Shuhari/ Supercharging US Cleantech/ Golden Age for Medicine/ Robotaxis Are Here/ How AI Could Take Over Elections
Massimo Portincaso
Founder & CEO at Arsenale Bioyards, Industrial Romantic and Antidisciplinarian Stoic
Shuhari. Lately, I have been exposed to the idea of?Shuhari,?a?Japanese martial art?concept, part of the philosophy of Aikido, which describes the stages of learning to?mastery.
According to Wikipedia,?Shuhari?roughly translates to "to keep, to fall, to break away" or "follow the rules, break the rules, transcend the rules".?
I have been thinking of writing about it for a while and given that my son just graduated from High School last Thursday, and will soon start attending university, it feels like this is the right point in time to write about it. This post is dedicated to him.?
With this post, I’ll try to articulate a nuanced trajectory of mastery that embraces conflict and disruption. I do hope I will not fall into the trap of platitudes, which are more and more widespread on LinkedIn, and if I do, I hope you’ll forgive me, as it is not easy to write something for your son…
To DGAP
Shu: Learn, But Not Rigidly
In the 'Shu' stage, as a novice, you are supposed to learn by following the rules and traditions rigidly. However, remember not only the virtue of discipline but also be aware of its limitations. It's crucial to develop basic skills, but understanding the essence of why these techniques exist is at least as important.
Don’t ever fall into the trap of "unconscious incompetence" by rigidly adhering to a set of rules without understanding their purpose. As this rigid adherence could breed a stagnant comfort zone that impedes your personal growth and genuine innovation.
Ha: Embrace Disruption, Not Harmony
Don’t ever let the 'Ha' stage - often understood as breaking the rules - become uncomfortable for you, as herein lies its true power. Contrary to what most people think, it is not about the mere act of rebellion, but rather about developing a deeper understanding of the principles and questioning their applicability.
Always nurture your "conscious incompetence" by becoming aware of the gaps in your knowledge and skills, often through conflict and disruption. And even if you’ll perceive the discomfort as a hindrance, it is in this state of discord that real learning occurs. Only by challenging established norms, you’ll be able to refine their understanding and pave the way for true transformation.
Ri: Transcendence Is Incomplete, Not Ultimate
Finally, reach the 'Ri' stage, where you transcend the rules to create your own. However, always remember that it is not about achieving the 'transcendental state' but acknowledging its incompleteness. Entering the Ri stage does not signify the ultimate mastery, but the commencement of a journey where you continue to learn, unlearn, and relearn, much like the state of "conscious competence."
Make yours the notion that real mastery is not an end state, but an ongoing process. It's a state of dynamic evolution, where the previously attained knowledge is not absolute but is continually revised and redefined.
Shu-Ha-Ri: A Never-Ending Journey of Exploration
Confront the traditional notions of mastery. Remember that growth isn't just a linear, upward journey but a cyclical process involving learning, unlearning, and relearning.?
Follow the Shuhari approach, embrace uncertainty, question the status quo, and continuously redefine your understanding. Remember that knowledge is not just about absorbing information, but about challenging it, deconstructing it, and rebuilding it in a form that resonates with your unique perspective.
Most importantly, be always aware that mastery is not a destination, but an ongoing journey. There is always a new level of understanding to reach, a new perspective to explore, a new dimension of knowledge to grasp. Therefore, the pursuit of mastery is not about achieving perfection but about thriving in the beautiful mess of constant evolution.
Elon Musk gets most of the credit for Tesla. But the company might not even exist without the?Loans Program Office(LPO) — a division of the?DOE?— which first helped Tesla out with a $465M loan to “weather the fallout from the financial crisis and build out the production of the Model S.” 2022’s?Inflation Reduction Act?(IRA) “supercharged” the LPO, which now has over $400B in credit to extend to corporate lenders.
LPO Director?Jigar Shah?recently sat down for an interview on the?Zero Podcast?to discuss the agency’s lending priorities and “how he deals with the risks of investing in pioneering technologies.” Shah got his start as a?solar entrepreneur?in the “early 2000s,” so he understands the challenges facing a cleantech company firsthand. “I got told ‘no’ a lot in terms of investors,” Shah said. “Instead of getting pissed off, [we] developed a financing model that got… Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and others… to fund. Today over a trillion dollars of capital has been put behind the financial model?that we created.”
The LPO’s lending goals are not just about innovation. LPO’s biggest ever loan is a recent $9.2B loan to?BlueOvalSK?- an EV battery joint venture between Ford and?SK On. Shah explains, “The?Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing?loan program is designed to onshore and re-shore… manufacturing plants… in the US. The goal of the program is not innovation, [it’s] to get more of the supply chain manufactured in the US. [SK On and Ford’s] next-generation batteries [are] what’s needed to get mass adoption and mass acceptance from American buyers of vehicles.”
News items:
In a first, the?USDA?just greenlit?GOOD Meat’s sales of “cultivated chicken, grown directly from animal cells” in the US. Josh Tetrick, Co-founder and CEO of GOOD Meat, said, “This announcement that we're now able to produce and sell cultivated meat in the United States is a major moment for our company, the industry, and the food system.”?
The future of medicine appears “almost blindingly bright.”?Jennifer Doudna, Crispr?co-inventor,?Nobel laureate, and Professor at UC Berkeley, says “I’ve been running my research lab for almost 30 years. And I can say that throughout that period of time, I’ve just never experienced what we’re seeing over just the last five years.” Covid-19, which “seemed to return even the hypermodern citadels of the wealthy West to something like the experience of premodern plague” also help lead to an “unprecedented watershed of medical innovation.”
Barney Graham, “a central figure in the development of mRNA vaccines,” said, “It’s stunning. You cannot imagine what you’re going to see over the next 30 years. The pace of advancement is in an exponential phase right now.”
But is this giddy pace of medical innovation sustainable — or even real? “When it comes to the arrival of new vaccines and treatments, the opposite story seems more true: whole branches of research, cultivated across decades, finally bearing real fruit.” The cure for cancer and “radical life extension” may still be a long way away. “Sometimes these things just take a little time.”
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News items:
There is no shortage of GenAI doomsday scenarios. But after a?recent study?showed “a small but meaningful uptick in the amount of photorealistic AI-generated child sexual abuse material circulating on the dark web,” experts warn of an “immediate threat — child predators using new A.I. tools already — deserves the industry’s undivided attention.”
Study co-author?David Thiel,?CTO at?Stanford Internet Observatory, said, “Within a year, we’re going to be reaching very much a problem state in this area. This is absolutely the worst-case scenario for machine learning that I can think of.”
In major US cities like SF, Austin, and Phoenix, robotaxis from Waymo and Cruise are becoming an increasingly common sight. But what about oversight? “Hugely important decisions about robotaxis are being made in relative obscurity by appointed agencies like the?CPUC. In CA, “ cities have no regulatory authority over… robotaxis and police?legally cannot cite them?for moving violations.” Robotaxis are here to stay, “like it or not.” And yet, “unfortunately, there is no standard, government-approved framework for?evaluating the safety of autonomous vehicles.”
Robotaxi?horror?stories?abound. But the “general [regulatory]” trend has been “moving steadily” in Cruise and Waymo’s favor. Despite steady expansion into new cities, there’s a striking “lack of urgency in the public discourse about robotaxis.” According to the author, “most people, including many powerful decision makers, are not aware of how quickly this industry is advancing, or how severe the near-term labor and transportation impacts could be.”
News items:
A breakthrough in “the adhesion of liquid metal” to paper could open some surprising doors, including the development of?soft robots?designed for space exploration. A?new liquid metal?“alloy of bismuth, indium, and tin oxide (BiInSn)… doesn’t oxidize when exposed to air.” Once stamped onto paper, it’s “solid at room temperature” and won’t liquefy “at temperatures under 62° C (144° F).” Lead researcher?Bo Yuan, Associate Professor at Tsinghua University, said, “Utilizing our method, one can quickly create smart materials with good thermal and electrical conductivity as well as stiffness-tunable ability, which greatly expands material options for soft robots.”
GenAI may not?win its?own?Grammy?anytime soon, but?new research?combining neurophysiology and ML describes a model that can predict whether a song was a “hit” with 97% accuracy. The near-legendary impossibility of accurately forecasting a song’s success may soon be a thing of the past. (Roll over,?Seymour Stein). Using neural data and the right ML model, record labels may no longer have to live with "difficult to predict market outcomes” for the music they release.
Looking on the bright side, senior author?Paul Zak, Professor at CGU, says, “This means that streaming services can readily identify new songs that are likely to be hits for people’s playlists more efficiently, making the streaming services’ jobs easier and delighting listeners.”
Streaming services like Spotify - which booked?$12.4B in revenue in 2022?while?paying artists?about?half a penny?per stream — arguably don’t need the help.
But who needs the tyranny of choice?
“If in the future wearable neuroscience technologies, like the ones we used for this study, become commonplace,” Zak says, “The right entertainment could be sent to audiences based on their neurophysiology. Instead of being offered hundreds of choices, they might be given just two or three, making it easier and faster for them to choose music that they will enjoy.”
News items:
Has GenAI taken over?Stuart Sutcliffe’s role as the fifth Beatle? Others, like?Pete Best, have been given the title.?Paul McCartney?won’t specify exactly how AI was used to complete the “final” Beatles song, except to say, “We were able to take John [Lennon’s] voice and get it pure through this AI, then we were able to mix the record as you would normally do.”
In a not-so-distant hypothetical future, a black box AI platform whose sole goal is to change people’s votes could push us even further down “the path toward?human collective disempowerment” without ever needing to achieve?AGI. In this thought experiment from Harvard’s?Archon Fung?and?Lawrence Lessig, Clogger is the name of this “political campaign in a black box.” Clogger would turbocharge “behavior manipulation and microtargeting techniques” first seen in the early 2000s by creating “countless unique messages… tailored to an individual personally.” With “vast amounts of data” available on a person’s preferences and predilections, hypersonalization is easy for today’s AI models.
Clogger can also “[evolve] over the course of a campaign” to revise its messaging based on an individual’s responses “and what it has learned about changing others’ minds.” “[It] would be able to carry on dynamic ‘conversations’ with you – and millions of other people – over time.” Clogger wouldn’t stop at overt ads to voters it seeks to convert. Another potential weapon in its?black box?of dirty tricks could be “sending off-putting messages – for example, incontinence advertisements – timed to coincide with opponents’ messaging.” All with “no regard for truth. Indeed, it has no way of knowing what is true or false.?LLM “hallucinations”?are not a problem for this machine because its objective is to change your vote, not to provide accurate information.”
Does anyone doubt there’s a politician out there who would happily pay for Clogger if they could? And if they did, what would their competitor do? Are there any meaningful steps we can take now to avoid living in a Clogocracy?
News items:
The MCU’s latest X is already generating controversy — thanks to GenAI. Secret Invasion’s opening titles?were created?by?Method Studios?“using AI,” which showrunner?Ali Selim?“thinks plays with the very themes of the show.” The opening credits left many digital artists cold.?Concept artist?Jeff Simpson, who worked on Secret Invasion, tweeted, "I’m devastated. I believe AI to be unethical, dangerous, and designed solely to eliminate artists' careers. Spent almost half a year working on this show.”
我们的使命是通过创新技术、革命性设计和很多乐趣，让地球成为子孙后代更幸福的星球。
1 年Let’s collaborate ?? [email protected]