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…

• A Mind Is Born (256 bytes) – Iftkryo – YouTube. “From a two hour video to a 256-byte program. I’ve written about the demoscene before—a creator scene born of short programs hackers would shoehorn into cracked software. They’re small. But I’ve never seen one that’s 256 bytes long. For context, there are 278 bytes in this description.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• 216,000,000 Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem – Gamers Nexus – YouTube. “Your phone may or may not be listening to you. Your TV definitely is. Gamers Nexus spent $70,000 monitoring LG Smart TVs, and the results are, well, damning. TVs that not only stream your personal conversations, but record those conversations when disconnected so they can upload them later. Quite literally Orwellian. And these aren’t just hacker claims; the video is full of LG executives bragging that they ‘own the glass’ and can help advertisers better target voters. This is the sort of thing regulators should be doing, but I guess it’s up to YouTubers to save the world now.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• How Often Do You Fart? This Smart Flatulence Underwear Can Tell You That And More – Taylor Nicioli – CNN. “For followers of the Quantified Self movement, an important new technology is now available. I expect weekly reports with our Six Links. On second thought…” (Hugh for Alistair).
• Brains Are Not Required When It Comes To Thinking And Solving Problems—Simple Cells Can Do It – Rowan Jacobsen – Scientific American. “Take the heads off a flatworm and it’ll regrow, keeping memories. Slime molds can solve mazes and learn. Plants get used to stimuli and have weeks-long memories. Biologist Michael Levin has found that regular cells coordinate through bioelectricity, using voltage patters like a programming language to store information. As if it wasn’t enough to be getting outclassed by AI, now the mold at the bottom of your your fridge might be competing for your job.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• Liv Boeree: Poker, Game Theory, AI, Simulation, Aliens & Existential Risk – Lex Fridman Podcast #314 YouTube. “My old friend, David Usher, recently posted this on Facebook: ‘There’s a strange and scary moment happening in AI right now. Jacob Coxon just quit Anthropic, warning that the people building the most advanced AI systems ‘earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.’ He said Anthropic and OpenAI are ‘racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.’ Then Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s Alignment Science Lead, basically agreed. He said he personally believes there is a greater than 10% chance AI could kill all humans within the next decade, and that Anthropic still does not have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence. These aren’t people standing outside the industry throwing rocks at it. They are people actually building the technology. I’m a huge believer in AI. I’ve spent years building with it. But when some of the people closest to the technology are quitting their jobs and warning that the risks could be this serious. I think we should probably listen.’ I refferred David (and it inspired to share it here too) to watch/listen to Liv Boeree walk us through the concept of ‘moloch’. The whole episode is great, but start at about 1:14:00 in this 3.5 hour episode to dig in on moloch… it’s a problem… and this is from four years ago… so no reference to AI…” (Mitch for Alistair).
• Japan’s Book Scene Is Quietly Moving From Bookstores To Libraries – Asami Saisho – Intranslated Japan. “Libraries in Japan are becoming lively community hubs, not just quiet places to borrow books. Innovative designs and thoughtful book selections attract many visitors, even in small towns. These local libraries help people connect with culture and each other, changing how people experience Japan. My post AI apocolaypse after-life seems to be pulling me towads Japan… this… coffee… jazz… stationary… it all sounds just right…” (Mitch for Hugh).

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

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