The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 15 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Intelligent AI agents should never pretend to be human
“Now, number one, do not pretend to be a human.”
AI agent developers should over-invest in reasoning engines over parsing
“And I think there's probably even more value in whatever agent that you go engineer to over invest in the reasoning engine.”
Mortensen: x.ai has no backup plan to rely on human labor
“What we kind of set out to do is to kind of create a setting for where there is no plan B. There is no kind of backup plan, and I know SoftBank kind of, you know, shit their pants whenever I say that, but there is no plan B of, ah, perhaps we can just have hum…”
The tech industry fell in love with conversational UI too early
“I certainly think we just fell in love with the conversation of UI a little bit too hard, too early, because it certainly was fucking sexy, to be honest.”
Giving Google Analytics logins to non-analysts is naive
“Editors should be editors, not analysts. I think that would work in pretty much any industry, because the idea of handing out random logins to Google Analytics and believe that your organization is wiser seems Naive tomorrow, perhaps slightly smart today, but …”
Recruiting 30 engineers for a meeting-scheduling AI is extremely difficult
“You try to hire 30 engineers on the idea that they should schedule more meetings? That is fucking hard.”
Voice commands are an inferior interface for adjusting TV volume
“Screaming to your telly that you wanted to kind of increase the volume is actually not a good UI. My remote is just way more powerful.”
AI product designers must ensure low-accuracy predictions still provide value
“You need to design for a system where if you make a prediction, even if it is of low accuracy, you should make sure that it counts as some sort of value.”
x.ai priced its agent under $200 to avoid human-salary expectations
“We priced it at 19, 39, 199, some price for where it doesn't even resemble a human being at, you know, 50 K cost in Manhattan.”
Mortensen: x.ai features no user interface beyond email CC
“So there is no interface. There is no dropdown box. There is no set of possible times which you can click on. There's only Amy, which exists in dialogue as a CC.”
Half of newspaper article views in 2012 originated from homepages
“About half of all the article views on any given day for any one of these properties were driven off the homepage or the section front page.”
x.ai shifted meeting preference setup from conversational text to web UI
“We initially implemented it against the idea that you would set your preferences over the conversational UI. Like, ah, I really like meetings on Monday. I come in a little bit late. I need to leave early on Fridays. Got to pick up the kids. And a whole long id…”
Mortensen: x.ai is built solely to schedule meetings
“We've set out to do nothing more than schedule meetings. No more, no less.”