The Signal: Runway announces Gen-3 Alpha, Jonny Kim, and the fishing is best where the fewest go

Hey friends 👋 Happy Sunday.

Here’s your weekly dose of AI and introspection.

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AI Highlights

1. Runway announces Gen-3 Alpha.

Gen-3 Alpha can create highly detailed and realistic videos that are 10 seconds long across a range of emotional expressions and camera movements.

Alex’s take: The barriers to video creation are being removed, allowing anyone to create any visual medium instantly. I feel this is a strong representation of how truly democratising AI can be. I doubt it’ll be long until full-length feature films are generated from a single prompt.

2. Ex-OpenAI genius launches superintelligence company.

Ilya Sutskever, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Levy are building Safe Superintelligence (SSI), which is their name, mission, and entire product roadmap.

Alex’s take: AGI isn’t enough. It looks like we’re blasting straight to superintelligence. When a company calls itself ‘super safe’, you can almost guarantee what they’re doing is the exact opposite. It’s a bit like when a news outlet calls itself ‘trustworthy’, or a food says it's ‘healthy’. But I look forward to hopefully being proven wrong.

3. Claude 3.5 Sonnet creates a fully working ChatGPT clone from a screenshot in 2 minutes.

Shubham Saboo created a ChatGPT clone using Claude 3.5 Sonnet only from a screenshot using Llama-3 running locally on your computer. It took under two minutes.

Alex’s take: Two weeks ago, we saw Dhravya Shah build an AI image-generation app in under 10 minutes. It’s clear front-end development is becoming more and more frictionless. All you need to start is an idea.

1 Article I Enjoyed

The Distillation of NASA astronaut Jonny Kim.

Jonny Kim is one of the most impressive people I have come across.

He’s a Navy SEAL, a Harvard Medical Doctor and a NASA astronaut.

One of these feats is impressive. All of them are extraordinary.

Sean Delaney does a great write-up on his life, pulling on inspiration from interviews and podcasts.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from Jonny:

• Consistency — “I'm not gifted. I'm not smarter than everybody else. I'm not stronger. I just have the ability to stick to a plan and not quit.”

• Human emotion — “Human emotion is what makes us human and has some of the best aspects of what makes us human. It is also the biggest hindrance to getting stuff done.”

• Hardship & suffering — “I’m a firm believer that shared hardship and suffering is one of the best ways to bring people together towards a common goal.”

• The importance of health — “Maintaining my health is for my sanity, and I owe it to myself. I don’t care if I’m super busy; I should be able to find a half hour or an hour.”

When listening to Jonny, I was struck not only by his humility and eloquence but also by his ability to take everything he did to the absolute max.

He didn’t just join the US Navy. He became a Navy SEAL combat medic and sniper, completing over 100 operations and earning a Bronze and Silver Star, the third-highest military combat decoration.

He didn’t just become a doctor. He went to Harvard and completed his residency in emergency medicine.

He didn’t just join NASA. He became an astronaut and was selected for a moon landing.

The absolute pinnacle.

1 Idea I Learned

The fishing is best where the fewest go.

This is an idea I recently learned from Tim Ferris.

90% of people convince themselves that they are incapable of achieving great things.

So, they aim for the mediocre.

This makes the competition fiercest for hitting those mediocre goals.

Paradoxically, ‘realistic’ goals become the most time and energy-consuming.

Realistic goals are uninspiring and will only fuel you so far in your endeavours.

Unrealistic goals provide the adrenaline for endurance throughout the darkest hours.

If the payoff is small, so is your effort.

The world's collective insecurity makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else aims for base hits.

Takeaway:

Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. The fishing is best where the fewest go.

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1 Quote to Share

Jean-Michel Basquiat on his definition of music:

“Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.”

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1 Question to Ponder

What’s stressing me out?

One simple trick for massive mental clarity at the end of my day is writing down what’s causing stress in my life.

I’ve found you get tremendous clarity from writing down these emotions instead of internalising them. It provides you with the visibility to think about things deeply.

But pondering on stress isn’t enough—and alone, it doesn't do any good at all.

I add a ‘solution to stress’ beneath the list. What’s the one piece of action I can take that will give me the greatest payoff to eliminating this stress from my life?

You’ll find so often it’s something you can control—and it’s your job to move forward with massive action.

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See you next week,

Alex Banks

P.S. Just the nose & mouth are enough to show expression.