Luke Nolan

Founder & CEO of

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

Dusting off this tweet from April because this gap in shared understanding of LLM capability is *widening*. It's now less "two groups of people speaking past each other" and more a sharp funnel.

- Napkin math somewhere around 6B people (~75% of the population) have barely come in contact with LLMs at all.
- Around 1-2B (~20%) are casual and infrequent users of free-tier ChatGPT-like products. This group sees derpy chatbots and treats them a bit like a better Google search, a writing aid, or etc. Maybe an agent tries to book you a flight. I have non-tech friends who (reasonably, imo) say they have not much use for it at all. Even many professionals outside of math&code are in this tier. For example, execs and many other functions spend a lot of their time talking to other people, so while they understand what is happening intellectually, it is still second-hand and a bit abstract.
- Now we get to professional use of frontier-grade LLMs in math&code. Somewhere around 20M people (0.2%) see first-hand that large, complex projects that used to take them weeks/months can now be completed by agents with a prompt. Building apps, copying apps, translating apps, decompiling apps from binaries... This has all happened very quickly and recently - less than 1 year ago, I was writing code manually by hand, typing memorized computer code commands into a code editor character by character, occasionally pressing Tab to autocomplete a little chunk of code.
- And finally we get to the ~5,000 people (~0.00006%) with access to frontier-grade systems internally. The external world has seen the preview. It looks like swarms of thousands of agents collaborating over weeks on software mega projects: minting zero days, running cyber attacks and defenses at machine speeds, discovering new science, advancing the frontier of mathematics. Things that would have taken top professionals in the industry years of work. Meanwhile, human review and comprehension are starting to fall behind. For example, people are still involved in the "archeology" of the OpenAI-HF incident from many months ago. Mathematicians may be poring over the 722 manuscripts on frontier mathematics for a while.

The funnel is driven by a combination of factors:
1. The impact scales with ambition, problem size, and horizon. A question with a paragraph answer barely stresses the system. You need a reservoir of big, difficult problems that you really care about. This aspect drives the consumer / professional dimension of the funnel.
2. The jaggedness of the system (which I have written about a lot separately). Capability peaks in domains that are digital, verifiable and economically valuable. This is because LLM capability emerges from reinforcement learning on verifiable rewards on a curated environment mixture driven by revenue potential. This aspect primarily drives the area (e.g. math&code) dimension of the funnel.
3. Access. Free-tier, paid-tier, internal.

So this is the weirdness of the moment. The general public has mostly not interacted with these systems. When they have, it looks like a derpy chatbot. The majority of professionals still see only a modest uplift. And a small sliver of professionals are experiencing the vertigo of the curve going vertical. And it is all happening at the same time.

[Luke Nolan @lukenolan]

https://t.co/PVK9I6KFRz

[Andrew Coye @andrewcoye]

Headline you haven't seen, yet:

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. purchased an additional ~$100 million (1.1%) of SiriusXM in 3Q'24.

How do we know?

Today $BRK.B filed a Form 13G reporting a 31.01% ownership of $SIRI.

The table below shows the math that this is ~1.1% higher than expected based on previous disclosures.

How come it wasn't reported before and why isn't this a headline?

$BRK.A likely purchased additional $SIRI shares prior to the merger closing on 9 September.
Because Berkshire owned <5% of total (old) SIRI shares, it was not required to report its activity.
If it had bought more LSXMK or LSXMA shares, it would have had to report its activity within 3 days, and the same rule likely applies to (new) SIRI today.
Only folks expecting to see 29.9% ownership of $SIRI would have been surprised to see 31.01% and done some math to find the discrepancy.

[austin petersmith @awwstn]

imagine telling this guy in 1988: if you stick with it, the company will go from $1B to $120B, and you'll go from intern to CEO

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Dawid Godziek performs the world’s first bike backflip on a moving train.

[📹 redbull]
https://t.co/WKOsolTgDJ

[Linus ✦ Ekenstam @LinusEkenstam]

AI x Human

Super human powers, AI visuals enhancing the handpan artist

This is Johann Immanuel tweaked by Kimivisuals.

What a time to be alive 🫶🏻

[Luke Nolan @lukenolan]

“To a disciple who was forever complaining about others, the Master said, ‘If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.’”
— Anthony de Mello

via https://t.co/VDxR9J8LRx

[Cernovich @Cernovich]

David Goggins sees what’s at stake, and unlike too many others, refuses to give the mob one inch in the Joe Rogan attack.

This is an agenda. No one is really offended by those podcasts.

Never bow down.

[Steve Burns @SJosephBurns]

Breaking: Bears bankrupted and turned to stripping for money:

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

Why you are harming others by not "overreacting"

https://t.co/iSDperUx8g

[Michael P Gibson @William_Blake]

In 1665, Cambridge University closed b/c of the plague. Issac Newton quarantined himself at his childhood home. It was the most productive time of his life. He discovered the calculus &amp; laws of motion. Stuck a bodkin in his eye to study optics. How will you spend the next year?

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

As markets tank &amp; lives are lost, tell me about any upside you‘re experiencing?

A) Closer to loved ones?
B) Changing priorities?
C) Planning for future?
D) Relief from pointless meetings?
E) Marriage proposals?
F) Better conversations?
G) Introspection?
H) Life-affirmation?
Etc.

[Adam Ozimek @ModeledBehavior]

Put this in the time capsule for aliens to understand our downfall

[T8 @T8run]

We're thinking this has to be some sort of record for Strava CR bagging... T8's Veronika Vadovicova scorched the KOTH Lantau Full Marathon (35km, 2,000m D+) field yesterday with 27 crowns! Oh, and she also finished third overall, missing the MEN's CR by 10 minutes. #T8run #KOTH

[Eliud Kipchoge - EGH🇰🇪 @EliudKipchoge]

HISTORY!

[Student.com @Student]

In his latest blog, @lukenolan shares why we want to help every student accommodation provider in the UK improve their wellbeing offering. #pbsa https://t.co/bNYappcmwR

[Universities UK International @UUKIntl]

Very pleased to see so many UK cities in @Student's analysis of the world’s most popular student cities. But, we mustn't get complacent &amp; do everything we can to support the internationalisation objectives of our unis https://t.co/4a86BDnvXh via @THEUniAdvice

[Connie Chan 🍒 @conniechan]

Today, around 120M Chinese citizens have passports. Ctrip's CEO Jane Sun predicts that number will double to 240M by 2020. ✈
How is your business thinking about the Chinese traveller/student/customer?

[BritishCouncil China @cn_British]

Congratulations to Ji Jiafu from @cardiffuni on receiving the Professional Achievement Award at the 2017 Study #UKAlumniAwards for advancing cancer research and treatment –
sponsored by @Student #StudyUK

[acasa @helloacasa]

💥 we've been selected as #proptech finalists for the @MIPIMWorld @MIPIMPropTech Competition on the 11th October https://t.co/82ZBeAXl0S