The past couple of months have been world-changing, even if economic and political worries make it hard to see through the fog. Two events in particular stand out. First, the world’s first net-positive fusion reaction happened, which might pave the way for sustainable energy in the (somewhat distant) future, though it’s likely to be a double-edged sword.
Second, we glimpsed how AI might someday change our world when OpenAI released ChatGPT, a noticeable improvement on prior large language models. It writes decent poetry and essays, can code surprisingly well—and sometimes delivers misinformation in a convincing way.
These types of breakthroughs are inspiring, motivating, and terrifying, and the next thirty years will be exciting, scary, and critical. We’ll dig into the dynamics of how the world is changing—and the risks arising and evolving alongside those changes—next year.
For now, as we enter the last week of this year, I want to say thank you for reading Risk Musings and share a few of my favorite reads in the past year.
Books
Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows - Thinking in Systems was a game-changer for me and sparked me to start this newsletter. Systems thinking and system dynamics offer a way of thinking about the world across fields as diverse as economics, climate science, sociology, business, and manufacturing. Reading this book feels like discovering the missing link in a fragmented world.
As Meadows puts it: “The right boundary for thinking about a problem rarely coincides with the boundary of an academic discipline, or with a political boundary…. It’s a great art to remember that boundaries are of our own making, and they can and should be reconsidered for each new discussion, problem, or purpose.”
The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon - A beautifully written exploration of the question, “What does wilderness mean?” It’s tricky to even draw a baseline, since humans have changed ecosystems for millennia, and ecosystems are constantly evolving, but we know wildlife was once much more abundant. What does rewilding mean, and how might this work? The book is amazing (and short!).
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans - by Melanie Mitchell - This fascinating 2019 book begins with a story about Douglas Hofstadter, the author of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, visiting the Google campus to meet a group of AI team members and surprising them when he says, “I am terrified.” The rest of the book walks through how artificial intelligence is remaking our world. Full disclosure: I’m still reading this book and expect to finish it next week!
Newsletters
Nonrival - Walter Frick, a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review, produces this interesting, entertaining read that provides an overview of one economics, business, or technology topic each week and invites you to forecast the outcome of a question about that topic. I like the way it’s structured and gets me thinking about different issues.
Desk Notes - Charles Schifano writes beautifully, purely for the sake of writing: no like buttons or comment boxes here, just words to absorb and enjoy. A good example of what you’ll find in his newsletter: Sculptors and Speakers.
The Future, Now and Then - GWU professor Dave Karpf covers AI, technology, politics, and futurism with sharp insight and a voice so engaging that I read almost everything he writes.
Enjoy your week, and happy reading!
Many thanks,
Stephanie
Thank you for sharing! Your article reminded me of my love for reading, which seems to have taken a backseat in my current efforts to start and build a newsletter. How do you strike a balance between reading and writing?
Those are two pretty amazing takeaways to ponder. I look forward to more of your writing next year and hope that some of the system thinking will be as interesting as you have made it seem.