Weekly newsletter of Brian Sunter 🧠 - Reactions to Notetaking with my AI Plugin
Note: See the "rich" version of this newsletter on my website here
I couldn't be happier about the positive reactions to my new projects and newsletter.
Last week I released a small plugin for the Logseq text editor, and I've been getting a lot of positive feedback on it from all over the world.
Logseq is an open-source note taking application. It allows you to write "plugins" or "apps" for the text editor you can release for others.
A new type of AI or "Artificial Intelligence" called GPT-3 just came out and can be used to write notes. It can write your book report if you ask it to "Write a book report on Hamlet."
I released a plugin for an AI assistant that can write articles and answer questions for you.
This technology is brand new and much better than Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant.
One of my favorite things about being a coder is thinking of an idea and building a tool for myself that solves a problem. Once I make a helpful tool, it's just a little extra effort to put it online and share it with the world. I'm trying to make more of my projects and writing publicly available.
I had fun looking at the Twitter bios of people talking about the plugin. One plugin user is a self-described "Chaotic good statistical learning Ph.D. candidate working to strengthen humanitarian health systems" precisely the type of person I want using the plugin! It feels good that I can enable others to do real world work like this by knowing a bit of coding and how to get the code out there.
The plugin is called logseq-gpt3-openai and lets you send commands to this powerful AI system from inside your text editor. It can do a lot of things like write and summarize articles. It's pretty easy to get started. Download it in the Logseq marketplace, and let me know what you think!
In this newsletter, I'll share some of the community's reactions to my new AI plugin, some thoughts on productivity, a few interesting reads from the week, and what I have in mind for the next newsletter issue.
Reactions to Logseq GPT3
This user summed up how I feel perfectly. Now that AI is part of my workflow, I don't want to give it up.
As far as I know, there is nothing on the market similar to OpenAI's GPT3
Dentists love the plugin. I wonder how/if my own dentist stays up to date on the latest cutting edge dental research 🤔
Google docs and Microsoft Word are about to get really smart. Anyone remember the talking paperclip from Microsoft word? (Click the @username to see the tweet)
You've brought information at your fingertips to a whole new level. Every text editor will have embed #AI or become ancient overnight. It Will be interesting to see how long until #MSFT has this functioning in #Word. - @sceeto
Very cool stuff. The way AI can enable knowledge workers to be better is one of my favorite parts of the AI revolution. - @Daniel_Van_Zant
I love when people post examples of how they're using the plugin.
This user is asking the AI to explain an unfamiliar programming language in plain english.
Loving this plugin! I recently worked on a feature involving a data syntax i'm not familiar with (TTL). Pasting a code snippet (with "explain this code" at the end) produced a summary that was actually helpful! - @haveanicedavid
People seem to be having a lot of fun with it. This AI tech just became available to the general public 6 months ago, so a lot of people are trying it for the first time through this plugin. No consumer product uses GPT3 yet that I know of.
I thought this was funny. I usually ask the AI questions. But this user was instead getting the AI to ask him questions. I've tried making philosophical content like this as well, and it's fascinating to see what the AI thinks about things like the meaning of life (even though it's fancy autocomplete)
Just a casual conversation with GPT3 - @teo_IDT
just had one too. AI confirms that it has studied and observed us for years. Nothing to worry about... 😃 - @ilmarsV
Brian this is incredible. You are a hero! - @shezthedev
This plugin is amazing! - @wupingju
Just one word: brilliant! So much fun to play be around with this. And really helpful too! - @wirtzdan
Going Global
Putting your work on the internet makes you realize how big the world is. I love seeing the international developer community try out the plugin. You know your idea is making the rounds when you see your name surrounded by mandarin Chinese!
嘗試使用 Logseq 上面的 GPT-3 plugin - Pin 起來的筆記與想法快照 整體初步的感覺是， GPT-3 很適合在面向一個新議題時有一個最初步的理解，他的回應通常都蠻簡潔扼要，那種答案有點像是 Google 找到 Quora 或是 Reddit 上面最多人 upvoted 的問題一樣。
guy philipp bollbach on Twitter: "Scaffolding z.B. im Bildungsbereich bekommt eine praktische Hilfestellung mit #gpt3 und Werkzeugen (in diesem Fall @logseq ), die es leicht verwendbar machen.… https://t.co/3ToLFnbxMF" “Scaffolding z.B. im Bildungsbereich bekommt eine praktische Hilfestellung mit #gpt3 und Werkzeugen (in diesem Fall @logseq ), die es leicht verwendbar machen. https://t.co/bEhx8zhRLh”
# Productivity Toolkit 🛠️
In this section, I'll share a productivity tip I've learned recently.
One of my favorite productivity techniques is the top daily priority
For a long time, I always had a sinking feeling I didn't accomplish "enough" at the end of the day.
Eventually, I realized I never even defined what "enough" was.
Now, I pick one substantial thing I want to accomplish every morning.
This technique helps me focus on what will truly move my life forward and end each day with a sense of accomplishment.
See my full post on the subject here: top daily priority
Brain Food 🧠
In this section I'll share some interesting articles from the week and other "food for thought"
The Last Question is a short story by Isaac Asimov.
It's a timely short story about asking AI the answers to life's biggest questions. This story shows up on the front page of Hacker News almost every year, and I thought it was very thought-provoking. It feels relevant because a Google engineer who recently asked their new AI, "Are you sentient?"
Isaac Asimov said it was his favorite short story he’d written.
"Ask Multivac."
"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."
Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this:
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
The Last Answer is another similar story by Isaac Asimov
Another related short story: The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov
Link of the week
I remember when I first moved to San Francisco, and Uber was doing a "match muni" promotion, where you could take an Uber anywhere in the city for $2.25 (same as the "muni" bus)
I would not be surprised if Uber went back to $50 a ride after more tech money dries up, like a traditional taxi.
We can also expect companies to go evil and try to extract more value from us from ads
I'll expect to see more ads on youtube, facebook, instagram, tiktok, etc and prices of video subscriptions to go up
Maybe it will be a good excuse to find other hobbies than watching Netflix and ordering Uber Eats.
Why City Life Has Gotten Way More Expensive - The Atlantic Something beyond rising energy and labor costs is leading to sticker shock on once-cheap urban amenities.
Analytics
These are really small numbers, but I love data and seeing other peoples analytics, so I'll shamelessly share them here.
Twitter Analytics are fun. I am the ultimate late comer to twitter and started using it for the first time this month. Last month I had -1 new followers. This month I gained around 200 so far. I had a few "hit" logseq plugins, so I don't expect this growth to continue forever, but it's fun to see the numbers go up. 31 newsletter subscribers so far now too!
Outro
Thanks for reading! This week I announced my new plugin and shared some feedback from the community.
Next week I'll write more in depth about what you can do with the AI and share some more about my process with logseq.
Check out the newsletter-roadmap to see what I have in mind for future issues. Let me know on Twitter if you liked this!