Here are this week's links:
- Notion and AI on Forbes. Overview article of Notion's plans for AI and continued rapid growth in the business productivity space. If you don't know what Notion is, think of it as a more programmable Google Docs. Monday.com has some similarities (though less powerful). The big difference to existing office suites (even online ones) is that the core of Notion is a effectively a database that captures your info in snippets you can slice and dice + layers and layers of optional UI on top. This was already powerful before AI, and now it's supercharged. Whereas in Google Docs, you're wondering how to link your docs to a list of (say) customers easily and deal with large objects, in Notion, that linking is out of the box. AI will enable notion to help you evolve your workflows and views on top of all that data. This is transformative and makes Notion and similar services feel like genuine contenders for team productivity in the long haul. (My take - not necessarily Forbes take.)
- Wrong couple gets divorced at the click of a button. Not an AI story, but you have to wonder if highly paid lawyers can click the wrong button, whether in some cases we might be better off with AI that probably wouldn't! Also, this is a nice lesson in reversible and non-reversible processes. I guess there is a way to undo the transaction -> re-marriage.
- Lama 3 and Mistral boost up. Meta released a new, more powerful of their open source Llama model this week, a couple of days after Mistral released a larger 8x22B Model. The open-source races keep running. Every time I see this, I'm genuinely grateful for these open efforts - they are a massive reason we see the innovation we do and mean that the benefits of AI can include many more people. A world of only closed models would be much worse off.
- Automattic buys Beeper. A non-AI story for once, but one I think is important. Beeper tried to securely network iMessage to other devices but was shut down by Apple API changes. I think it's important for a couple of reasons: 1) this will likely play into Apple antitrust lawsuits, 2) Automattic is working hard to do for messaging what it did with WordPress for the Web. I rate Automattic as one of the most important companies few people talk about on the Internet; the founder has a clear mission to keep access open to many. Let's hope they succeed in providing alternatives to Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon's closed ecosystems. (I use texts.com to aggregate messages on the Mac desktop - very useful; I can't wait for the mobile version.)
- Lastly, the passing of another great mind of the times Daniel Dennett. The link is to a piece by Douglas Hofstadter posted on Gary Marcus' blog. Dennett published extensively on the philosophy of mind. Something we're going to have to revisit many times over the next few decades.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend, and RIP Daniel Dennett.
