The100: Impatience, going analogue and Stephen Fry

Frying AI

No massive revelation here (my cat provides as much insight when she sneezes), but Stephen Fry is very good with words. 

If you haven’t read his speech on AI, may I suggest you make a brew, switch off all notifications, and start reading. And I mean properly read. Maybe even do so twice. 

“An AI may know more about the history of the First World War than all human historians put together. Every detail of every battle, all the recorded facts of personnel and materiel that can be known. But in fact I know more about it because I have read the poems of Wilfred Owen. I’ve read All Quiet on the Western Front. I’ve seen Kubrick’s The Paths of Glory. So I can smell, touch, hear, feel the war, the gas, the comradeship, the sudden deaths and terrible fear. I know it’s meaning. My consciousness and experience of perceptions and feelings allows me access to the consciousness and experiences of others; their voices reach me. These are data that machines can scrape, but they cannot — to use a good old 60s phrase — relate to.”

Your Data Alone Is Not Enough (not enough, not enough)

Fry’s syntactic gymnastics segues nicely into an older piece from Marcus Collins on  intimacy leading to better consumer understanding, rather than relying on data alone.

In amongst the (excellent) points and case studies are 3 questions to ask yourself before drawing any conclusions from people’s behaviour:

1. Why are these people behaving in this manner? When you ask why, the answer typically brings your biases to the surface.
2. What are these people feeling that provokes them to act in this way? This will help you begin to move outside yourself and stand in their shoes.
   
3. How do they perceive themselves in the story of life? This will help you see the world through your customers’ eyes. 

How common is common sense?

Thanks to Megan Goodwin for highlighting why common sense isn’t really that common. 

“Common sense—as it is usually perceived—is to some extent illusory […] Indeed, if one views common sense as the entire collection of beliefs that an individual holds to be commonsensical, it may be that no individual’s conception of common sense is shared entirely by any other individual.”

Explains a few things, especially when ‘common sense’ is linked quite heavily to perceptiveness and the ability to understand others’ thoughts.

“Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent?”

Rory Sutherland has composed his latest symphony of wisdom (C major, Opus 48,679). I’ve been wrestling with the ‘better, cheaper, faster’ mantra for a while. I hate it, if I’m honest. So it was good to hear Rory’s thoughts on time investment:

“I think there are things in life that you want to telescope and compress and accelerate and streamline and make more efficient. And there are things where the value is precisely in the inefficiency, in the time spent, in the pain endured, in the effort you have to invest. […] I think there are things we need to deliberately and consciously slow down for our own sanity and for our own productivity.”

Give brains a chance

Could switching off and taking a more analogue approach help us become more inspired? Will Sansom has 3 tips on how you can do so. The first, you might be pleased to hear, is to do nothing:

“Being bored works, because, without stimulus, our brains are forced to create their own. We reflect. We process. We ruminate and – if you’re that way inclined – we may even start to create. This won’t always happen automatically; you’ll most likely experience ‘phantom phone’ syndrome and reach into your bag or pocket. But treat it like a practice and it gets easier to let your mind wander.”

And finally…

I was reminded of Stat Significant when listening to The Rest is Entertainment podcast. There are many great stats offered – the worst actors of all time is quite a fun place to start. 

More stats, this time from Netflix. The 3 most watched shows of 2024 so far? Fool Me Once, Bridgerton and Baby Reindeer.

Cheese news: a 3600 yr old cheese has been dug up. I’ll pass.