dusting off my thinking cap

I asked LizGPT to write this newsletter and now your kids have to go to college on Mars

Hi!

Thanks for opening this email / reading this post.

me, trying to send this newsletter on a non-Monday

Shout out to the troops! Sorry you get treated like shit by everyone in this country, except for like three days a year when the Shriners drive their tiny cars. That’s better than healthcare, right?

• I could look at this news cynically and think that only the most depraved oligarchs will benefit, but then I remember my dad who really enjoys the show “Air Disasters” and hasn’t flown in over a decade, and it all seems worth it.

• No joke, I genuinely miss when things were kind of mundane and there was more room for low stakes, contrarian hot takes. Seeing this article (from Slate, obvi) gave me hope for more to come.

• Nice to see someone picking up the old Nick Kristof beat of saying extremely weird things about Asian women in the NYTimes.

• “If I stop selling fentanyl to seventh graders, how will I support my very expensive sports betting addiction?” - my Nick Clegg impression. Similarly, I had a few friends reach out and ask in good faith what my beef is with AI. So here is my argument:

  Doing stuff is useful. It’s part of being a human and it’s cool. Even if the thing you’re writing seems rote or dumb, you’re still getting reps in. That repetition will make you a better writer - what a nice thing to be! And using it to look stuff up just feels silly to me. We have a whole internet packed with endless sources of varying degrees of authenticity. Finding answers is easier than ever and the journey will train you to look for truth. Literacy and critical thinking are a flex!

  I do think AI can be practical. Doing a billion complex calculations seems like a good use. I’m sure people smarter than me know some others and I’d bet they’re equally boring and unappealing on an individual consumer level. In those cases, it makes sense to weigh the good (a halfway decent answer) versus the bad (no more trees). Otherwise, and you can call me a martyr, I’ll be over here loud, wrong, and giving indecipherable responses, without the help of a machine.

Tunes to start the week with:

I dunno guys, maybe we don’t listen to music anymore.

JK, there’s a new DIIV EP that I like. Also, love this bit they’ve been doing, so cheeky.

xx