Weekly Pulse by William Meller | Week 14, 2023

The Weekly Pulse is my content curation and my highlights from readings, books, podcasts, insights, and everything I discovered during the week.
The Weekly Pulse is my content curation and my highlights from readings, books, podcasts, insights, and everything I discovered during the week.

So, let’s go with some discoveries from the week!

#1 – Is This How Your Brain Works?
#2 – Leadership Is a Conversation
#3 – How to Remember What You Read


Is This How Your Brain Works?

Source: Gates Notes
Author: Bill Gates

Summary: This text is about Jeff Hawkins’ book, A Thousand Brains, which examines the complexity of understanding how the cells and connections in our brains give rise to consciousness and our ability to learn. Hawkins proposes that replicating the neocortex is the key to developing true general artificial intelligence, and that machines need only a model of the world and flexibility, not instincts. He dismisses the notion that humans will lose control of machines they create, but warns of the dark side of AI. The text is a thought-provoking look at the gene-editing revolution.

3 Highlights:

“… If Hawkins is right that the only viable path to artificial general intelligence is by replicating the workings of the neocortex, that means it’s unlikely that intelligent machines will supplant or subjugate the human race—the kind of thing you see in classic sci-fi movies like The Matrix and The Terminator. That’s because the neocortex operates differently from parts of the brain that evolved much earlier and that drive our primal emotions and instincts…“

“… Computers can beat a grandmaster in chess, but they don’t know that chess is a game…“

“… Intelligent machines need to have a model of the world and the flexibility of behaviour that comes from that model, but they don’t need to have human-like instincts for survival and procreation….” 

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Leadership Is a Conversation

Source: Harvard Business Review
Author: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Summary: It suggests that leaders should strive for intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality when engaging with their employees, and outlines the five long-term business trends driving the shift from traditional corporate communication to the organizational conversation. Leaders should use organizational conversation to close the gap between them and their employees, listen to and talk with employees, empower employees to create their own content, and pursue a shared agenda that aligns with the company’s strategic objectives.

3 Highlights:

“… Leaders who take the organizational conversation seriously know when to stop talking and start listening. Few behaviors enhance conversational intimacy as much as attending to what people say. True attentiveness signals respect for people of all ranks and roles, a sense of curiosity, and even a degree of humility…

“… Smart leaders find ways to use conversation—to manage the flow of information in an honest, open fashion. One-way broadcast messaging is a relic, and slick marketing materials have as little effect on employees as they do on customers. But people will listen to communication that is intimate, interactive, inclusive, and intentional...”

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How to Remember What You Read

Source: FS
Author: FS Editorial

Summary: This article provides readers with strategies for getting more out of what they read. It emphasizes the importance of active reading, preparing before reading, taking notes, marking up the book, making mental links, and quitting books if necessary. Additionally, the article suggests that readers should apply what they’ve learned, make their notes searchable, and reread books in order to form lasting memories.

Highlights:

“… Building vivid mental pictures is one of the most effective techniques for remembering anything, not least what we read. When you come across an important passage or concept, pause and visualize it. Make the picture as salient and distinctive as possible by connecting it to other ideas already in your brain…“ 

“… Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead...”

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