big ideas

Stripe CEO interviews OpenAI CEO.

Patrick Collison fires question after question at Sam Altman, and gets pretty thoughtful answers in return. One interesting fact: ChatGPT is really the only AI product that Altman uses. And his most common use case is summarization. They also get […]

big ideas

On why I remain bullish on Nigeria.

The country that’s on track to become the world’s 3rd largest has a lot going for it. Critics point to challenges with its leadership that hold the country back. They just had a contentious election. Ken Opalo offers a cautiously […]

big ideas

The unpredictable abilities emerging from large AI models.

I suspect “emergence” will continue to be a dominant force in human progress in this century. Seems like a safe benefit since it’s also responsible for, well, pretty much everything. “A raft of researchers, detecting the first hints that LLMs […]

big ideas

Very long-term backup.

This is the story of The Rosetta Disk, an archive of over 1,500 human languages assembled in the year 2008. “This business side of the disk is pure nickel. Picking it up you would not be aware there were 13,500 […]

big ideas

Helion: a new way to achieve nuclear fusion.

Their 6th generation reactor, Trenta, uses a safer fuel than other reactors and produces and reliable fusion once every 10 minutes. Their 7th generation prototype intends to scale up the frequency of fusion to every second and, critically, generate usable […]

big ideas

The case for more energy.

I am really finding myself drawn to this point of view. I think it may be the only truly great path forward for humanity. “America has been on a 45-year energy diet, and we ought to try and end it.” ~ learn […]