Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”
Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:
- Large Language Mistake – Benjamin Riley – The Verge. “I have surprisingly strong opinions about this topic. I believe that the mechanism of understanding is encoded in language: analyze enough language, and you uncover the deep structures of reasoning and thought. My experience with AIs confirms this, but I’m a skeptic. ‘A child may not know a lighthouse,’ I think, ‘but if it understands concepts like ‘rock’ and ‘sea’ and ‘light’ and ‘tower’ and ‘wreck’, then it can infer what a lighthouse does. Am I an idiot, falling prey to a clever parlor trick? Turns out the current AI boom hinges on this question too. I’m not sure I agree with this piece from The Verge, but it’s an interesting counterpoint.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Smart Phones And Social Media: A Society In Mental Health Crisis – Brian Greene & Jonathan Haidt – Wold Science Festival – YouTube. “Jonathan Haidt (whose The Righteous Mind was my favorite book for a while) talking with Brian Greene (World Science Festival) about the real question of the modern world. There was no good baseline of pre-smartphone brains, and we have no control group by which to compare what we’ve done to our minds. I worry that we should be locking in a baseline and longitudinal study now for AI, as we start to delegate large swathes of cognition to external brains.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- Anthropic’s Newest Model Blew This Founder’s Mind – And Made Him Uncomfortable – Rhea Purohit – Every. “Paul Ford is one of my favorite internet people, he’s both a writer and a technologist, dare I say a futurist, and always thoughtful. He’s deep in AI with his new(ish) company Aboard, and here has a long thoughtful convo about AI and society with Dan Shipper.“ (Hugh for Alistair).
- 52 Things I Learned In 2025 – Tom Whitwell – Medium. “I considered just keeping this article in my back pocket and making each one of these my weekly link for the rest of the year, but instead … I send you this cornucopia of interesting things.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- The Thinking Game – Full Documentary – Tribeca Film Festival Official Selection – Google DeepMind – YouTube. “The universe has a strange way of connecting things. I had saved this documentary to my Watch Later list in YouTube the minute I saw it published about a week ago. Then, just yesterday, someone commented to me that they had just watched it and it was excellent. So I figured I might as well share it with you and everyone else. This documentary is worth your time. Filmed over five years, it’s a peak into the world of AlphaGo and AlphaFold but, more importantly, a look into the mind of Demis Hassabis. It shows that the pursuit of AGI isn’t some sci-fi gamble… it’s the next frontier of human potential. It also makes it clear that ignoring safety isn’t bravery… it’s negligence, especially when we’re building systems that can learn, generalize and outperform us in ways we don’t fully understand. The real opportunity is in holding both truths at once… moving boldly toward the upside while building the safeguards that ensure we actually get to enjoy it… and I’m not even close to being convinced that we’re doing this effectively.” (Mitch for Alistair).
- David Byrne: Tiny Desk Concert – NPR Music. “I’ve noticed that a lot of the content I’m consuming can sway between a future we can’t imagine or a future that may not exist. It’s been heavy. I think part of it is because we’re not even clear on the rhetoric we’re getting from the people who are building this type of world-changing technology. In short: terrifying. I couldn’t end it on that kind of note. So I decided to end it on a musical note. If you want joy, find a Tiny Desk Concert playlist and let it roll. If you want more joy, check out the recently released Tiny Desk Concert from Talking Heads legend and renaissance man, David Byrne. I dare you not to smile and tap your foot…” (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.
Mitch Joel Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.