Is there one link, story or idea that stopped you this week… and made you think, “someone else needs to see this”?

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 made a simple pact years ago. Once a week, each of us would share one link with the others… something we genuinely believed the other two had to see. No trend-hunting… no performance. Just six ideas exchanged with intent. What started as a small ritual between curious friends became Six Links That Make You Think.

These are the six links we passed to one another this week… take your time with them…

• Antitrust Class 1 Whiteboard – Fall 2012 – Randy Picker – YouTube. “The big news this week, if you’re thinking long-term, is that cognition is now tied to citizenship. Are Large Language Models simply a utility that turns energy into tokens, or a cognitive upgrade without which humans fall into a permanent underclass? Weighty thoughts (a terrible joke for just a few nerds). But both of these questions hinge on the concept of monopoly. When something is essential (like water or energy) and we’ll pay anything for them (like water or energy) and they’re more efficiently delivered at scale (like water or energy) then they become regulated monopolies. In theory, this is how we deliver them efficiently without price-gouging. A friend shared this lecture on the theory of monopolies from the University of Chicago‘s Randall Picker, in his Law School Antitrust class. Sam, Dario, Elon and Sundar do not want to become a regulated monopoly; it’s interesting to watch this while thinking about AI… and in particular Anthropic‘s launch, and rapid revocation, of Fable.” (Alistair for Hugh).
  
• Life Capital. “I was in Ottawa last week speaking about (what else) AI, and met some fascinating founders. One of them had moved here from Ukraine, and has a project to launch a common educational tool from her home country here in Canada. It’s a playable game the country’s schools use to teach how to adult. What started as a tool for financial literacy expanded into time management, relationships, critical thinking, and more. In 2020 it was approved by Ukraine’s National Financial Literacy Project, and 200 groups play it regularly today. While we’re pouring billions into AI literacy, maybe we can spend a little on boardgames to teach our kids?” (Alistair for Mitch).
• NASA’s Beloved Voyager Probes Find Puzzles Beyond The Solar System – Meghan Bartels – Scientific American. “Amazing to think that two NASA probes, launched in the 1970s, that reached the edge of our solar system in the early 2000s, and continue, 20 years later, to travel further and further into the unknown, to realize that they are still sending data back home to our little rock floating in the warm(er) space near the sun.” (Hugh for Alistair).
• ‘Wow, It Really Worked!’: The 70S Tv Show That’s Causing Worldwide Panic – 50 Years Later – Phil Tinline – The Guardian. “Also from the 1970s, maybe the first mockumentary, about aliens and conspiracies and dark forces silencing scientists who got too close to the truth… still resonates in corners of the web’s public imagination, with real theories about how and why it’s still actually happening. And, you may not be surprised to learn, the conspiracy has a toehold among certain people in the Trump administration who want answers.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• In Age of AI, World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes – Eli Saslow & Erin Schaff – The New York Times. “It almost feels like I don’t have to add much commentary beyond the title of this article. What happens when a top expert (who studies deepfakes, fake images and videos made by technology) no longer trusts what he sees ,because deepfakes are very convincing and hard to detect? This expert (and his wife) now use special strategies and tactics to confirm they are real to protect themselves from being fooled. Somebody recently said to me that we are in the “believe nothing” era. I’m sure my physical response overwhelmed them as my shoulders shrunk down and my head bowed in dire disbelief.” (Mitch for Alistair). 
• Has AI Already Killed How-To Nonfiction? Sales Trends, My Personal Data, And What It Might Mean For The Future – Tim Ferriss. “Tim Ferriss said the quiet part out loud. Selling books has radically changed in the age of AI. Especially when it comes to non-fiction business books. He brings the receipts to demonstrate that they’re not just lagging but dropping significantly. Not all authors, not all genres, but non-fiction and in particular business books. Tim’s main theory is that chatbots have quickly replaced these books because they can give faster, more personalized advice for free. I think that’s one of many reasons. I’m more curious why we haven’t seen any breakthrough management or business ideas in books, if you consider everything from the pandemic all the way through to where we are currently with AI and beyond. You would think that we are primed for some new and disruptive management theory. This topic has become a fascinating rabbit hole if you’re interested in books and in particular business books. From AJ Harper’s rebuke of Tim’s analysis (Tim Ferris’ Coal Mine is Not Your Coal Mine) to Seth Godin’s more validating take (Promotion, activation, conversation) to Derek Coburn’s view as a new-ish author (The Problem Isn’t the Book. It’s Finding the Readers). I think we’ve seen 15+ years of many ways for people who write (or create content in general) to connect their content to an audience (from Substack and Instagram to webinars, community memberships and on and on)… and having a podcast (or being a guest on one). To me, that’s what has created this fragmentation and this disintermediation. You can get an awful lot of ‘Tim Ferriss’ without picking up his books… so what do we do now?” (Mitch for Hugh).

If one of these sticks with you, pass it on… and let us know what earned your attention this week…

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.