100 Interesting Things 66-79: Kylie Minogue and Neuromancer
The surface of Venus, photographed by the Venera 14, a Soviet lander, in 1982. More on the NASA Photo of the Day.
This post is part of a series I started after reading “Notice, Collect, Share” by Russell Davies. I’m more inspired than ever to get back into the habit of…noticing, collecting and sharing. As part of that return to habit, I’m going to try and find five things that interest me every week, and share them here on my blog. 5 things per week, for 20 weeks, equals 100 Interesting things. Maybe one of these things will inspire you. Maybe one of them will inspire me. We’ll all learn something along the way.
I’ve also been tracking all of the stuff I find in my “Deck Of Interesting” - it’s screenshots, links, and assorted notes of things that might make into one of these posts.
UPDATE: I’m a bit off my usual cadence of posting here. Vacation, changing jobs, and a 13-month old son will always get in the way of posting.
#66 Exaggerate the problem or exaggerate the solution This WD-40 ad is an example of this. You’ve been flipping through the magazine already by this point or, even better, have had it fall open to this page. You can grasp the smoothness and ease with which those pages turn, and you see the hinges. You’ve never felt hinges that smooth in your life. And then the message and the logo hits you. You go back to the hinges. The whole thing just clicks. It SMOOTHLY clicks.
If you’re just a regular person, you’re probably not running out to buy WD-40 just because of this ad. But the concept of WD-40 (and the smooth-hinge solution it promises) is lodged a bit more deeply in your mind. The next time you’ve got creaky hinges (or creaky anything) you’ll be just a little bit more likely to reach for this exact product.
If you’re a marketing person, and therefore not a regular person, you’re also probably not running out to buy WD-40 just because of this ad. But you are saving a copy of it on your desktop. You’re in subtle awe of whoever came up with it, but it’s balanced with a bit of jealousy that you didn’t.
#67 North Korean Job Theft Come for what is maybe one of the best paragraphs written in journalism this year and stay for a fascinating and in-depth article about just how weird our future is going to get:
Chapman then started documenting more of her life on TikTok and YouTube, mostly talking about her diet, fitness, or mental health. In one chatty video, shared in June 2023, she described grabbing breakfast on the go—an açaí bowl and a smoothie— because work was so busy. “My clients are going crazy!” she complained. In the background, the camera caught a glimpse of metal racks holding at least a dozen open laptops covered in sticky notes. A few months later, federal investigators raided Chapman’s home, seized the laptops, and eventually filed charges alleging that she had spent three years aiding the “illicit revenue generation efforts” of the government of North Korea.
Seriously - I bet you had no idea where that paragraph would end.
#68 Persuasion Is Artificial Intelligence’s Superpower It feels like almost every day there is something new to learn about how AI is going to change the world, and being more persuasive is not one of the ways I’d thought of.
The good news is that conversations with ChatGPT are better at dislodging conspiracy theories from people than conversations with other people. And interestingly enough, these conversations worked because they used rational arguments, rather than trying to appeal to emotion. This is generally good news for the world, but frustrating news for anyone who has ever tried to talk their friend out of some nonsense they heard online.
The bad news is that this means that AI is probably already subtly influencing us in ways we don’t know or can’t even imagine:
The researchers found that AIs posing as humans, complete with fabricated personalities and backstories, could be remarkably persuasive, particularly when given access to information about the Redditor they were debating. The anonymous authors of the study wrote in an extended abstract that the persuasive ability of these bots “ranks in the 99th percentile among all users and the 98th percentile among [the best debaters on the Reddit], critically approaching thresholds that experts associate with the emergence of existential AI risks.” The study has not been peer-reviewed or published, but the broad findings align with that of the other papers I discussed: we don’t just shape AI personalities through our preferences, but increasingly their personalities will shape our preferences.
#69 Kylie In Concert A few weeks ago I saw Kylie Minogue in concert here in Vancouver. I’ve been an on-and-off fan of hers since the early 2000s when I listened to her album FEVER almost every day on my walk to and from class at McGill University. It was the sound of an era for me.
Some observations on the show:
1.) She has an incredible stage presence and did a wonderful job of connecting with the audience throughout the show and making you feel like she loved her job. That includes being grateful for the crowd, but also her supporting musicians and vocalists. A big part of the visuals felt heavily Outrun (or at least 90s) inspired, both of which I think are having their moment.
2.) I haven’t been to a capital-C Concert like this in a long time. It’s definitely a different vibe than what I’m used to at smaller venues, and it felt more like entertainment than a music experience (there’s an overlapping Venn diagram of the two, but they are still different).
3.) I think we’ll see a heavier investment from both entertainers and fans for IRL experiences like this. This will be the result of rejecting a curated and sloppified world of our screens in favour of seeing people in person.
#70 Deathburger’s Neuromancer I’ve been thinking a lot about Neuromancer lately, the early 80s cyberpunk book by William Gibson.
I’ve been thinking of it mostly because I have a print of the cover for the Brazilian version done by DEATHBURGER that I want to hang in my new apartment, but also because the book deals with a lot of the same questions that we are dealing with now in regards to AI.
More than that, I think the future that we’re facing was heavily influenced by the cyberpunk genre of the 80s and 90s. Today’s AI architects and technocrats were yesterday’s nerds. I wrote about this previously here.
Kylie Minogue and Neuromancer. Also some stuff about AI.