Newsletter 108. Forget driving traffic — drive thinking instead. Plus disturbing AI-generated children’s books, Claude admits it’s a ripoff, three people to follow and three books to read. Ideas > algorithms Did anyone read what you wrote last week? The answer depends on algorithms. Algorithms determined whether it was visible in their email or social…
When presented with a supposed fact, what is your approach? The partisan mindset: If it confirms my prejudices, I accept it and immediately share it. The contrarian mindset: If it seems wrong, I find reasons to reject it and most likely, denigrate whomever shared it. Neither of these mindsets improves human knowledge. The analytical mindset…
Bear with me: I’m about to tie mathematical logic to artificial intelligence. (I promise, no actual mathematical knowledge will be required.) In 1931 the brilliant mathematician Kurt Gödel pointed the apparatus of mathematics at itself. He was able to prove that in any mathematical system powerful enough to do simple arithmetic, there would always be…
Be expert at something. Be interested in a lot of things. Be curious about everything. Every few years — or whenever you’re getting bored: Deepen and broaden your expertise. Expand your interests. Unleash your curiosity. And whatever you’re learning, write about it.
As your editing and ghostwriting career grows, you may find yourself working with senior executives, CEOs, celebrities, or other rich and powerful people. This can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be, if you keep a few principles in mind. The key thing to remember is that although this is an asymmetric relationship, it’s…
Newsletter 107: How young adults got a raw deal, preparing for the writing trek, sign onto the Anthropic lawsuit, plus three people to follow, three books to read, and another chance to make your voice heard. Spare a thought for Generation Z I’m a Baby Boomer. Very few of my followers are in Gen Z….
“I’d like you to speak at our event,” you ask, and I might agree. But there are ways to do this and appear professional, and ways that mark you as unserious and a questionable partner. A little context. There was a time, when I was a Forrester analyst, when people were paying $15,000 a speech…
Most of what you read about writers using AI has a bias. It’s filled with writers who like to shout about what they think. Social media algorithms reward the shouting, and you get one of two impressions, depending on your friends: Everyone is using AI for everything, or AI is going to cause the downfall…
Authors know things that other thinkers, no matter how accomplished, don’t. You can tell by the knowing looks when we get together. To a certain extent this is like sex: it’s hard to explain to virgins what’s different. Even so, I’ll try. What authors know People with ideas think they know all about those ideas….