#050: Sam Altman Predicts Superintelligence, New Financial Support of Nuclear Energy, Jony Ive Creates New Design Firm

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

First things first - thank you all for being here on this special 50th issue of Undiscovered. Whether you have been here since the beginning or it's your first time receiving the newsletter, we greatly appreciate your support. We are just getting started and have much in store for you this week and beyond.

This week, we will take a look at Sam Altman and OpenAI's latest update, a visual look at thinking in probabilities & how they affect decision trees, legendary designer Jony Ive's newest creative initiative, and much more. Let's dive in:

Sam Altman on the Dawning Intelligence Age

OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman has had an eventful week. On September 23rd, he shared a blog post he wrote titled, The Intelligence Age. In it, he says 'it is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I'm confident we'll get there." But why is he so sure? He goes on to explain, "deep learning worked, got predictably better with scale, and we dedicated increasing resources to it."

Two days after this post, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced her impending departure from the company. She thanked many people & reflected on what was achieved at the company during her time there. The most notable piece was her statement that she was 'stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration'. It seems like an amicable split, but it is notable that Murati is the latest of many executives who have left OpenAI in the last year.

Stanford's Latest Machine Learning Lecture...For Free

Altman also beautifully wrote in his post:

It's my personal favorite paragraph he wrote, and it does condense the technical process of how artificial intelligence is physically created. To understand the software component, @deedydas shared a wonderful video by Stanford Online that is an introduction in how to build large language models (or LLM's).

The Stanford Online classes are incredible because they frequently update within months of real-world research, and Deedy reiterates the best part of all: it's free.

Institutional Support of Nuclear Energy Imminent

Fourteen of the world's biggest banks and financial institutions are pledging to increase their support for nuclear energy in an effort to help hit the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, the Financial Times reports. It's a watershed moment for the industry, especially as more energy is needed to support the AI arms race between companies.

​Constellation Energy and Vistra Corp reflect the excitement around the public market sentiment for the news, which includes the Three Mile Island nuclear plant reopening to power Microsoft data centers. It's a 20-year deal that will bring more than 3,400 jobs and $16 billion to Pennsylvania's GDP, and we can only expect more as the public becomes more educated on nuclear's role in clean, carbon-free energy.

In the words of @MadiHilly, "Get in loser, we're tripling nuclear energy."

Decision Trees & Thinking in Probabilities

​@BowTiedFox recently shared the following picture on Twitter:

Fox @BowTiedFox anyone have that picture of the "paths" where on the left side it's a scribbled path, but on the right side it's an exploration of different paths something like this: 8:20 AM • Sep 22, 2024 4 Retweets 101 Likes Read 9 replies

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The reality he describes is that our life path is dictated by the decisions we previously make. This makes sense, and is one way to visualize what Steve Jobs meant in his famous speech where he says, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward."

​@CEOLandshark went on to say, "Smartest ppl I know think in probabilities/bets and often use decision trees (mostly subperceptionally unless they're STEM educated from what I can tell)."

This sparked an interesting conversation in the replies, where more recommended reading materials were discussed along with a short video of Nassim Taleb discussing probability. Dense material, but worth watching a few times.

LoveFrom, Jony Ive

​Jony Ive is a legendary designer best known for his vital role in the designs of the iMac, Power Mac G4 Cube, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and user interface of Apple's mobile operating system iOS. He was also responsible for the design of major architectural projects including the Apple Campus 2 and Apple Stores. He even gave J.J. Abrams "very specific" input on the design of a new lightsaber.

In 2019, Ive stepped out of the spotlight at the arguable pinnacle of his profession. So what was next for one of the most famous designers in the world? Starting his own design firm, named LoveFrom, which is finally starting to become more publicly visible after working with clients that include Moncler, Ferrari, and others. Oh, and it looks like they are charging up to $200m a year to design new products.

Ive also looks to be investing in real estate in San Francisco, having acquired multiple buildings to create a communal space reminiscent of his favorite dining spots.

My favorite aspect of LoveFrom? The announcement of their new mascot, a bear named Montgomery, who playfully interacts with visitors on their newly shared website. The company will surely be the next great installment in an already incredible career for Ive.

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