Why AI adoption will be slow, taking children seriously, a book by Birkenstock, and a quote by Warhol
10 things that made me go whoa + what's in my private library
At Sublime, we call anything you save to your library a ‘card.’
So when I saw
’s post titled “What’s in the cards?” my first thought was, ‘that’s so good, I wish I’d thought of that.’ Then I remembered Austin’s whole thing is to “Steal like an Artist” so, here I am, doing exactly that.I’m not sure if Austin’s edict includes letting the person know you’re stealing from them, but in the spirit of creative borrowing and with great thanks to Austin for the idea, welcome to another edition of “What’s in the cards?” where I pick a few things that made me go whoa this week.
What’s in the Cards?
Dwarkesh Patel asked Tyler Cowen why he thinks AI diffusion will be slow, and his answer is spot on—basically he says that tech adoption is universally slow but Silicon Valley technologists are blind to this because they overvalue how important intelligence is.
"Okay, I really want to go back to this diffusion thing we're talking about at the beginning with the economic growth.
Yeah, because I feel like I don't want to. What am I not understanding? I hear the word diffusion. I hear the word bottlenecks. But I just like don't have anything concrete in my head when I hear that.
What are the people who are thinking about AI missing here when they just plug in these things into their models?
When I'm in the Bay Area, like the people here to me are the smartest people I've ever met on average. Most ambitious, dynamic, and smartest, like by a clear grand slam compared to New York City or London or anywhere.
That's awesome. And I love it. But I think a side result of that is that people here overvalue intelligence and their models of the world are built on intelligence mattering much, much more than it really does.
Now people in Washington don't have that problem. We have another problem. And that needs to be corrected too.
But I just think if you could root that out of your minds, it would be pretty easy to glide into this expert consensus view that tech diffusion is universally pretty slow. And that's not going to change."
Ellen Cushing published a great piece for The Atlantic on why Americans Need to Party More.
I am so excited
is pursuing writing full-time and we get the gift of seeing inside her mind more frequently. This, from her recently published statement of purpose, resonated.
The Sovereign Child - a newly released book on parenting that flies completely in the face of the current coercive, authoritarian system. The idea is simple: Take Children Seriously. Pair with Gabe’s collection on child wisdom.
To celebrate 75 years, Birkenstock launched a beautiful table book covering the history of the company. Pair with this incredible story of how the German orthopedic shoe company with Succession level family drama transformed itself into a luxury behemoth.
Fuck I hate that this is true but it is so true—via Gurwinder.
Often we fail to improve our lives simply because things don't get bad enough. If your new job is hell, you’ll leave it, but if it’s just unsatisfying, you’ll likely grind it out. Thus, small problems often threaten our quality of life more than big ones.
Incredible advice on how to avoid cynicism (saving this for when I'm rolling my eyes at the Xth social media post on “the productivity habit that will change your life).
Andy Warhol on consumerism:
I feel personally attacked.
Plus, a selection of cards I saved to my private library, available only for premium members of Sublime. This week:
An extremely relatable caption.
A Sunday morning thought.
The pants I purchased for $375 and why I’m at peace with the splurge.
A beautiful description of a toddler.
Sari
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