Wisereads Vol. 88 — AI as Normal Technology, the Era of Experience, and more
Last week, we featured an exclusive 3-chapter preview of Jash Dholani's latest release, How to Start: The Art of Beginning Big Things. This week, we're sharing the Agatha Christie mystery that put her on the map: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the fourth Hercule Poirot mystery.
Keep reading to add to your Reader account below 👇
PS- As mentioned last week, we've been working on some BIG projects behind the scenes. So big that we're hoping to recruit some intrepid Readwise users to test some early iterations and provide feedback 🙏
If you'd be interested, sign up using the brief survey link. We’ll reach out at some point with opportunities to test and take a sneak peek at what we’re building. Of course, we'll also offer thank you gifts for your time. Sign up as an early tester →
Most highlighted Articles of the week
Come With Me if You Want to Survive an Age of Extinction
In a rallying cry for intentionality and intensity, columnist and author Ross Douthat warns that the greatest threat to human culture is a slow drift away from its most meaningful aspects. "In a normal evolutionary bottleneck, the goal is surviving some immediate physical threat — a plague or famine, an earthquake, flood or meteor strike. The bottleneck of the digital age is different: The new era is killing us softly, by drawing people out of the real and into the virtual, distracting us from the activities that sustain ordinary life, and finally making existence at a human scale seem obsolete."
Impact, agency, and taste
As agency takes center stage, Ben Kuhn of Anthropic highlights another critical trait for high-leverage work: taste. Without taste, you chase the wrong goals; without agency, you stall even on the right ones. "I’ve noticed a lot of people underestimate their own taste, because they expect having good taste to feel like being very smart or competent or good at things. Unfortunately, I am here to tell you that, at least if you are similar to me, you will never feel smart, competent, or good at things; instead, you will just start feeling more and more like everyone else mysteriously sucks at them."
AI as Normal Technology
A description, prediction, and prescription all in one, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor’s recent essay frames AI in a markedly different light. The authors of AI Snake Oil argue: "To view AI as normal is not to understate its impact—even transformative, general-purpose technologies such as electricity and the internet are 'normal' in our conception. But it is in contrast to both utopian and dystopian visions of the future of AI which have a common tendency to treat it akin to a separate species, a highly autonomous, potentially superintelligent entity."
Most highlighted YouTube Video of the week
How To Navigate Your Career
During an interview with venture capitalist Jack Altman, angel investor Elad Gil shares his thoughts on choosing and pursuing a career. "John Lennon has this quote: 'Life is what happens while you're making other plans,' and I think some of the best careers that I've seen have been unplanned. You know, in evolution, there's this idea of punctuated equilibrium... it seems like there's an explosion of diversity, and then it consolidates. I feel like that sometimes happens in careers, and that's definitely happened in my career path."
Most highlighted Twitter Thread of the week
Fitness cheat codes I know at 45 that I wish I knew at 25
Fitness influencer Dan Go shares ultra-specific, actionable health tips to lengthen your healthspan: "Take 5 grams of creatine for the muscles. Take 10-15 grams of creatine for the brain." Boost your body and mind: "Walk backwards to improve knee health, body awareness, and brain function." And to kickstart your day: "First thing in the morning wake up your nervous system by getting physical activity in the sun."
Most highlighted PDF of the week
Welcome to the Era of Experience
In an essay slated to become a chapter of their upcoming book, Designing an Intelligence, researchers David Silver and Richard S. Sutton argue that advancing toward superintelligence will require a renewed focus on reinforcement learning. "Powerful agents should have their own stream of experience that progresses, like humans, over a long time-scale. This will allow agents to take actions to achieve future goals, and to continuously adapt over time to new patterns of behaviour. For example, a health and wellness agent connected to a user’s wearables could monitor sleep patterns, activity levels, and dietary habits over many months. It could then provide personalized recommendations, encouragement, and adjust its guidance based on long-term trends and the user’s specific health goals."
Hand-picked book of the week
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The fourth book in Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot series, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, made her a household name in mysteries. Though she later wrote other beloved installments, including Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, Roger Ackroyd remains a standout, earning a spot on Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books to Read Before You Die and being voted the best crime novel ever written by the UK Crime Writers’ Association.
After the sudden deaths of a widow and her wealthy fiancé, King’s Abbot is awash in rumors—and only Hercule Poirot can unravel the blackmail and betrayal at the heart of it all.
"Understand this: I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it... Messieurs et mesdames, I tell you, I mean to know. And I shall know—in spite of you all."
This edition of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is available through Standard Ebooks. You can explore their collection of high quality, carefully formatted, and free public domain ebooks here.
Handpicked RSS feed of the week
Lauren Valdez
Lauren Valdez—writer, Latina entrepreneur, new mother, and wife to Building a Second Brain author Tiago Forte—reflects on motherhood, vulnerability, imperfection, and the writing process in her Substack. From The Alchemy of Helplessness: "I’m trying to sit with my helplessness, but my brain is just flooding me with shoulds, all the things I should do, and then guilt for not doing those things. But guilt is my most accompanied companion. Guilt is my guard dog emotion protecting me from feeling the helplessness. It’s like a puppy with frenetic energy keeping me from the stillness I seek. I write to feel into my helplessness."