The Gen AI bridge to the future ⊗ Genetic discrimination is coming ⊗ Many worlds, many selves

Just so you know, I saved you some time this week. I didn’t send you three or four emails for “Giving Tuesday,” although yes, supporting the newsletter with a membership is a great idea and would be very much appreciated!

I also didn’t make a gift guide, there are already a lot of those around. I’d just add an intro to all of them: consider buying less; buy local and independent; don’t buy from uncle Jeff (Amazon), and, even online, go indie when you can. (This judgy comment brought to you by… everything I read all year to make this newsletter 😅.)

The Gen AI bridge to the future

Kind of a weird piece here by Ben Thompson. He starts with the very Stratechery thing of looking at the history of computing and how we went from mainframes, to PCs to smartphones, to the next state, wearables—smart watches, glasses, and earpieces. Have a look. His focus on the transition layers, represented by applications, the internet, now “Gen AI,” and alternating with the hardware transitions, seems largely correct.

However, to my mind he kind of flubs it at the end. He keeps saying generative AI and refers to UI. It might just be semantics and he might actually mean something broader, but the use of “generative,” mostly skipping over audio, and using “UI” makes it sound as if an AI generates a minimal, limited, context-sensitive visual interface in AR, using Orion-like glasses. He mentions earpieces in passing but doesn’t say anything about it. It reads like just a different, more advanced, visual representation. Not a new paradigm.

By the way, am I the only one who reads “generative” as a task-specific AI that does one things and “AI” as something broader? Midjourney is “generative AI,” so is ChatGPT. The whole of GPT o1, not just access through chat, is “AI,” so is Claude. Right?

Although there will be some of the UI things Thompson writes about, it’s much more likely that it looks more like chatting with an AI in natural language and getting audio and projected replies in your glasses. More UX than UI. The interface is conversational, so are most of the replies. It’s a larger change than a minimal context-sensitive interface that can appear in your vision while you’re walking. (Caveat of course of “do we want this?” “The energy! The materials!” And all of those very valid questions and critiques.)

This, I think, is the future: the exact UI you need — and nothing more — exactly when you need it, and at no time else. This specific example was, of course, programmed deterministically, but you can imagine a future where the glasses are smart enough to generate UI on the fly based on the context of not just your request, but also your broader surroundings and state. […]

I’ve long noted that Microsoft did not miss mobile; their error was in trying to extend the PC paradigm to mobile. This not only led to a focus on the wrong interface (WIMP via stylus and built-in keyboard), but also an assumption that the application layer, which Windows dominated, would be a key differentiator. […]

Wearables is an admittedly broad category that includes everything from smart watches to earpieces to glasses, but I think it is a cogent one: the defining characteristic of all of these devices, particularly in contrast to the three previous paradigms, is the absence of a direct mechanical input mechanism; that leaves speech, gestures, and at the most primitive level, thought.

Genetic discrimination is coming for us all

In this article for The Atlantic, Kristen V. Brown discusses the growing issue of genetic discrimination in the United States, where insurers can deny or alter coverage based on individuals’ genetic information, despite the protections offered by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). As more people undergo genetic testing, those with identified mutations may face increased premiums or denial of policies, even if they are asymptomatic. Concerns about potential discrimination are leading individuals to avoid genetic testing altogether, which could prevent them from seeking crucial health information.

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory in assuming that a society’s technology progresses by following its own internal logic of efficiency, while determining the development of the social structure and cultural values. —Wikipedia

It’s been clear from the beginning that this kind of discrimination was going to happen. I’m not a techno determinist, I’m more of a “capitalo cynic.” Technology doesn’t control itself and go in the direction “it” wants, but its business application sure as hell largely goes in the direction of corporations making more money.

For decades, researchers have feared that people might be targeted over their DNA, but they weren't sure how often it was happening. Now at least a handful of Americans are experiencing what they argue is a form of discrimination. And as more people get their genomes sequenced'and researchers learn to glean even more information from the results'a growing number of people may find themselves similarly targeted. […]

Some researchers are now arguing that having two copies of the APOE4 mutation, which gives people about a 60 percent chance of developing Alzheimer's, is equivalent to a Stage Zero of the disease. If having a gene is considered equivalent to a diagnosis, do GINA's protections still apply? […]

Insurers want to sell policies at as high a price as possible while also reducing their exposure; knowing even a little bit more about someone's odds of one day developing a debilitating or deadly disease might help one company win out over the competition.

Many worlds, many selves

Emily Qureshi-Hurst, a philosopher specialising in theology and natural science, explores the profound implications of the “Many-Worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics, which suggests that every choice creates parallel realities, leading to multiple versions of ourselves. A concept that challenges our understanding of personal identity, as it raises questions about whether these versions can be considered the same person and complicates our notions of moral responsibility. The existence of a multiverse also intensifies the philosophical problem of evil, as it implies greater suffering across numerous realities, which can undermine belief in an all-powerful God.

Far from me the idea of making philosophy “actionable,” but, other than the sci-fi/Marvel draw to the concept of a multiverse, the last part might be where it attaches this piece to some of your practices, or fit more readers’ sensibilities:

What this means is that instead of human beings having a core essence – something like an eternal and indivisible soul – we are collections of stories told and retold by us and those who love us. We are rivers, ever fluid, whose banks are shaped by sediments of stories stored in our depths.

And as a parallel to imagining and bringing forth different futures.

In the many worlds of the Everettian multiverse, we have an infinite number of futures laid out before us. No more Sophie’s choice-type decisions need keep you up at night, instead you can flip a quantum coin and live both lives (even if you won’t ever know how the other future works out).

—

Perhaps I am not a single, unique, enduring subject. Perhaps I am actually like a branching tree, or a splitting amoeba, with many almost identical copies living slightly different lives across a vast and ever-growing multiverse. […]

On this view, who I am is no more nor less than my own internal self-conception, shaped by memory, desire, emotion, experience and embodiment. On this view, it does not matter whether there are copies of me or not, and I should not care which philosophical principles these copies might violate.

§ Rhizomatic thinking to unlock new ideas. “Instead of focusing on AI as a tool for predictable, predefined outcomes, their framework encourages us to embrace its potential for making unlikely connections and generating surprising, even chaotic, results.” Uses Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of arborescent and rhizomatic thinking in relation to AI and generating ideas. Reminded me of Matt Webb’s Hallucination should not be a dirty word.

§ 🎧 How Union Square Ventures built an AI brain. Union Square Ventures (USV) has developed a suite of AI tools to enhance their investment operations. They capture and synthesize the firm’s collective knowledge, streamline workflows and enhance decision-making processes. I’m not all that interested in the specific business, but a fascinating glimpse at the potential for knowledge work and collaboration.

Futures, Fictions & Fabulations

• Future Feelings podcast, part of the “audio” series at Deem. “In this series, Radha Mistry, a designer with a background that spans architecture, narrative environments, and strategic foresight, unpacks the purpose and practice of futuring, and introduces us to six venerable practitioners who approach this work in myriad ways.”
• Dubai Future Forum 2024. YouTube playlist of talks and panels at the recent forum. I do wish the thumbnails made it easier to figure out who’s featured where. Lots of smart people amongst the speakers but you’ll have to dig.
• What trippy worm ooze can teach us about saving nature. At The Science of Fiction, mixing Dune spice and the Sonoran desert toad. “Humans are very good at manipulating their environments and extracting from their environments. And whenever we decide to extract something industrially, you have to automatically assume we'll go over the carrying capacity. That resource is going to be hyper-extended.”

Algorithms, Automations & Augmentations

• A new golden age of discovery. At Google DeepMind, a loooong essay I haven’t gotten to yet. “In this essay, we take a tour of how AI is transforming scientific disciplines from genomics to computer science to weather forecasting. Some scientists are training their own AI models, while others are fine-tuning existing AI models, or using these models’ predictions to accelerate their research.”
• 2025 Predictions: AI finds a reason to tap industry data lakes. “NVIDIA AI experts predict a rise in intelligent stores, a new class of robots and breakthroughs in healthcare, manufacturing and more.” Unsurprisingly bullish.
• Pretty much all Gen Z knowledge workers are using AI. “Younger workers are using AI to revise emails and documents, to take notes during meetings or even just to start generating ideas, says Yulie Kwon Kim, VP of product at Google Workspace. 88% of Gen Z workers said they'd use AI to start a task that felt overwhelming.”

Asides

• ’Tis the season for lists, guides, and reports. The New York Times have published their lists of both Best TV Shows of 2024 and 100 Notable Books of 2024.
• New haptic patch transmits complexity of touch to the skin. “The thin, flexible device gently adheres to the skin, providing more realistic and immersive sensory experiences. Although the new device obviously lends itself to gaming and virtual reality (VR), the researchers also envision applications in health care. For example, the device could help people with visual impairments "feel" their surroundings or give feedback to people with prosthetic limbs.”
• The View From Tokyo: the fascinating origins, and triumphant resurgence, of Risograph in Japan. “There is an idealist principle in [Riso] that celebrates the freedom of expression and the power of shared information that is still echoed in its many loyal fans today.”
• Fossilized footprints reveal 2 extinct hominin species living side by side 1.5 million years ago. “This is the first time ever that scientists have been able to say that Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei – one our likely ancestor and the other a more distant relative – actually coexisted at the same time and place.”
• Is the alpha wolf idea a myth? “The idea that wolf packs are led by a merciless dictator, or alpha wolf, comes from old studies of captive wolves. In the wild, wolf packs are simply families”