Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. How AI Makes Sentences

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has collected some of the best reactions to ChatGPT and Sydney, Bing’s interactive chatbot. One excerpt, from Stephen Wolfram, explains how AI algorithms write:

At each step it gets a list of words with probabilities. But which one should it actually pick to add to the essay (or whatever) that it’s writing? One might think it should be the “highest-ranked” word (i.e. the one to which the highest “probability” was assigned). But this is where a bit of voodoo begins to creep in. Because for some reason — that maybe one day we’ll have a scientific-style understanding of — if we always pick the highest-ranked word, we’ll typically get a very “flat” essay, that never seems to “show any creativity” (and even sometimes repeats word for word). But if sometimes (at random) we pick lower-ranked words, we get a “more interesting” essay.

Wolfram’s lucid explanation of GPT runs more than 20,000 words. It can be found here.

2. Start Your Engines

Stratechery makes a compelling case for why “Drive to Survive,” Netflix’s Formula 1 series, has succeeded while audiences for NBA games fade. The piece offers detailed analysis of how television, cable, and pay-per-view TV have evolved – and how this evolution has shaped the world of sports. The lesson: Formula 1 doesn’t take its fans for granted:

What impresses me about the sport from a business perspective is how hard it works to get new fans — it sows the seeds it later reaps. This ranges from “Drive to Survive” to new venues to even changing the rules to make sure fans get a chance to meet their heroes. This is the only way to survive in a media environment where you can’t simply reap the benefits of having lots of inventory for a bundle looking for content. Formula 1 has to earn its audience, particularly in the United States, and it is diligent about doing so. The NBA, not so much.

3. Bombs Away?

Seth Jones, a defense industry scholar at CSIS, has written a frightening assessment about why the US may be running out of weapons needed to fight a war. His essay starts with a bang:

The U.S. defense industrial base is not adequately prepared for the international security environment that now exists. In a major regional conflict—such as a war with China in the Taiwan Strait—the U.S. use of munitions would likely exceed the current stockpiles of the U.S. Department of Defense. According to the results of a series of CSIS war games, the United States would likely run out of some munitions—such as long-range, precision-guided munitions—in less than one week in a Taiwan Strait conflict.

4. Cyberhacking Contests

Over the last year, LockBit, the mysterious but highly organized cyberhacking group, has established “cyberbreaches as a service,” and its malware has become the industry standard for ransomware attacks. Wired details how, despite LockBit’s need for secrecy, it can “slip into showboating and bizarre behavior”:

 During desperate efforts to get attention—and attract affiliates—in its early months, the criminal group held an essay-writing competition and paid prizes to the winners. And in September 2022, the group memorably posted a message on a cybercrime forum claiming it would pay anyone $1,000 if they got the LockBit logo tattooed on themselves.

5. Is Ukraine Just the Start?

A year into the conflict, historian Niall Ferguson has taken a gloomy view of what the war in Ukraine might mean. In an interview on the podcast Call Me Back, Ferguson suggests it may mark the beginning of a long global struggle:

 We might think of this as the war in Ukraine or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but maybe it is just the first part of World War III. Part 2 will be in the Middle East when Iran escalates its war against Saudi Arabia and Part 3 is Taiwan.  And if these things happen in roughly the same timeframe, then we are looking at something much more alarming than merely “Cold War II.”

6. Former GOAT

Wright Thomas has written a melancholy piece on how Joe Montana, once the undisputed GOAT of the NFL, sat on the sidelines and watched Tom Brady steadily eclipse him. “Bitterness is such a common affliction of once-great athletes,” Thomas writes, “that it’s only noteworthy when absent”:

In the past nine seasons, before retiring for the second time in as many years, Tom Brady won four Super Bowls. Montana watched those games, most at his home overlooking San Francisco Bay. He's been known to sometimes yell at the television, not so quietly rooting for the Seahawks or Falcons. In an email to me once, Montana called him "the guy in Tampa" instead of using his name.

Websites Worth Reading

Benedict Evans: Ben Evans’s annual presentation on technology

Disequilibrium: Bruce Mehlman’s periodic politics presentation

Jeff Wise Science Journalist: Jeff Wise, MH370 expert

Feeds We Follow

@OPIRlife: Old photos compared with today

@HyunSongShin: Detailed thread on global value chains and trade

@Aviation_Intel: Aviation expert on Ukraine war