I am especially annoyed by the dark pattern whereby if I do a fast swipe up in an article, the page will scroll to a stop with the ad landing right under my finger, so the accidental click rate is higher. Very disappointed in Apple - as if the money from accidental clicks on spam ads is truly a meaningful revenue stream vs the cost of customer goodwill. Certainly optimizing in the wrong direction.
As a technical user of AI, I think there is certainly value in the capabilities of the current IDE/agentic systems, and as a builder of AI systems professionally I think there is enterprise value as well, although realizing that value in a meaningful way is an ongoing challenge/work in progress. There is also clearly a problem with AI slop, both in codebases and in other professional deliverables. Having said that, what’s more interesting to me is whether we have seen AI produce novel and valuable outputs independently. Altman asserts that 10GW could possibly “cure cancer”, but frankly I’d like to see any discrete examples of AI advancing frontier knowledge areas and moving the needle in small but measurable ways that stand up to peer review. Before we can cure cancer or have world peace through massive consumption of power and spend I’d like to see a meaningful counterpoint to the argument that AI as a derivative technology from all human knowledge is incapable of extending beyond the current limits of human knowledge. Intuitively I think AI should be capable of novel scientific advancement, but I feel like we’re short on examples.
It’s honestly shocking how many facets of American culture are predicated on addiction for profit. Alcohol, food, social media, gaming, opioids, cannabis, nicotine, gambling. It is extraordinarily difficult to find a sense of perspective independent of the influence of these industries.
It's pretty amazing how the states are in the business of:
booze, tobacco, weed, gambling and gas
Imagine what the total revenue from just those 5 things is? It's got to be like printing cash and yet in most states and cities across the US have crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, underfunded pensions and budget deficits. This is in addition to all their other more regular tax regimes. Where does the money go?
It's not as much as you'd think. For Illinois, lottery alone nets something like $3 billion, of which ~$700-750 million goes to funding public schools. Public schools expenditures are ~$35 Billion/year. So, less than 1/35th of costs. Add in the alcohol, tobacco, weed, gambling taxes, and you still not even close to covering half the state's school expenditures.
Granted, Illinois is perhaps the most fiscally screwed state, so might not be best example...
>"Public schools expenditures are ~$35 Billion/year."
That all appears way off.
"This year, the governor plans to increase the state’s education general fund by $498.1 million — a 5.4% increase — for an overall budget of $9.7 billion."[1]
Additionally the Illinois state gas tax which is the second highest in the US is 40 cents a gallon.[2][3]
That was just Pritzker's proposal for the state's portion of the elementary and secondary education general fund. There are other funds to account for, as well as the federal's contribution which are past proposal and have been enacted. Better source is to grab straight from Illinois.gov's site [1].
Look at: Fiscal Year 2022 Budget, Table I-A Operating and Capital (xls) - Cell J373 + Cell J438.
Total Elementary And Secondary Education = $27.7B.
Total Higher education = $4.7B.
Certs and the studying associated with certs has always been the biggest unlock in my career. The MCSE gave me a 50% salary uplift in the early 2000’s and the Cisco CCNA/CCNP gave me an invaluable networking background in the mid aughts. Recently, the AWS certs have given me an opportunity to pivot from management back into the technical realm and given me the confidence and framework to think about IT problems in a whole different way (traditional IT vs Cloud native) Throughout my life I’ve always done better by investing in myself and my learning, and certs have always been a huge part of that. My investments, stocks, startups, etc. have always been hit or miss, but my skills and the opportunities they have opened have been huge unlocks. Certs are a structured way to achieve those unlocks and represent them in the professional world. For all the cynicism one hears about certs, my experience has been the exact opposite, I’d do them all over again - I’ve learned a ton and had a rewarding career.
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