Newsletter
Positive Intelligence pt.II and other things
May 23, 2025
Hello,
Here’s everything since my last little missive to you:
Excerpt: A lot of people were upset with me for teasing the ‘neuroscience-based’ coaching programme ‘Positive Intelligence’, so I thought I’d do a little autopsy. This is part two, on the content… Such as it is.
Main idea: Chamine’s ‘Positivity Quotient’ is based on nothing beyond ‘being happier is better than being sad’, and unless they appeal to you, there’s no reason to pick his ‘ten saboteurs’ over any of the other inner-critics out there.
AI in the Military Classroom. Actually AI in all classrooms. Actually the future of AI use for anything that requires education (think consulting, facilitation, workshops). Some highlights:
At this point, it may be edifying to see a few examples of how AI has been used at the Marine Corps War College this academic year. Here is one example that caught me by surprise. For the school’s semester-end oral comprehensives, one student used AI tools to analyze my online writings, predict likely exam questions, and generate concise answers. I was astonished to discover that all four questions I asked appeared on his AI-produced list. Another group streamlined their class presentation by feeding their research to ChatGPT, generating an essay, transforming it into a 20-slide presentation with Gamma, and then returning to ChatGPT for slide-specific talking points — all in under half an hour.
Another mind-bending AI fusion came with a 30-point how-to guide that’s now obsolete, things are moving so fast.
So:
The first removal is an easy decision: Writing assessments are banished forever. I will still have students write for various projects, but I expect them to use AI heavily. Then, by having them turn in a list of their prompts, I can actually track their critical thinking as they proceed through the assigned task.
Then a very interesting compilation of what they will do instead. But I think the overall message is similar to the one above—whatever you do to teach will rely on AI for the content, and be about assessing the method. See also Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic on AI. Similar noises.
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SEO for AI:
While the number of consumers using AI in lieu of Google is still small, it’s growing quickly. A 2024 survey estimated that 13 million Americans already use generative AI as their preferred search engine, with projections exceeding 90 million by 2027. Meanwhile, Gartner predicts traditional search volume will drop 25% by 2026, with organic traffic potentially decreasing by more than 50% as consumers embrace AI-powered search.
and
Language models don’t just index and rank; they interpret, reason, and generate novel content based on patterns observed in their training data. Their understanding of your brand isn’t limited to what’s on your website - it encompasses everything published about you across the internet, often including sources you don’t control.
Then some ideas about what to do about it. But mostly about how “Generative Engine Optimization is still vapor-thin, half-baked, and full of edge-cases - exactly where classic SEO was in 1999”. Interesting.
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Jack Clark on AI, co-founder of Anthropic. Lots of interesting insights, especially about the value of people. Not very optimistic about the ability of AI to penetrate the physical world, which would be a very substantial limitation. Also, while content will be driven by AI, we are still likely to rely on people for trust, which would be useful. See also, AI in the classroom. Similar noises.
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Being a bit underemployed. The only thing interesting about this article is that someone was so surprised they thought it was worth writing about. If you haven’t thought about it, then:
The traditional eight-hour work schedule is great if your job is repetitive, customer-facing, or physically constraining. But for the large and growing number of “knowledge jobs,” it might not be.
You might be better off taking two hours in the morning to stay at home thinking about some big problem.
Or go for a long mid-day walk to ponder why something isn’t working.
Or leaving at 3pm and spend the rest of the day envisioning a new strategy.
It’s not about working less. It’s the opposite: A lot of knowledge jobs basically never stop, and without structuring time to think and be curious you wind up less efficient during the hours that are devoted to sitting at your desk cranking out work.
It’s the science of creativity, in a self-help article.
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The Era Of The Business Idiot. Intro through some of the sillier uses of AI into a critique of the Rot Economy:
a useful description for how tech companies have voluntarily degraded their core products in order to placate shareholders, transforming useful — and sometimes beloved — services into a hollow shell of their former selves as a means of expressing growth …
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Milton Friedman once argued … any social responsibility — say, treating workers well, doing anything other than focus on shareholder value — is tantamount to an executive taxing his shareholders by “spending their money” on their own personal beliefs.
Then, into a screed about why a lot of business decisions make sense in this light, even when superficially they seem silly. I liked it, even though there’s nothing particularly new.
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Can We Trust Social Science Yet? Short answer is no, but it’s a good introduction into where social sciences are falling down. In particular, it should help you understand why anyone who uses single studies to make their points (e.g. Hubleman), isn’t a very serious person. See also the scientific ritual, the problem with scientific evidence and the placebo effect.
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I hope you found something interesting.
You can find links to all my previous missives here.
Warm regards,