reading

Venkatesh Rao's allegorical map of the current AI landscape highlights key players, challenges, and emerging trends, arguing that AI development is rapidly transitioning to a "town-planning" phase. via Ribbonfarm Studio.

Alex Tabarrok launches EnsureDone, a platform for "dominant assurance contracts," and highlights an early project on atmospheric sulfur seeding. via Marginal REVOLUTION

Defining syllables is surprisingly difficult, even though most people can recognize them easily enough. via kottke.org

Longreads shares its weekly #5 story picks from 2023. Readers can expect essays on topics ranging from tofu and pandas to sumo wrestling and Florida Man. via Longreads

Researchers created 26 principles to improve prompting large language models and get better answers, which were tested on models like LLaMA and GPT - you can find out more about these principles and how they work in the paper "Principled Instructions Are All You Need for Questioning LLaMA-1/2, GPT-3.

Jason Kottke shares a link to a New York Times article highlighting 20 first-time occurrences in 2023, including milestones in science and discoveries about the presence of microplastics in the environment.

via kottke.org