When I discuss interfaces on this blog, I’m most often referring to software interfaces: intermediating mechanisms from our human intentions to computers and the knowledge within them. But the concept of a human interface extends far before it and beyond it. I’ve been trying to build myself a coherent mental framework for how to think about human interfaces to knowledge and tools in general, even beyond computers.| thesephist.com
I have a few friends who are in the midst of navigating very hazy idea spaces, guided by strong intuition and taste, but early enough in the process that very little is visible through the fog. Whenever I’m in this situation I feel a strange internal conflict. One side of me feels conviction in a direction of exploration, while the other part of me feels the risk of potential dead ends, afraid to go out on a limb and say I should put my full effort into pursuing where my hunch leads.| thesephist.com
This post is a read-through of a talk I gave at a demo night at South Park Commons in July 2024.| thesephist.com
For most of the history of music, humans produced sounds out of natural materials — rubbing together strings, hitting things, blowing air through tubes of various lengths. Until two things happened.| thesephist.com
Midjourney launched a new “personalization” feature this week, and I think it presents an interesting and valuable contrast to the kind of direct manipulation interfaces for interacting with AI systems that I’ve been advocating for. I also think this implementation of personalization reveals an unconventional way of thinking about style in creative tools, not by concrete stylistic traits but by a style’s relationship to a universe of other tastes or style preferences.| thesephist.com
There’s a lot of great research on foundation models these days that are yielding deeper understanding of their mechanics (how they work) and phenomenology (how they behave in different scenarios). But despite a growing body of research literature, in my work at Notion and conversations with founders, I’ve noticed a big gap between what we currently know about foundation models and what we still need to build valuable tools out of them. This post is a non-exhaustive list of applied resear...| thesephist.com