• The Signal
  • Posts
  • Sunday Signal: Elon Musk's xAI launches Grok, becoming a better writer and extrinsic motivators

Sunday Signal: Elon Musk's xAI launches Grok, becoming a better writer and extrinsic motivators

Author

Alex Banks
November 05, 2023

Hey friends đź‘‹ Happy Sunday.

Here’s your weekly dose of AI and introspection.

Today’s Sunday Signal is brought to you by Munch.

I’m a big believer in the importance of creating high-quality content.

Munch generates engaging social-media-ready clips from your podcasts, interviews and webinars. It’s an automated solution using state-of-the-art AI, designed to cater to the demanding frequency of social media publishing.

Munch keeps your brand at the forefront of audience engagement.

Want to feature here? Sponsor this newsletter.

AI Highlights

If we hadn’t had enough AI action already this year, Musk’s team at xAI just launched Grok. It has real-time access to tweets alongside a live search engine connected to X. All with a “spicy” and humorous persona.

Alex’s take: The origin of the term "grok" fascinates me. It comes from Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 science fiction novel "Stranger in a Strange Land." In the context of the book, "grok" is a Martian word that means to understand something or someone so completely that the observer becomes a part of the observed. You can access the early signup link here.

The UK kicked off the world’s first AI safety summit held at Bletchley Park. It was at this historic location where Alan Turing cracked the enigma code and where we used the first electronic computer. Two breakthroughs which shaped the future of humanity.

Alex’s take: The summit's goal was to ignite a global dialogue on AI safety. I believe this was an undeniable success. Firstly, China turned up. Secondly, the US is launching its own AI safety institute, committing to establishing a formal partnership with the UK.

OpenAI is rumoured to unveil a user-generated content (UGC) platform that lets users create/share AI agents. The platform will feature development tools, including sandbox testing and iterative chat-based programming.

Alex’s take: This leap forward could democratise AI. This makes agent creation accessible to all, much like app development. This would mark a paradigm shift in the AI consumer market.

1 Article I Enjoyed

A blog post that transformed my writing.

  1. Write short sentences.

  2. Avoid putting multiple thoughts in one sentence.

  3. Put the object before the action. Our brains work that way.

We comprehend “The boy hit the ball” faster than “The ball was hit by the boy”.

Remember, readers aren’t as smart as you’d think.

1 Idea I Learned

The pursuit of the action is the reward.

We are intrinsically motivated to do things we find fun. As soon as you bring extrinsic motivation into the mix (grades, followers, money) you stop enjoying the action for its own sake and start to only want to do the action for the reward.

Adding extrinsic motivators to anything runs the risk of crowding out the reasons why you started in the first place.

The real reward is the journey. Renounce the fruit of the action and simply put everything into the action.

1 Quote to Share

Miley Cyrus on not fitting one mould:

“You never need to choose who you want to be. You don’t need to fit into any boundaries or into any boxes. You can be anything and everything that you’ve ever wanted to be all at the same time. Everything that contradicts itself can coexist in perfect harmony… Sometimes you may look ridiculous… but that’s what makes each of us so individual.”

Life is too short to be confined by expectations. Do what excites you. Follow your genuine curiosity. Be irrationally passionate. But most importantly, be yourself.

1 Question to Ponder

What's the one thing I'm holding onto that I need to let go of?

đź’ˇ If you enjoyed this issue, share it with a friend

See you next week,

Alex Banks

P.S. Human connection is the solution.