Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #123, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland.
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I finished reading The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI today. Like Cory’s last book I had read - Enshittification - I knew most of what this book would entail. There was nothing new (for me). As Cory mentions in the Acknowledgement section - “This books was written on my website pluralistic.net”.
I have read Cory talk about these ideas on pluralistic. But on the blog, there are many other ideas and things he writes about. I appreciated having the book in my hand, a single place with all the things related to the current AI environment, one may need to know.
I highly recommend this book if you want to understand the current AI bubble. And it is a bubble.
So what comes after the bubble?
Here, I differ slightly from what Cory says.
From the book, paraphrased: “There is not that much residual value after this bubble. What would remain is the tonnes of carbon we have put in the atmosphere. And these local models we can run on our machines - phones, computers, etc.”
I think what would remain is the kind of future depicted in All that we see or seem - not the parts about the dreaming tech and the rockstars that it creates - the local AI parts. The protagonist in that book is a hacker who cares about her privacy and has a local machine that she can carry with her, and power (phone + or mac mini -) through a battery pack. But in that world, large corporations exist which provide this service and people are subscribed to these services.
I think this is what will be left after the bubble.
I have changed teams at work. I have gone back to the team in my unit which develops features for the platform and creates new capabilities for on-prem solutions. It is at the same time exhilarating and scary.
The team moves fast. I would be part of a discovery call in the morning, trying to figure out how this new thing I’m supposed to do works, and preparing some slides for the leadership team by the evening.
Every first meeting I had, I was feeling out of my depth, uncomfortable, and thinking why did I do this? The old team was comfortable. I was doing what I knew and some things that I didn’t. It was a good pace, a good way to work. And that’s good, especially with Savya around. There are, after all, so many things to do at home.
But that’s how you grow, isn’t it? You stretch, reach out, try to grab the thing! It may hurt in parts, but that’s what produces the growth.
I am still unsure, though. Every day brings new adventures. And that’s scary.
On the topic of new things, I’m reading Sculptor’s Daughter right now. This is Tove Jansson’s biography. The same Tove Jansson who wrote and created Moomin characters.
Moomin are everywhere in Finland. From cookies, to clothes, to the original stories, and books, to mugs and I guess there are toothpastes too?
Moomin are a national treasure. When Savya had turned two we had sent with him a packet of Fazer-Moomin chocolates. We have gone to at least a couple of Moomin exhibitions - one at Stockmann and the other at Oodi. We have bought and gifted Moomin cookies and bags and onesies to our friends and their kids.
During the event at Oodi, we had sat in a story performance of one of the Moomin stories. Moomin stories are not Disney-esque. Or at least that’s my understanding from a far. I haven’t read the Moomin tales yet. I will.
Hence, I was interested in reading about Tove. And now I am.
This is not a typical biography. There are no historical facts here. These are stories written by Tove - translated in English. And they are wonderful. The ones I have read are from a time when Tove was a young child, and it’s so much fun reading about experiences different from what I had when I was a child. It’s so beautiful, this thing, diversity.
On 22nd September, I will be speaking at the PyData event in Helsinki. It will be a lightning talk - ten minutes or so. I have prepared the slides, but haven’t really looked at them yet. I should now. Shouldn’t I?
This is new for me.
Not the making slides and writing part, but the speaking in front of people part.
The topic of the talk is “How to learn using AI”.
Learning has been an obsession of mine for a long time and AI is everyone’s obsession at present, so it feels both timely and relevant.
Wish me luck!
And finally, I bought a domain for Prerna. Her website (not really live yet) lives at https://prernakumari.net. Go check it out. Some links may be broken and she has to start putting stuff out on the blog. But yeah, it’s there. Her place on the world-wide-web.
Everyone should have a domain. Maybe a website too. But at least a domain.
a poem
Days are getting shorter here,
nights come sooner.
There’s stray leaves on the road,
painting it in yellow.
Yellow is the light as well,
illuminating the leaves on the road.
It’s getting darker here,
darker, colder, wetter.
Days are getting shorter here.
nights come sooner.
Someone runs where I walk,
in a white top and dark bottoms.
Someone speeds up on a bike,
with a Wolt bag on their back.
Someone walks their dog.
Someone sits and smokes.
Days are getting shorter here.
Nights come sooner.
It rains here, little drops of water,
caress my face and stay.
There are puddles on the road.
The gusts of wind, make me want to run.
Run. Run. Run.
Against the wind, into the wind.
Run! Run! Run!
But I don’t. I walk and I write.
Days are getting shorter here.
Night comes sooner.
If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄
Until next week.
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