Trying to understand LLMs by using the rules of human psychology is like trying to understand a game of Scrabble by using the rules of Pictionary. These things don’t act like people because they aren’t people.

We are in dire need of a better metaphor. Here’s my suggestion: instead of seeing AI as a sort of silicon homunculus, we should see it as a bag of words.

Something that’s painfully understudied is how experts are more efficient than novices while achieving better results. I say understudied and not unstudied, because it’s common knowledge that charging people for their time results in experts being paid less since they work faster, which is why experts charge more for their time.

"The idea ... started with two then obscure technologies: public key encryption and nanotechnology."
"What you are reading is an exploration of those technologies, the futures each might generate, and how we might deal with them."

Reporter Kashmir Hill spent six weeks blocking Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple from getting her money, data, and attention, using a custom-built VPN. Here’s what happened.

The Google implant

A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf -- a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy

Send this to your neophyte friends when they complain that their computer is running slowly and needs more ram.

The World Question Center asks what single concept would enhance the world the most. I like this entry.

Interesting documentation on permissible and common lengths for email addresses, including a link to a metafilter thread with some statistics and a delightful vintage advertisement for electronic mail.