this adds a general feeling of development to life - I feel happier and that there’s a sense of momentum, when work is steady, as I feel like I’m growing and developing in some other capacity.

Similarly, I write this now while on the train to Cambridge. It’s a train ride riddled with mistakes in a way that only I seem to make: I left my glasses in the office so reading anything for too long is painful; I left my phone charger at home so I can’t use my phone as it’s about to die; I left my kindle somewhere (???) so I can’t read. Despite all this, I’m pretty happy as I’ve got my laptop so I can plug away at this newsletter. This isn’t pleasurable (not in the sense that eating icecream is pleasurable) but it feels meaningful in some sense. I feel the idea of enjoyment is quite messy for me. I spent most of my Saturday with wonderful people whom I love. I kept thinking that these were the sorts of interaction I never could have in Taiwan since it required various friendships I’d spent years (decades?) building. I spent that time really struggling to articulate the precise value in those moments; there’s a warmth to companionship. It’s certainly better than spending the weekend alone. Indeed I can’t have imagined a better weekend. I spent my Saturday night with my third bowl of (delicious) Chilli thinking to myself “this is the night I want to have every night”, but I still find it difficult to articulate what and why about it. Now, I’m sure that’s a me problem and most sane, well adjusted people, would simply accept their joy and move on. Alas, it’s a question I still don’t understand the answer to.

This article talks about never using group chats when organising stuff. One failure of mine burned into my memory is when I tried to organise my 18th birthday party in Beijing and very few people attended. Since then I’ve tried to always organise events through messaging many people directly; it’s more work, but (a) people are more likely to read direct messages (so you avoid a kitty genovese-esque ignoring in a group chat) and (b) you avoid the stigma of people dropping out publicly and losing face.

This article is an amusing chat about the optimal strategy in a dating market. I’d recommend it

Someone senior at work talked about the difference between glass balls and bouncy balls. She made the point that when too busy it’s useful to reflect on everything one is juggling and think about which balls, if dropped, will bounce and which will shatter. I like this metaphor as a concise summary of why prioritising is good. It also made me think about the memes we all; the mental shortcuts we all use facing problems infront of us. Henrich talks about cultural evolution; about how many humans currently live in the rainforest, but if you and I landed in the rainforest today we’d die pretty quickly - we lack the knowledge, passed down in other cultures, necessary for survival. We do not know which berries are edible, we weren’t told by our parents growing up.* The reflection on bouncy balls made me think which cultural memes our necessary for us to thrive today, what are the small bits of wisdom or adages about work we all end up going back to - I might start asking people when talking about stuff^.

My aunt made a fascinating reflection; she said most of her job is finding common ground within disagreements. She’s the CEO of some company, so I’d expected most of her job to be like contracts or whatever (???). I found it interesting when she reflected that her role involved lots of bringing people to see an issue in the same way, inhabiting the perspectives of others and bringing these perspectives together. In this she articulated a concept which has been tickling the edge of my brain for a few years now; I always say perspective is the most valuable thing in life, since it allows us to appreciate what we’ve got. Travel is good since it allows us to see how different it is possible to live. History is good since it allows us to see how different it is possible to live. Fiction is good since it allows us to see how different it is possible to live. My aunt made the observation that context is also an essential part of empathy; spending time inhabiting the world view of others makes us less precious about our own conclusions. I’d never considered this, a simple next step in a line of thought I often have.

I work in a job about coordination problems; my role is trying to get the right people into the right room to agree on the right outcome. There’s a lot of logistics in this, and also setting up every feature of the interaction to ensure that it can get the desired result. I often find it frustrating as being really good at this job involves dealing with a lot of silly stuff; one meeting being rearranged at the last minute can throw everything off. Someone said to me this week “the friction is the point, if you’re not generating friction it’s because you’re not moving anything”. I enjoyed this line as a simple reflection that jobs without any friction, say just writing articles, suck because they generate no movement, no impact. It’s a silly phrase but one I like.

This article talks about 50 pieces of advice. I like this as an article premise, I’d be interested to see yours Mark!

*a great illustration of this point is that “Marooned European explorers regularly starved to death in areas where foragers thrived for 1000s of years”, see here

^ my personal memes are the small things which counterbalance my brain’s tendency towards action - usually small ways that slow me down and make me more considered. I repeat the adage “slow is smooth; smooth is fast” many times a week