One Man's Spam

Where I Explain Why I'm in Your Inbox and Why Now

May 26, 2024

Hello.

If you’re reading this email, then suffice it to say, we’ve met at some point in-real-life. And at the time of our IRL encounter, you seemed to express at least a small amount of interest in my writing, and/or the ideas I was writing about.

For that, let me start by saying, thank you. It mattered.

That small amount of interest you showed is why I’ve now ended up in your inbox.

I’m here to introduce and invite you to read my weekly ‘newsletter’ called:

A Short Distance Ahead is a reference to the last sentence of Alan Turing’s famous paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” published seventy-four years ago in the journal, Mind (October 1950).

The paper introduced the concept of what became known as the Turing Test,1 a method to evaluate a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human.

Turing’s paper is widely considered the seminal, founding work in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Turing ends the paper with the following words:

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”

Last week, OpenAI launched its latest model called GPT-4o (o for omni), which interacts via audio, vision, and text. The release was announced through a variety of unsettling natural interactions with humans, where the chatbot was emotionally expressive, playful, even a bit cheeky.

The day after, OpenAI released GPT-4o, Google unveiled its most advanced AI yet, Gemini Pro, and previewed Project Astra, a multimodal chatbot designed to process ongoing visual and audio data.

In response to these developments, WIRED’s Editor at Large, Steven Levy, commented how such breakthroughs have become so frequent that tech pundits use of the phrase inflection points — to herald moment when new technologies “wipe the board clean” and redefine the landscape — might now just be called ‘Monday.’

This newsletter isn’t about keeping up with the “Mondays.”2 Rather, it is an attempt to look back, as we continue to move forward.

When I asked the virtual AI assistant, ChatGPT, to define the phrase a short distance, it wrote:

“The term ‘a short distance’ is inherently relative and depends on the context in which it's used.”

This newsletter embodies that meaning. It is about how context and perspective are important in understanding AI’s relationship with human progress.

Here’s How It Will Go

Each week you will receive a short essay between 1,200-2,000 words.
Each essay will capture a snapshot of history, with an emphasis on the evolution of AI, but also by weaving together the major political events, cultural milestones, philosophical developments, scientific advancements, and economic trends that took place that year.
Each essay will be written by me and my co-writer, Barry-O, a custom GPT I created using OpenAI’s model. [More on Barry-O below.]
The first essay, The Year Was 1950, will be published on June 2nd, 2024.
The newsletter will run for seventy-five weeks.
It will end the week of November 6th, 2025, with an essay titled, The Year Is 2025, marking the 75th anniversary of Turing’s paper.

What’s The Value Proposition?

Unlock the insights of the past to understand the future of AI by exploring the gaps in between.

Our world has come to be shaped, in large part, by the language of binaries — ones and zeros, facts, data points.

This computational framework, which forms the foundation of AI, often focuses on the precise algorithms and logical patterns created by these binary elements.

I believe that the most important aspect of this framework lies in the gaps between the 1s and 0s—the spaces we have become conditioned to overlook.

These gaps represent the nuances, context, deeper meaning, and narrative seeds that often elude simple binary representations.

In this newsletter, I aim to explore these gaps by inviting readers to fill in the spaces with their own reflections and interpretations.

At a time when we are flooded with information, much of it leaving us confused and disoriented (especially when it comes to AI), this newsletter aims to remind us that context matters.

And sometimes, context comes from the places we aren’t paying attention to, like the spaces in between the bits of information, and the stories beneath the deluge of data points.

Introducing my Co-Writer, Barry-O

I built Barry-O with the description to be a creative, humorous, intelligent writing and research partner to assist in drafting weekly essays. I fed him a PDF file of Turing’s paper. I pointed him towards writers whose work inspired this project. Most specifically:

Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century, by Czech writer, Patrik Ourednik (the foundational inspiration for this newsletter)
The essays of Eliot Weinberger
And sci-fi writer Terry Bisson’s, This Month In History column, which ran for two decades in Locus magazine.

And, finally, I gave Barry-O a profile pic, pulled from one of Kurt Vonnegut’s self-portraits.

Barry-O (otherwise known as Kurt Vonnegut’s self-portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery)

Barry-O’s primary focus will be research, providing me with important dates and milestones. I may also ask Barry-O to help me brainstorm, and edit and revise each week’s essay.

From time to time, I will also elicit input from Barry-O’s friends over at Claude, an AI assistant developed by Anthropic, and Pi, an AI assistant developed by Inflection, now a part of Microsoft.

In other words, my attempt to chart humanity’s pursuit of machine minds will be co-written with machines.

One Man’s Meat

The subject line of this email, One Man’s Spam, is in reference to the title of one of my favorite book of essays: One Man’s Meat by E.B. White.3

The title is pulled from a two-thousand year old proverb: one man’s meat is another man’s poison, in other words, what pleases one person may displease another.

I fully expect this to be the case for this newsletter.

The very fact I’m trying to do something different here, lends itself to the natural expectation that many of you will find the whole premise of this newsletter to not be your “cup of tea,” so to speak.

If this isn’t for you, I assure you, there will be no hard feelings.

Regardless, I am grateful for your time and attention, and my pledge to you is that I will never take those two things for granted.

While our world continues to spin, a short distance ahead, may these essays provide moments of reflection, curiosity, and perhaps, understanding.

Thanks for reading.4

For a pretty accessible explanation of the Turing Test, visit this page. For a more in-depth analysis, visit computer scientist Lex Fridman’s video presentation of Turing’s paper: here.

For those who want regular updates, check out a list of my favorites on my Resources page.

Over a decade ago I found my way to White’s writing shed (pictured above), by piecing together bits and pieces of essay descriptions and White’s own vague directions he was said to have given to welcome visitors. It sat on the property that inspired Charlotte’s Web, and was a magical spot. Upon discovering the property, I convinced my (now) wife to join me in trespassing down to the water's edge, seeking the thrill of peering through the window that once captivated White's gaze.

At the end of this, if you are still confused, or for some reason have no idea who I am, you can find more about me and this newsletter on the About page.