Wisereads Vol. 73 — Altman's Reflections, Steinbeck's Cup of Gold, and more
Last week, we shared the entirety of Learn More Faster by Michael Margolis of Google Ventures, a guide on tackling user research at startups. This week, we're sharing John Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, which follows the fearsome pirate Captain Morgan and just became public domain in the U.S.
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Most highlighted Articles of the week
Reflections
On the second anniversary of ChatGPT’s release, OpenAI founder Sam Altman calls that day a pivotal moment for AI, bringing us closer than ever to AGI and superintelligence. "We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents 'join the workforce' and materially change the output of companies. We continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great, broadly-distributed outcomes."
I Want Your Attention. I Need Your Attention. Here is How I Mastered My Own.
News anchor Chris Hayes recognizes that attention is fleeting, yet points out that people sought distraction from their own minds long before smartphones. "While the state of constant interruption of the attention age may be unwelcome, it grows from a desire that long predates contemporary life. 'When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men,' Pascal observed in 'Pensées,' his collection of essays published in 1670, 'I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.'"
I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life
After spending a few weeks at DOGE, Loom founder Vinay Hiremath booked a one-way ticket to Hawaii to study physics, hoping to confront his insecurities and burning questions. "Why do I feel the need to only be on a journey if it’s grand? What is wrong with being insignificant? Why is letting people down so hard?"
Most highlighted YouTube Video of the week
Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day?
Debunking the typical "10,000 steps a day" advice, comedian and scientist Shannon Odell explains how adding any amount of walking can yield major health benefits. "Carrying the weight of your body as you walk places stress on the bones. But this stress actually makes the bones stronger, as it stimulates the absorption of calcium and minerals. That's why years of consistent walking can help retain bone density, which usually declines with age. Building a lifelong walking habit comes with many other benefits, from aiding in weight management to reducing your risk for type 2 diabetes, numerous cancers, and dementia."
Most highlighted Twitter Thread of the week
I thought I was crazy until I found Richard Feynman
When he’s not reading, Giuliano writes viral tweets drawn from his favorite books and history’s notable figures. Among his takeaways from theoretical physicist Richard Feynman: "You don't understand what 'first principles' really mean until you listen to a physicist reasoning. It's about going to the end of the world chasing a chain of 'whys'," and "There is another real loss in life: The loss of one's sense of humor. It doesn't matter how many labels, prestige, and wisdom you may have. You don't want to go through life without laughing."
Most highlighted PDF of the week
Agents
What are the makings of an agent? Google’s whitepaper likens an agent’s cognitive architecture to a busy chef, composed of a model, orchestration layer, and tools to interface with the outside world. "Imagine a chef in a busy kitchen. Their goal is to create delicious dishes for restaurant patrons which involves some cycle of planning, execution, and adjustment... At each stage in the process the chef makes adjustments as needed, refining their plan as ingredients are depleted or customer feedback is received, and uses the set of previous outcomes to determine the next plan of action."
Hand-picked book of the week
Cup of Gold
Long before The Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden, John Steinbeck’s debut set sail with the treacherous pirate Captain Morgan in Cup of Gold. At first glance, it’s a swashbuckling pirate tale, but tucked within the adventure is a reflection on how the thrill of pursuit compares with the reality of achievement.
"Captain Morgan went back to the treasure. He sat on the floor and took the coins into his hands. 'The most human of all human traits is inconsistency,' he thought. 'It is a shock to learn this thing, almost as great a shock to a man as the realization of his humanity. And why must we learn that last? In all the mad incongruity, the turgid stultiloquy of life, I felt, at least, securely anchored to myself. Whatever the vacillations of other people, I thought myself terrifically constant. But now, here I am, dragging a frayed line, and my anchor gone.'"
This edition of Cup of Gold is available through Standard Ebooks. In celebration of Public Domain Day in the U.S., they’ve added twenty new titles to their meticulously formatted and free ebook collection here.
Handpicked RSS feed of the week
Max Woolf's Blog
Senior Data Analyst at BuzzFeed, Max Woolf, reports on his experiments with AI on his blog. From Can LLMs write better code if you keep asking them to "write better code"?: "It appears 'going cosmic' for AI-generated code is making it enterprise by overengineering the code, which makes complete sense. Despite that, the code runs as-is without any bugs... after benchmarking, the algorithm is extremely fast, resulting in about 6 milliseconds a run, or a 100x speedup. My assumption that this prompting was hitting diminishing returns aged very poorly. Maybe numba was the secret all along?"