AI Doomers, Writer's Block, Sci-Fi, and Tasty Meat

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✍️ I. What Really Causes Writer’s Block?

I enjoyed Sasha Chapin’s article: If You Have Writer's Block, Maybe You Should Stop Lying. In it, he argues that many people experiencing “writer’s block” do not suffer from a lack of ideas or a problem with their creative process; instead, they’re unwilling to say what they really think.

Outside of his interesting thesis about what drives blocked writers, I resonated with what he had to say about one of the challenges of being a creator who shares ideas over time.

“As you continue producing creative work, you will, for better or worse, be changing in the background. You may find that doing the things you once did is no longer congruent with your inner climate. This gives you, roughly, two choices—either you flow with who you’ve actually become, or you slowly descend into a hollow parody of what you once were.”

In my work, I’ve definitely struggled to let go of ideas that used to seem important or valuable, but that no longer fit with my current inner landscape. But this tension between who you were and who you are now is part of what makes writing over time so valuable.

In the process of piecing together what you think with the written word, you have the chance to clarify and change your ideas about the world. And if you do it for long enough, you end up with a fun repository of work that reminds you of just how much your beliefs and interests have evolved over time.

🧪 II. A Sci-Fi Mind Bender

I read Quarantine by Greg Egan this week, and it blew my mind. After a sluggish start, the book becomes a fascinating tale of a sci-fi future that explores mind-bending questions about philosophy, quantum physics, and the inner complexities of the mind. Egan does a brilliant job of making many difficult hard science concepts digestible to a layman like me.

🤖 III. AI Doomers

Rapid developments in AI have elevated an eclectic class of doomers shouting about the dangers of AI. The leader of the group is Eliezer Yudkowsky, an OG in the field who focuses primarily on the alignment problem.

To learn more about what the doomers are worried about, I listened to Yudkowsky’s interview with Lex Friedman and read his article: Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down. This double hitter left me with a heavy dose of fear about the future.

As I grappled with this fear, I realized that while Yudkowsky is a smart dude who seems to be ringing the alarm bells out of genuine concern for the fate of humanity, he is ultimately a pessimist who offers very little in the realm of practical solutions that may help us correct course.

Something I’ve realized over the years is that pessimists like Yudkowsky often sound smarter and more persuasive than optimists. Saying that AI alignment is hard and that we’re so far behind that we’re setting ourselves up to be obliterated by superhuman intelligence is much more compelling than hearing someone say that we will figure it all out.

But just because an idea is persuasive and taps into primal emotions does not mean that it’s correct or a productive way to think about the world.

In this case, I think the AI doomers are making the critical mistake of underestimating the ingenuity of people. Time and time again, humans have shown that when they are faced with potentially existential risks, they respond with a lot of energy and resources dedicated to finding solutions.

And those solutions don’t come from the doomers who spread fear without offering practical paths forward. They often come from the optimists, the people who believe that we can create a better future and who inspire other people to work toward finding out how we do that.

As to whether the doomers or the optimists have the right approach to AI, time will tell. But for now, I’m betting on the optimists.

🥩 IV. Dry Brines

It wasn’t until my late 20s that I started to enjoy cooking. What used to seem like an outsourceable waste of time slowly became a new domain for being creative and learning how to nourish my body.

This week, I picked up a new technique in Myles Snider’s article about how (and why) to dry brine meat. He offers a simple practice for cooking tasty meat with a little extra prep time.

🧠 VI. Something I’m Thinking About

Reminder to self: don’t be the pedant.

That's all for now. See you next Sunday.

— Cal

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