Sunday Signal: Apple’s AI breakthrough, what I wish someone had told me and grab a shitty rod and start fishing

Hey friends 👋 Happy Sunday.

Here’s your weekly dose of AI and introspection.

AI Highlights

1. Apple’s breakthrough AI capabilities on iPhone.

Apple introduced "LLM in a Flash", a new technique that uses flash memory to run powerful language models efficiently on devices with limited memory.

Alex’s take: It’s about time for a Siri upgrade. This could lead to a serious generative AI-powered assistant on mobile that can help with natural language processing beyond tasks like setting a timer when brewing my cup of tea.

2. Build web apps using plain English.

Gpt-engineer allows anyone to build and deploy web apps in plain English. You specify what you want, iterate on the design and then publish, all using natural language.

Alex’s take: The barriers to build have never been lower. It will allow anyone to create web apps without having to know how to code. As I recently started learning to code, this tool could be a frictionless facilitator to transform your wildest ideas into meaningful apps that many people can benefit from.

3. Midjourney v6 has arrived.

Midjourney's latest version, v6, has been in development for nine months. It showcases serious enhancements in realism, prompt accuracy, coherence, and model knowledge. Notably, v6 is highly sensitive to prompts, requiring users to be explicit and avoid vague terms for optimal results. This advanced version is now accessible on Discord.

Alex’s take: I was stunned when I saw image comparisons between v6 and the previous v5.2. It’s a huge leap forward with beautiful attention to detail.

1 Article I Enjoyed

What I wish someone had told me.

3 days ago, Sam Altman—the CEO of OpenAI—posted 17 valuable pieces of life advice he wish he had known sooner.

My favourite ideas:

• Plans should be measured in decades, execution should be measured in weeks.

• Inspiration is perishable and life goes by fast. Inaction is a particularly insidious type of risk.

• Working with great people is one of the best parts of life.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned this year—it’s all about the people. A small, product-focused team with an intolerance for slowness is unstoppable.

1 Idea I Learned

Grab a shitty rod and start fishing.

I used to love planning. But this story of two men learning to fish changed my life:

The first fisherman starts reading up on everything there is to know about fishing.

He watches hours of videos about different fishing techniques.

He custom-orders a top-of-the-range rod.

He buys a fancy boat.

After a few months, he finally feels ready to fish.

So he heads out to the lake with his top-of-the-range rod on his fancy boat with his months of fishing insights under his belt.

Six hours in, not even a bite.

What went wrong?

The second fisherman had completely exhausted the lake's fish supply.

On day one, the second fisherman grabbed a shitty rod and started fishing.

The first day, no success. Nor on the second. Nor the third.

A full week passed, still without results.

But on the eighth day, he finally got a small bite.

And each day after, he refined his approach.

Soon enough, he was catching hundreds of fish each day.

Next, he hired a small team to help, opened a restaurant to sell his catch and started a fishing school to teach others.

Whilst the first fishermen felt productive, there was one thing missing: feedback.

The second fisherman tried and tested different ideas, improving his strategy every day.

The moral of the story:

Get to action as soon as possible.

Three ideas fall out from this story which I think about a lot:

• Start then learn. Not the other way around.

• Get going, then get good.

• Put nothing off.

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1 Quote to Share

Jeff Bezos on managing stress:

“People get stress wrong all the time in my opinion. Stress doesn’t come from hard work, for example, you know you can be working incredibly hard and loving it. Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over.”

I often find stress goes away when I just do the thing that was causing me stress in the first place.

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1 Question to Ponder

What’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do that I can direct 1 hour of action towards and get 1% better at each day in 2024?

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💡 If you enjoyed this issue, share it with a friend.

See you next week,

Alex Banks

P.S. Happy Holidays everyone! Thank you for reading Sunday Signal. It is an absolute pleasure to write these each week as I share what I learn in AI and across the web. Here’s to building something special in 2024.