2024-006

Day: 2024-01-06

The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.

— William Gibson

Startups:

Getting lucky isn’t a plan.

One piece of flippant commentary that you’ll hear occasionally is that it’s “Better to be lucky than to be good.” On an individual level, it’s almost certainly true that being very lucky outperforms being quite good: I certainly know a number of folks who are financially successful after working at…

Irrational Exuberance

"Getting lucky isn't a plan" discusses the role of luck in personal and professional success. The author acknowledges that luck plays a part in success, but emphasizes it should not be the primary strategy. Examples include companies like Digg, which pivoted strategies to gain traction, Uber's brief operations in China and Russia leading to significant equity stakes, and Yahoo innovating in search to secure a deal with Microsoft. The key takeaway is that relying on luck is a flawed strategy and that success requires actual planning and strategic actions, even in challenging situations​​.

Artificial Intelligence (AI):

OpenAI’s app store for GPTs will launch next week | TechCrunch

OpenAI plans to launch its app store for GPTs, the GPT Store, sometime soon. But there’s no word on revenues sharing.

TechCrunchKyle Wiggers

OpenAI is set to launch the GPT Store, a platform for custom apps built on its AI models like GPT-4, in the coming week. Developers must comply with updated policies and publicize their GPTs for listing. Announced at OpenAI's DevDay and delayed due to leadership changes, the store doesn't require coding skills for creating GPTs. The GPT Builder allows developers to specify desired capabilities in plain language. The monetization strategy for the store remains unclear. This move marks OpenAI's transition from an AI model provider to a platform, potentially impacting consultancies specializing in similar app creation​​.

Robotics:

Mobile ALOHA: Learning Bimanual Mobile Manipulation with Low-Cost Whole-Body Teleoperation

by Zipeng Fu*, Tony Z. Zhao* and Chelsea Finn at Stanford

Mobile ALOHA: Learning Bimanual Mobile Manipulation with Low-Cost Whole-Body TeleoperationZipeng Fu

Mobile ALOHA is a project focused on bimanual mobile manipulation using low-cost, whole-body teleoperation. Developed by Zipeng Fu, Tony Z. Zhao, and Chelsea Finn, it enhances imitation learning in robotics. Traditional approaches lacked mobility and dexterity for practical tasks. Mobile ALOHA, augmenting the ALOHA system with a mobile base and whole-body interface, collects data for supervised behavior cloning. Co-training with existing ALOHA datasets, it achieves up to 90% success in tasks like sautéing shrimp, managing kitchen tasks, and elevator operation​​.

Creativity:

Read your writing in a robot voice

In writing, you only have cold, hard text. Here’s how to make sure your message accurately conveys your tone and intent.

Wes Kao's NewsletterWes Kao

The article "Read your writing in a robot voice" by Wes Kao discusses the importance of tone in written communication and introduces the Robot Voice Method as a tool for editing writing. This method involves reading your writing aloud in a monotone, robot-like voice to better understand how your words might be received by others. The approach helps in identifying and addressing potential misunderstandings and inaccuracies in tone, as the written word lacks the non-verbal cues present in face-to-face communication. The goal is to ensure that the written message accurately conveys the intended emotion and meaning​​.

Continues Improvement:

New goals don't deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.

-James Clear