Assoc. Prof. of Strategy, U Toronto Rotman | Chief Economist, CDL Toronto | Co-Founder, AllDayTA | Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps (especially now)
Toronto, ON, Canada
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Samuel Johnson says travel "regulates imagination by reality". Let's start the weekend with a place for you. This is Abemama Island, Kiribati. You'll be the only foreigner but for young Mormons. Dirt cheap, soft sand, bathwater ocean with gentle grade, drinking coconuts. 1/2
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Definitely where we are going with All Day TA with the next big release this fall: AIs proactive not reactive. Users don't know what they don't know or what they need.
Muse will be the top installed app for a while thanks to Meta’s distribution might..
But they are starting to have a retention issue: most people still don’t know what to do with a personal agent, so they lose interest after a while.
I bet Muse will get much more proactive rather than reactive like it is today:
“I can take care of this for you. Want me to?”
I think there are a LOT of money saving opportunities in finance
“Your credit card is charging 27% interest. You qualify for a much cheaper way to pay it off. Want me to move it?”
“You have $8,000 sitting in checking earning almost nothing. Want me to move the excess to a higher-yield account?”
“You’re paying off three debts. Putting your extra $300 toward this one first will save the most interest. Want me to change the payments?”
“Your car insurance just went up 22%. Want me to shop for a cheaper policy?”
“You’re paying for two subscriptions you haven’t used in months. Want me to cancel them?”
“Your employer will match another 2% of your 401(k) contributions. Want me to increase it?”
“Your credit card annual fee is coming up, but you barely used the benefits. Want me to downgrade it?”
Other non finance examples:
“Your kid’s soccer practice moved to 6:30. Want me to tell your spouse and update the calendar?”
“This group chat has been trying to pick a restaurant for three days. Friday at 7 works for everyone. Want me to book it?”
“Your package is delayed and will now arrive while you’re at work. Want me to change the delivery?”
“Your sister’s birthday is Saturday. Here are three gift ideas under $50.”
“You usually order groceries on Sunday. Want me to rebuild last week’s cart?”
“You told your friend you’d send them those photos. Want me to do it?”
“You’re running late for dinner. Want me to text the group your ETA?”
“One of the Marketplace couches you saved just dropped $100. Want me to message the seller?”
“Your flight is delayed. Want me to tell the person picking you up?”
“You’ve been trying to make plans with three friends. Saturday afternoon is the only time everyone is free. Want me to organize it?”
“Your dentist asked you to reschedule. I found three open appointments that work with your calendar. Pick one?”
“Your child’s school sent a permission slip due Friday. Want me to remind you tonight?”
“You said you need to return something to Target. The return window closes in four days. Want me to remind you when you’re near one?”
Basically moving from: You think of a task → you ask → AI helps.
To:
AI notices something → suggests an action → you approve.
Then you trust it and Muse handles routine things automatically and tells you afterward.
IMO people aren’t going to keep opening an agent because it can answer questions, unless they are subbing muse for ChatGPT; I don’t think it’s there yet…
They’ll keep opening it because it keeps saving them time, remembering things they forgot, and taking annoying little tasks off their plate.
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Agree. Reasons to dislike AI writing: the writing is meant as a proxy for underlying writer characteristics (e.g., job cover letter), or writing combines easy- and hard-to-see quality (e.g., essay on "what's it like to work in the White House" - I care who the 'real' author is!)
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I care less on 1) AI used to translate by non-native speaker, 2) AI where writing isn't signal about the author nor depends on the author's hard-to-observe effort or knowledge set. @tylercowen correctly just links to the GPT thread rather than pass it off as his own in that case.
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You laugh, but this type of thing, from the Copilot on down, is the modal AI policy and advice I come across when working with large orgs on AI integration. If you are in "37 agents pulling from a huge context library of md files", your use of AI is wildly different (and better).
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Kevin A. Bryan retweeted
at @creativedlab, we have built and opened to researchers 15 years of panel data on tech #startups to study the determinants of success in the commercialization of science and the role of mentoring in it. thanks to @muradhem @the_logic for covering our work.
🧵 some findings 1/n
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Few nicer things than an urban campus quad on a sunny 70F day early in the new semester. Build more dense, walkable, beautiful, green, social places, friends.
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Great short comprehensive view of the Chinese AI policy world and ecosystem and views. One thing to add is that the "Internet" hence AI is so different in China-much more voice use rather than typing (Doubao), superapps not open internet, safety as a govt not private concern, etc
Want to know about AI in China but find most of the recommended reading too hard to follow?
Kayla and I have prepared a background explainer on China's AI ecosystem for people who are interested in the topic but are not familiar with China and/or AI.
We looked at: Key Actors and Institutions; China’s AI Development Plans and Major Regulations; China’s Frontier AI Development; Frontier Risk Discussion; Reactions to US AI Breakthroughs and Incidents; and Reactions to Wider US AI Discourse.
oxfordchinapolicylab.org/res…
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So as was obvious to anyone who uses AI frequently but not to all the folks on TV saying naive things about AI, possibility of AI detection on long texts, and racial bias, Goncourt agrees that this book isn't human. Again, that's amazing - an AI novel won major prizes! 1/2
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My offer of $1000 if you show me any two pages of French literature from before 2022 that Pangram says is 100% AI went (obviously!) unclaimed after 150k views, because there is no such text. 2/2
On the French AI novel: so many reflexively claiming bias or saying "you can't detect AI writing". I will donate $1000 to the charity of your choice if you show me a single literary French text of 1000+ words, pre-2022, with Internet Archive link, that is 100% AI on Pangram. 1/2
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Kevin A. Bryan retweeted
The small Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in London's Postman's Park is quite moving: an assembly of earnest Arts and Crafts tiles commemorating people who died saving the lives of others.
George Watts, the creator, in 1887: "My proposal, as you know, is plainly this: that the memory of the deeds of heroism constantly recurring in our everyday life should be perpetuated and honoured as such deeds should, for they illustrate the character of our people as a nation of great acts." And elsewhere: "It is a great pity that they should only receive the recognition of a newspaper paragraph, and be forgotten next day."
I'm often struck by how figures in this period across many countries seem solemnly concerned with the character of the nation.
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I know this isn't the point, but man, Claude became very very very good at coding up animated videos straight out of the LLM. Bitter Lesson remains undefeated.
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Kevin A. Bryan retweeted
Notice how the AI labs who are the most “AI-pilled” and have unlimited AI tokens to use per employee keep hiring and hiring, and are not laying off?
Heard from a company investing big on AI which did big layoffs due to wanting to have fewer engineers thanks to AI that… they realized they need more engineers, ASAP.
Who would have predicted, huh?
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Effective services, with support and love for local culture, delivered with an optimistic smile - perhaps the real secret to political popularity? One hopes!
Never been to the opera before?
Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @MetOpera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
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Self recommending from Zoe!
➕➕ New research ➕➕
On the design of agents for markets and markets for agents.
AI agents are increasingly entering markets, acting on behalf of people—
How do we make sure they represent their people well, and that these markets are set up safely and fairly for everyone?
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Kevin A. Bryan retweeted
Correct, but "middle powers should have outside options in every critical area so no one has leverage over them" can easily lead to "no great power depends on you". Which, eg, guarantees access to frontier AI or defense? Interlocking dependence can be > "sovereign" non-dependence
My working hypothesis: Carney’s ideal is what you might call “managed multipolarity”—less American predominance, more influence for Europe and middle powers, and a bigger role for mediating international institutions.
It’s a world that would suit his instincts and experience. His speculating here about several reserve currencies fits the picture.
One must consider that Carney may welcome diminished American influence as much as he is preparing for it.
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Correct, but "middle powers should have outside options in every critical area so no one has leverage over them" can easily lead to "no great power depends on you". Which, eg, guarantees access to frontier AI or defense? Interlocking dependence can be > "sovereign" non-dependence
My working hypothesis: Carney’s ideal is what you might call “managed multipolarity”—less American predominance, more influence for Europe and middle powers, and a bigger role for mediating international institutions.
It’s a world that would suit his instincts and experience. His speculating here about several reserve currencies fits the picture.
One must consider that Carney may welcome diminished American influence as much as he is preparing for it.
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What Carney wants is for *all* middle powers to collectively act in a unified way on intl institutions, payments, defense, etc because each are too small to have leverage over the other. True! But this lack of realism about great power benefits is naive. 2/3
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