Optimism Is The Faith That Leads To Achievement

Welcome to?The?Art?of?The?Impossible, a weekly newsletter where I unearth five pieces?of?content which I hope will both inspire?and?embolden you.

PODCAST

The Google DeepMind podcast is back and in the few years since their last conversation, Sir Demis Hassabis tells Professor Hannah Fry what has been going on.

Since then, the world has awoken to the power of AI - in a big way. In this latest podcast episode, they discuss the recent explosion of interest in AI, what Demis means when he describes chatbots as ‘unreasonably effective’, and the unexpected emergence of capabilities like conceptual understanding and abstraction in recent generative models.

Demis and Hannah also explore the need for rigorous AI safety measures, the importance of responsible AI development, and what he hopes for as we move closer towards artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Listen on the Google DeepMind podcast or watch here.

QUOTE

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

Helen Keller

INTERVIEW

A great 1986 John Warnock (co-founder of Adobe) interview here from Programmers at Work by Susan Lammers - John died this time last year.

INTERVIEWER: In the future, do you see computers basically the same as they are today ? Or do you see radical changes?

WARNOCK: Considering the level of change over the past four or five years, I think it’s enormously difficult to predict. Technological growth has been spectacular in this period. For instance, five years ago 64K chips were about all you had. And now we’re talking about megabit chips, and CD ROMs. I don’t see anything to indicate that the growth is going to slow down. Today no one can say what the next innovation is going to be. The information age is just a giant feedback loop; every new tool you get helps you build another tool that’s much better. So if anything, the growth will probably be more explosive.

Read the full interview here.

BOOK

The Road to Someplace Better: From the Segregated South to Harvard Business School and Beyond by Lillian Lincoln Lambert

How am I only just learning about this incredible woman?

The first black woman Harvard MBA tells the remarkable story of how she achieved the American dream in her book - The Road to Someplace Better: From the Segregated South to Harvard Business School and Beyond.

Lillian Lincoln Lambert rose from humble beginnings as a poor farm girl in the segregated South to become the first black woman to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School and, later, the founder of a $20 million maintenance company with 1,200 employees. In The Road to Someplace Better, she shares an inspiring personal journey that took her from dead-end jobs in New York City and Washington, D.C., to the ivory tower and the world of entrepreneurship. In addition to her own hard work and tenacity, she shows how her love of reading instilled in her by her mother spurred her to reach her goals. By sharing her inspiring life story, she helps others see that they, too, have the power to dream big, act bold, and achieve their goals.

• Charts Lillian Lincoln Lambert's inspiring rise from a poor, rural upbringing in the segregated South to success as a barrier-breaking CEO and entrepreneur
• Inspiring memoir of a groundbreaking business pioneer who broke down racial, gender, and social barriers to achieve unprecedented success
• Lillian Lincoln Lambert received Harvard Business School's Alumni Achievement Award in 2003 and has been featured on Good Morning America and in Time, the Washington Post, and Entrepreneur. The Road to Someplace Better is a book you'll want to read whether you're interested in business, history, or an unforgettable story of personal triumph against the odds.

Buy the book here.

FILM

Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa

Where do you find your inspiration? I find it in people who push themselves beyond what is expected of them. And there is inspiration to be found EVERYWHERE because they are people all over this wonderful planet doing amazing things.

One such example is Nepali mountaineer Lhakpa Sherpa and Mountain Queen chronicles the life of this incredible pioneering Nepali climber who has ascended Everest ten times, the most of any woman.

In this documentary, she risks everything on a record-breaking Mount Everest climb to secure a brighter future for her daughters.

Watch on Netflix here.

Thank you so much for reading?the?newsletter?and?for listening to?the?podcast, and?if you enjoy them, please do share with your network - my goal is to have these stories reach as many as possible so that others can be inspired too. And if you have two minutes, please do leave a review for the podcast - it would mean the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle