#089: Pour Your Soul Into Something, Your Personal AI Assistant, Recent MIT Study on 'Cognitive Debt'

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.

This week, we will take a look at an AI agent you can immedaitely start working with to make your life easier, a closer look at the controversial research paper released from MIT on AI+education, 'the best neural nets textbook' in the world, and more.

Let's dive in:

Your Personal AI Assistant

I have no idea how to use AI agents in my personal life. In theory, they sound really cool. They're supposed to be autonomous systems designed to perceive their environment, reason about it, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals.

One of the most popular agents currently is OpenAI's Operator. It's supposed to be able to perform a wide range of tasks by interacting with websites just like a human would. The problem with Operator, though, is that it's only available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers.

Enter ​Director.ai​. I discovered this free tool from ​Browserbase​ thanks to ​@AiBreakfast​. Just describe your tasks in plain English, and Director.ai navigates the web for you—clicking, searching for answers, and gathering data automatically.

You might be wondering (like myself), "Ok, how is this different than any other automation tool I use?" Those tools usually rely predefined API's and scripts, while agents are meant to interpret visual layouts, click buttons, fill out forms, type text, scroll through pages, and execute multi-step workflows all within a browser environment.

This means they can do things like order a Nintendo Switch, book flights, retrieve jobs from job boards, and a ton more. Mess around with it and see if there's any repetitive task you can automate with it!

Recent 'Study' on AI+Education and Cognitive Debt

A recent study out of MIT gained lots of social media attention after it suggested AI tools were negatively affecting student learning and brain activity. The key findings the paper suggests are that these tools lower brain activity, reduce originality, and weaken cognitive development.

This naturally leads us to question, "Ok, well what was the methodology?". The research involved 54 participants aged 18-39, divided into three groups: one used ChatGPT-4o, another only used search engines, and a third relied solely on their own knowledge. Each group wrote essays within a 20-minute time limit.

The first thing to note here, is how small the sample size is. Not only that, but the additional variables between participants to consider could make results highly disparate. There's no doubt *solely* relying on a GPT to write an entire essay would essentially be a mindless activity, but writing AI off entirely as detrimental to student learning is also inaccurate.

​@Iterintellectus sarcastically (but accurately) followed up with the observation, "wait, academics have interests in telling people that AI bad?! what?! shocked_pickachu_face.jpg"

Yes, ChatGPT writing is obvious and people will slowly get better at deciphering it. But the models will eventually learn to remove em dashes — and hopefully humans can reclaim them while learning to use AI to supercharge their research and learning.

Interactive Learning with Animation

Why don't all books include lightly animated, lightly interactive, demo-filled examples? This is the question @gtdad asked on Twitter after stumbling across this 680-page interactive book on computer science algorithms. It was made by @ElijahYilma, and is one of the most brilliant examples of breaking down complex subjects into simple explanations.

One of the best things that happens when a post like this gains traction, is people start to share other resources similar to the original. @gtdad went on to share another website called 507movements.com which covers 507 animated mechanical movements, showing the physics behind dynamics, hydraulics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, steam engines, mill and other gearing, presses, and miscellaneous machinery.

The illustrations are based on a book made in 1908 by Henry T. Brown, while the animations are implemented with a custom JavaScript library. It's a fascinating site to explore, especially if you are non-technical but have always been curious about how some of these machines work.

And lastly, if you are EXTRA ambitious, be sure to check out this interactive site that lets you explore how JPEG images are mathematically encoded. Thanks to @DefenderOfBasic and @gtdad for sharing!

Understand Deep Learning

​Justin Skycak of Math Academy says that Understanding Deep Learning by Simon J.D. Prince is "the best neural nets textbook that (he's) seen so far" and that "(he wishes) he had it back when (he) was studying ML. It would have been a game changer".

He recommended it as a resource while he was building a roadmap to go from high school math to cutting-edge AI/ML. It falls under Stage 3 of Bloom's 3 Stages of Talent Development.

Skycak says the thing he loves most about the book is how it's 'serious yet friendly', and he even provides an older thread where the author Prince shows off highlights on how it would save you time to learn the subject.

You can download the book here on the website, or you can order a physical copy here from Amazon.

Pour Your Soul Into Something

I saw this post from @BlondB00, and it resonated deeply:

There is no time to wait.

Go and do what you were meant to do.

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Always wishing you the best,

J.B.