Here are a few things that caught my eye this week (week of October 21, 2024). Let's jump in!
1/ Stripe acquires Bridge for $1.1 billion. Bridge provides infrastructure that makes it easy to issue, move, store, and accept stable coins. Stablecoins have proved to be one of the breakout uses for blockchain technology.
Check out Patrick Collison's post below for more context:
2/ Anthropic releases upgraded Claude models. The headline feature is that Claude 3.5 Sonnet can now control computers directly. This means "looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking a button, and typing text."
3/ Runway introduces Act-One, a new way to generate expressive character performances using simple video inputs. It is wild to see what you can do with a simple recording.
4/ Dynamicland is reimagining computing as a humane, collaborative medium. This nonprofit research lab is developing a new form of computing that feels naturally social and human.
5/ AI as a deliberation tool. A recent paper from Google Deepmind researchers shows that AI can help people find common ground in democratic deliberation. Their study demonstrates that AI models can efficiently write high-quality group statements - a key step in deliberation - in a way that's both fair and scalable.
They write:
The HM thus offers a new approach to collective deliberation that circumvents some of the limitations of in-person deliberation, including its cost, limited scale, the potential for mediator bias, and proneness to social desirability effects or inequality of contribution (6, 7). Nevertheless, the caucus mediation approach may miss out on other advantages that arise from in-person discussion, including nonverbal cues and the opportunity to build interpersonal relationships with other discussants.
I'm glad that the researchers mention the things that might be lost from a digital deliberation process. As we think about the value of doing things faster, cheaper, bigger, and at scale, I have a sneaky suspicion that an Albert Hirschman-shaped paradox is about to poke its head around the corner.
I'm reminded of what Kurt Vonnegut said in a lecture at Case Western (start around the 20 min mark):
Sure, you could take the most efficient route. Or you could dance and fart around.