Editor’s note

Greetings, friends!

Oh yes, it’s been a long time.

As a reminder, Sundry is a list of a ~7 unrelated-but-interesting fresh links distilled from 80+ hand-picked sources, curated by yours truly (Ulysse Sabbagh).

Sundry has a new format. It comes in three sections:

1. The good old unrelated-but-interesting links

2. The AI & software economy. Yes, it is coming for us and we need to learn about it!

3. More links and sometimes my own writing, aka loose ends.

Do forward the newsletter to friends if you like it! Feel free to unsubscribe (scroll down) if this doesn’t interest you anymore.

Please enjoy!

Unrelated-but-interesting

Nicotine can be good for your brain. We are referring to the constituent of tobacco, removed from a cigarette. Smoking is bad. People are increasingly consuming it in vape or oral form for its stimulating effects such as improved focus, alertness, memory, and motor control. It acts by releasing neurotransmitters such as dopamine or serotonin. Nothing comes for free, and nicotine is amazingly addictive and should not be consumed if you're still an adolescent. But you are in control of your impulses, are you not? — economist.com

The US social contract is broken. This is merely obvious. And this is the reason why the “working poor” (middle class) is angry at immigrants or people poorer than them. The poverty line in the US is currently defined at $31,200. In truth, it is $140,000 (for a family of four). The first figure was calculated in the 1960s by a Social Security economist. It wasn't updated since. So if you earn slightly above the poverty line ($31,200), you start losing social benefits, which prevents you from climbing up further. As the author says, “Altruism is a function of surplus. It is easy to be charitable when you have excess capacity. It is impossible to be charitable when you are fighting for the last bruised banana.” This can also explain in part why people are reluctant to have children or why populism is on the rise — yesigiveafig.com

Opposition to the consensus is often linked to overconfidence. If you disagree with the common wisdom, it is more likely that you are stretching your knowledge to lands it does not know. This is similar to the Dunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive bias that makes people of low ability in a specific domain overestimate their ability. This is why the more knowledge people you know often say they know nothing. This means you ought to think twice before going against the current, or else — marginalrevolution.com

Aphantasics are people who do not conjure mental images. If I say “imagine a green apple”, something might appear in your mind. But some people don't see anything. This makes their experience of reading much different: they would skip descriptive—“dull”—passages. They also get over breakups or trauma faster. This sounds practical. They might not miss people if they don't see them in front of them. This sounds weird — newyorker.com

AI & software

AI will unravel the economy by commoditizing knowledge work. Shipping containers revolutionized commerce. They created the consumerist society by pushing the prices of producing goods down. This was the advent of advertising: more products to sell required better targeting. We are witnessing this revolution for knowledge work, or “services” in economics textbooks. The majority of the workforce in developed countries does knowledge work. But how will the AI companies make money if we don't have jobs? This author suggests that they will push us to more goal-based activities, to help humans flourish. I don't buy it one second. Are we about to realize Marx’s utopian ideal of self-actualization? Invest in farmland — fintechbrainfood.com

Horses were oblivious to steam engines for 120 years. In this creative metaphor, we are horses and AIs are steam engines. Steam engines improved 20% per year for about two centuries and poof, horses vanished between 1930 and 1950. So if you think “the AIs are not smart enough” you might be an actual horse. Or maybe we are turkeys: we think the farmer loves us because they feed us well, until… Global AI datacenter spending is increasing (2% of US GDP currently, which is about $600B) and doubling every year. How fast will white collar work be rendered into obsolescence? Faster than horses? — andyljones.com

Loose ends

From my blog: Why speed matters for early stage companies

Play Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, the classic RTS, in your browser — chronodivide.com

Extraordinary & free online book showing how computers and software work. What a beautiful project gifted by a passionate person — makingsoftware.com

Poetry can function as a single-turn, universal jailbreak for LLMs — arxiv.org