Unsupervised Learning NO. 388

Unsupervised Learning is a Security, AI, and Meaning-focused podcast that looks at how best to thrive as humans in a post-AI world. It combines original ideas, analysis, and mental models to bring not just the news, but why it matters and how to respond.

Hey there,

We had a brilliant book club yesterday and picked our new book. I got my new M2 Mac Studio beast of a computer set up in just one day, which is a record. Been working out more lately and the body feels happy-sore. Huberman was right about consistent creatine; it’s fairly magical. And I’m finishing up a security assessment while continuing to transition members to Beehiiv.

Overall, life is stellar, and I hope it’s the same for you. Let’s get into the week!

In this episode:

📚 Using Reflections to Compress LLM Context Data
🎧 My Appearance on the Critical Thinking Podcast
🍏 Apple's Critical Security Updates
⌚ Suspicious Smartwatches Targeting Military Personnel
🔥 Databricks Acquires Generative AI Company
🌐 Cloudflare's Observatory Performance Monitoring Tool
📺 LG Integrates AirPlay 2 and HomeKit into Hotel TVs
💼 Remote Work as a Competitive Advantage for Small Tech Companies
🐝 Beehiiv Raises $12.5 Million
🔍 AI Zoom Magic by Midjourney
🇨🇳 China's Economic Countdown?
🧠 Illusion of Moral Decline
📸 Smartphone Domination in Photography
💡 The Worst Intellectual Trait: NFC
🌍 Climate Change vs. Familial Self-preservation Instincts
🚢 Titanic Belief and Ignoring Danger

MY WORK

Using Reflections to Compress LLM Context Data
My new essay on one way to turn gigabytes of data into a few Kilobytes of LLM context. MORE

My Appearance on the Critical Thinking Podcast
I appeared with uber-hacker and fellow UL’er Joseph Thacker (@rez0) on the spectacular Critical Thinking podcast. We talked about AI and hacking, both from the perspective of hacking using AI and hacking AI itself. Really enjoyed it! MORE

SECURITY NEWS

💀Apple Updates
Apple has pushed critical security updates to fix vulnerabilities exploited by 'Operation Triangulation' and the TriangleDB attack, affecting devices as far back as 2013.

- The updates cover iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Safari, and watchOS, fixing a kernel vulnerability that allowed arbitrary code execution
- The flaw was exploited in versions of iOS earlier than 15.7, but can be found in all Apple devices
- A WebKit flaw was also addressed, which may have been actively exploited
- Update immediately if you haven’t yet MORE

Smartwatch Military Attack
Military personnel are receiving suspicious smartwatches in the mail, possibly rigged with malware to access user data, banking info, and conversations.

- The U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division issued a warning about these unsolicited devices
- It's unclear if the attack specifically targets military personnel or if it's part of illegal brushing scams
- Service members are advised to keep the devices turned off and report the incident to authorities
- In 2018, the Pentagon restricted the use of fitness-trackers and location-revealing mobile apps due to privacy and security concerns. MORE | THE ARMY REPORT

Vulnerabilities:

• Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved. DoS. MORE

• BIND. DoS. 7.5. MORE
  
  

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Databricks Gets Into AI
As predicted here at UL, Databricks just bought a generative AI company for over a billion dollars to connect businesses’ data to LLMs. Expect everyone in the data space to do this. Splunk. SIEM vendors. Etc. The main game now for data companies is figuring out how to solve the LLM context size problem discussed in this week’s essay. MORE | CONTEXT DATA ESSAY

Cloudflare's Observatory
Cloudflare introduced Observatory, a comprehensive performance monitoring tool that integrates real-time user monitoring data, offering valuable insights into website performance and user experience across various environments and network conditions. It replaces the previous Speed tool and provides a single dashboard to capture customer experiences and performance enhancement recommendations. MORE

Vacation Screen Time
LG is collaborating with hotels to integrate AirPlay 2 and HomeKit into hotel room TVs, providing a seamless streaming experience for guests who want to enjoy their favorite content while traveling. This is the tech future I’ve always imagined; your content comes with you. Can’t wait. MORE

Remote Work Becoming a Startup-only Thing?
Smaller tech companies are leveraging remote work policies to compete with big tech firms, offering employees flexibility and work-life balance as an alternative to higher salaries.

- 81% of smaller tech companies allow remote work
- Remote work attracts more diverse talent
- Big tech firms are returning to office-based work MORE

Beehiiv Raises $12.5 Million
Beehiiv, a newsletter platform competing with Substack and Mailchimp (and that we’re also using here at Unsupervised Learning), announced raising $12.5 million in a Series A funding round. The funds will be used to expand its product, bring on more writers, and build out its revenues. MORE

AI Zoom Magic
Midjourney unveils v5.2 of its AI-powered image synthesis model, featuring a "zoom out" function that maintains the central image while building a larger scene around it, simulating a camera-like zoom. Seriously impressive. MORE | EXAMPLES

HUMAN NEWS

China's Economic Countdown?
Business Insider is reporting that Wall Street is increasingly concerned about China's mounting debt, which could cause an economic implosion by 2023 and have far-reaching effects on global markets.

- China's debt-to-GDP ratio has reached a staggering 317%, raising alarm bells for investors.
- The country's real estate sector, which accounts for a significant portion of the debt, is particularly vulnerable to a downturn.
- Experts warn that a Chinese economic collapse could trigger a global financial crisis, similar to the 2008 meltdown.

What I don’t get about these types of articles is how varied they are. It seems like it depends far too much on the opinionated analysis of the expert. Like in one article China is about to overtake us and leave us in the dust, and in the next they’re about to implode. Which is it? I know the answer is probably both at the same time, but I wish it were easier to extract truth from economic experts. MORE

Illusion of Decline?
Psychologist Adam Mastroianni argues that the perception of moral decline is a cognitive illusion, influenced by biased exposure to negative information and biased memory. I can buy this to an extent, but I think many of these arguments (including Pinker’s) are flawed because it all comes down to which questions you’re asking. MORE

Nearly All Pictures From Smartphones
A study by Max Spielmann discovered that 92.5% of all photos are now taken with smartphones, largely influenced by Instagram's role in photo-sharing. Meanwhile, disposable camera sales have doubled since 2015, and interest in DSLRs has declined. MORE

IDEAS & ANALYSIS

The Worst Intellectual Trait? NFC.
I caught up with my friend Lisa Young recently who I’d not seen in probably 15 years. She’s a total cyber badass, and she taught me tons about risk management (and security assessment in general) when I worked with her back in Tallahassee. Anyway, we were talking about some smart people we know, industry pioneers, etc., and a few people came up that think their poo doesn’t stink. We were talking about ego, and confidence, and all of that, when I finally captured why I didn’t like this one particular Risk Representative and their associated Religion. Curiosity. Or, more specifically, the lack thereof. We both realized we don’t dislike people who believe in their system (lots of people are like that, including us). The problem is people who have closed their minds to alternatives! Days later I decided to assign a damning acronym. Not Fucking Curious. NFC. Someone: “Hey, sounds like you don’t like that guy’s theories? What’s the deal?” Me: “The theories are fine, the problem is the guy has a bad case of NFC.” Them: “NFC?” Me: “Yeah. They’re not fucking curious.”

Climate Change vs. Familial Self-preservation Instincts
I recently watched a brilliant speech by someone who looks to be an anti-woke conservative on the topic of Climate Change. I’m rather in the center about the topic, meaning I think the climate is warming, due in significant part to human influence, and that something must be done about it. Where I break from the extreme left is in thinking that we are going to somehow stop the emissions before bad things happen. I think the solution needs to be technological, e.g., carbon capture, and that’s where this talk comes in. This guy captures a version of that argument that’s extremely compelling. Regardless of where you are on the topic, I strongly recommend checking out the argument. MORE

Titanic Belief
One of the best pieces of analysis I saw on the Titan submarine thing was from James Cameron, who is an expert on everything Titanic himself. He said the thing that struck him was how both the captain of the Titan sub and the captain of the Titanic itself both were told about imminent danger, and they both ignored it. MORE

NOTES

The transition to Beehiiv continues. The team will be sending an email out to existing members to nudge them to transition to Beehiiv. Many of you already have, but there are a lot more to go, so the email should help there. The process is simple: 1) sign up with your new Beehiiv account, 2) cancel your old account. 3) Let us know in the Discord how much time to add for your existing time remaining. You won’t lose any time from the transition!

I’m on my new primary computer after the fastest new system install ever. Just one Saturday! I got a nearly maxed out Apple Studio Ultra, with 176GB of memory. Only thing I didn’t max out was the SSD. This thing is snappy. And even better, I’m back to being able to use all three monitors (1 x Apple XDR, 2 x LG 5Ks). Why so much power? I intend to be doing a lot of local AI model stuff on this system in addition to my dedicated AI box. I think a lot of forthcoming models are going to be tuned to run well on the bigger Apple systems with the Mx architectures. THE WIRED REVIEW

We ditched the image-heavy version of the newsletter. Too noisy, and it goes against the UL brand. Back to clean simplicity! I might throw one or two images in later, but it’ll stay mostly text.

I just joined a quality think tank that I can’t wait to do more with. I really like the leadership and energy for the group, and I think we have a good chance of producing some valuable outputs.

No episode next week due to Fourth of July! See you in two weeks. But remember, we’re active in UL Chat all day every day! BECOME A MEMBER

DISCOVERY

⚙️ Multi-Action Agents — Langchain now has Multi-action Agents using OpenAI functions. The "openai-multi-functions" agent enables Large Language Models to choose and utilize multiple tools in parallel, significantly boosting efficiency in various tasks. MORE

Destroyed by Breach — My buddy Adrian Sanabria maintains a list of companies that actually went under as a result of a cyber event. MORE

People who worked in the early naughts describe their lives to blown-away young people today. MORE

You don’t need a vision. Note: I don’t agree with this completely, but I get what he’s trying to say and it’s worth reading. MORE

The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition MORE

Every Black Mirror Episode, from Worst to Best MORE

RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Mark Manson has a newsletter that’s similar to James Clear’s, but that I think is even better. Like every single one has given me at least something to think about, and the good ones are remarkably strong. Highly recommended. THE BREAKTHROUGH

 
APHORISM OF THE WEEK