Review of Max Tegmark's 'Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence'

This post is my review of Max Tegmark's Life 3.0, a book we read in the AI Book Club. Tegmark, an MIT physicist and founder of the Future of Life Institute, says Life 1.0 relies entirely on biological evolution to change its hardware and software, Life 2.0 (humanity) can design its own software (through learning and culture) but is stuck with its evolved hardware, and Life 3.0 is a technological stage where life can design both its software and its physical hardware. Although Tegmark's book was published in 2017 (before ChatGPT), the book's core questions about recursive self-improvement, AI alignment, steering beneficial AI, etc., are still highly relevant today. Read more »

AI Book Club discussion recording of 'Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence', by Max Tegmark

This is a recording of the AI Book Club discussion of Max Tegmark's Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Our discussion explores Tegmark's visions of superintelligence, the unpredictability of AI goals and subgoals, and how the Asilomar principles fare against the relentless market pressures of today's AI arms race. We also contrast the book's theoretical focus on cosmic energy (and how superintelligence might more efficiently extract energy from matter) with the immediate, tangible threats AI poses to cybersecurity and global financial systems. Read more »

Developing internal skills for recurring documentation processes like release notes

My hypothesis this year around AI was that if I develop some agent skills to speed up repeatable processes, it might clear up my bandwidth and free up time for me to work on non-repeatable doc tasks. It appears to be working. Read more »

Looking back at the AI Book Club one year in

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the AI Book Club. We’ve now read 12 books in the club — see the list of books. For each session you can view recordings, notes, transcripts, discussion questions, etc. By some measures, the book club might not be considered much of a success. For each session, I record the discussion using Google Meet. Then I publish the recording on YouTube, along with a transcript and other notes. For the 12 videos, combined there are only about 2,000+ views. An... Read more »

On pace and value -- why is moving slow boring?

After my post about how work expands to fill the space allotted, for a few days afterwards, I kind of slipped into the mindset that it didn’t matter how hard I worked, since my work and the work of those around me would all be viewed relatively the same, and if it comes time for someone to do massive layoffs (like we see in the news with Meta, Microsoft, Nike, etc.), it’ll be someone who doesn’t know me, who likely doesn’t even consult my manager, who just sees a role and a financial figure a... Read more »

Frenetic thinking

One of the things I dislike about AI is how it takes over everything — every conversation, every process, every tool. But this week I noticed it started taking over my thinking as well. Here’s what happened. While building reference docs for an SDK I support, one of the APIs failed due to some conflicting visibility conditions. I was jumping the gun on writing the release notes before I had all the launch entry info and Gerrit previews, so I wasn’t exactly sure what the failed build was supp... Read more »

Work expands to fill the space allotted

Last year I had a goal of getting down to bug zero and started a whole series on this quest. If this is the first you’re hearing of this goal, bug zero really means clearing out all doc requests (~JIRA tickets), finishing them. It’s similar to the idea of inbox zero, but with work. I actually hit a brief moment where I hit bug zero, and I felt pretty accomplished. But within 1 or 2 days of clearing out that bug queue, it filled back up to 10 bugs, and then 20, and then 30. While I was watch... Read more »

Too much coffee?

I don’t entirely understand my relationship with coffee, but I think I have some character flaws that could be advantageous in some situations and disadvantageous in others. In some areas of my life, I’m an all-or-nothing person. This seems to be true with coffee. When I’m drinking coffee, I can’t seem to stop myself from drinking 3-4 cups a day. Before long, I can sense my body basically becoming desiccated (from the way coffee acts as a diuretic). I’m not sure why, but I drink coffee more o... Read more »