MonkTok
Banning TikTok Monks
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Friends,
With the rollercoaster of Generative AI dominating the news wave I wanted to touch on another phenomenon of today. It’s unlikely that Tiktok will be around in 50 years’ time like we know that AI will be - and that’s OK. These platforms of today will evolve - and maybe the company will be around, but our tastes will evolve, much as they have done through MySpace and Facebook etc.
But the splash that TikTok has made is simply phenomenal. I’d like to draw you to the article TikTok’s viral monks are clashing with Buddhist authorities:
The article cites that superstar monks have built massive followings — but dancing, singing, and fame-seeking are all violations of the monastic code:
“The rise of MonkTok also poses a new hazard for the Buddhist religious community: Dancing, singing, and fame-seeking — practically requisite behavior for TikTok stardom — are violations of the monastic code. Breaking the most serious rules can be punishable by expulsion from the order. In embracing TikTok, monks must tread a fine line — entertaining followers without angering Buddhist authorities, and spreading the dharma without alienating viewers. At the same time, monk authorities wrestle with the question: To what degree should monks be online in the first place?”
It’s an astonishing predicament that a platform has permeated society so much that it has elevated to religious decrees. This is not new. Each social media channel that challenges societal norms has been banned. Just as Facebook was banned in schools, so is Tiktok. In some way, they’re just new and alien forms to those entrenched in the past. In the way that we need to embrace new technology, we need to embrace AI and we need to find the best way to leverage channels and tech for positive means. And so, it was a shock to me to hear Work Phones Make a Comeback as Offices Ban WhatsApp, TikTok:
“The resurgence comes more than a decade after the need for work-dedicated devices started to fade. Once phones got smarter and new applications could cordon off work and play activities, having a second device was an unnecessary cost for big companies. The domination of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. has made it once again easier for companies to chose a device for their workers, said Maribel Lopez, an analyst with Lopez Research. “It’s no longer BlackBerry at this point,” she said. “But it feels like old school days.””
Just like the old days, we’ll see people walking around with two phones.
Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back and looking at where we are from a technology perspective. I recently came back to Kevin Kelly’s talk about his book - The Inevitable, one of my favourite books on technology. This was presented in 2016 and it’s worth watching again:
What are the core principles around technology? What are the drivers?
Stay Curious,
Every day Refind picks 5 articles that make you smarter, tailored to your interests. Loved by 200,000+ curious minds. Subscribe to get 5 links / day
Here are my recommendations for this week:
Now
Global Economic Outlook. March 2023 - The global economy is slowing down, heading for a downturn in 2023 and modest bounce back in 2024.
The Fury of Chris Rock - In a new Netflix special, the comedian finally let loose about Will Smith. The moment was fascinating, angry, and raw.
No pain, plenty of gain: why taking it easy can be the key to getting fitter – and happier - Whether you’re running, working out in the gym or lifting weights, the perfect workout doesn’t have you gasping for breath. Here’s why less can be more.
I Teach Kids How to Hit One Another. Lately, One Particular Move Has Become a Problem - Is discomfort enough?
The Deceptive World of Ghost Kitchens - Do you even know what you are eating or who you are buying from? 40 min Rabbit hole!
Next
Silicon Valley’s AI frenzy isn’t just another crypto craze - It isn’t theoretical. Millions of people are already using apps like ChatGPT to write books, create art, and develop code.
Meet the companies trying to keep up with ChatGPT - From Google’s Bard to Microsoft’s new Bing, here are all the major contenders in the AI chatbot space.
3 Waves of Successful Generative Tech Startups - Every 14 years there’s a tech revolution. Internet browsers in 1994. Smartphones in 2007-8. Then toward the end of 2022, we entered the Generative Tech revolution.
Must read: the 100 most cited AI papers in 2022 - Who Is publishing the most Impactful AI research right now? With the breakneck pace of innovation in AI, it is crucial to pick up some signal as soon as possible. No one has the time to read everything, but these 100 papers are sure to bend the road as to where our AI technology is going. The real test of impact of R&D teams is of course how the technology appears in products, and OpenAI shook the world by releasing ChatGPT at the end of November 2022, following fast on their March 2022 paper “Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback”. Such fast product adoption is rare, so to see a bit further, we look at a classic academic metric: the number of citations. A detailed analysis of the 100 most cited papers per year, for 2022, 2021, and 2020 allows us to draw some early conclusions. The United States and Google still dominate, and DeepMind has had a stellar year of success, but given its volume of output, OpenAI is really in a league of its own both in product impact, and in research that becomes quickly and broadly cited. The full top-100 list for 2022 is included in this post.
The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it - When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, with zero fanfare, in late November 2022, the San Francisco–based artificial-intelligence company had few expectations. Certainly, nobody inside OpenAI was prepared for a viral mega-hit. The firm has been scrambling to catch up—and capitalize on its success—ever since.
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