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 […]

better doing

Why you should stop caring what other people think.

An old post on Tim Urban’s Wait But Why. “Because of this, humans evolved an over-the-top obsession with what others thought of them—a craving for social approval and admiration, and a paralyzing fear of being disliked. Let’s call that obsession […]

under the microscope

First human embryos edited in the US. 

CRISPR was used in the US for the first time to edit a specific genetic disease out of a human embryo. Though not the first time globally, this is a real frontier of both science and ethics. It’s potentially a […]

fun facts

Animals can have regional accents. 

Humans don’t have a monopoly on location-based differences in how we communicate. Researchers have found regional dialects among whales, monkeys, dogs, and cows. | learn more