Raghuveer Parthasarathy: Reading Like It’s 1937. The experiment was to choose only books published in a single year and read these in a short period of time. As expected, there were more duds than classics, and with not that many books coming out in 1937 it amount to very few good books indeed. This kind of experimentation does support the claim that we live in a literary golden age, and I’d say it’s because of a combination of high absolute numbers and us being better at detecting edge cases, not necessarily that the relative percentage of classics per year has increased. If anything, it is probably much lower because of all the AI-generated slop.
Mike Taylor: If you’d built a “tool” that stupid, why would you advertise the fact? The AI tools described are indeed stupid, but remember that the marginal cost for advertising them is 0, and if you find them stupid you were never the intended audience. In that way they very much resemble phone scams and emails from a Nigerian prince.
David Shaywitz: The Startling History Behind Merck’s New Cancer Blockbuster. A story from 8 years ago, but it was news to me that pembrolizumab had a very roundabout way of reaching patients. GLP-1 inhibitors had a slightly less circuitous route, but still took too long to get to where they are. Is this truly the best way to develop drugs? (↬Derek Lowe)
Cal Newport: Is Sora the Beginning of the End for OpenAI? Probably not, and this is not really an edge case, but as someone who has trouble concluding blog posts (which is why you’re reading a list) I just wanted to pause and admire that last sentence.