ben affleck is one of us guys
Ben Affleck reveals he writes Python, understands convolutional neural networks, worked extensively with GPUs, and used his celebrity status to get private looks at Google and OpenAI’s video models
“I’ve always been kind of into computers since I was young. Then, when film started to move from analog film to digital, I became more interested in that aspect of it. The visual-effects workflow for many years has included machine learning, so I can write pretty shitty Python scripts and stuff like that.
“With convolutional neural networks, which were the precursors to what the transformer can do, which is much more computation simultaneously, you would do things like look at what’s called a tensor. That’s the numerical translation of a visual image in numbers, like the batch number, the frame number and the red, green and blue values of each pixel in each frame. It’s just that simple. That numeric is called a tensor.
“You’d use a convolutional neural network to identify patterns that reveal what’s called edge detection or feature extraction, which is identifying patterns well enough to know, this is where the window ledge is, so we can more easily take the green-screen image out and replace it with something.
“That was familiar to me early on because, prior to Artists Equity, I had a small visual-effects company. I’ve worked with GPUs a lot too. The visual-effects guys said, ‘Hey, you should see. There are a couple: Google and this other company, OpenAI, are doing really interesting stuff with transformers in video.’
“I’ve learned that I can actually just call up and go, ‘Hey, it’s Ben Affleck. Can I come see what you’re doing?’ Sometimes people say yes, to my astonishment.”
Brin retweeted
that's *exactly* what I've been saying for the past year.
C was always the best language for building ultra fast, high quality software.
the challenge is just that C can be hard to write correctly.
now with LLMs everyone should just be writing C
Brin retweeted
“hey it’s me, uh yeah sorry i have to cancel dinner again. it’s uh, it’s uh fable limits just got reset. and im just, im just worried if im not tokenmaxxing while fable is available that we’re going to get feature mogged. yeah maybe its ai psychosis we can talk about it later”
Brin retweeted
Idea: You can create a vacuum by sucking air out, or by pushing air out. With a $1 pump and the right sensors, there are a million variations. Clamping, degassing, wood lathe holding.
Brin retweeted
MIT just built an AI that can control your body.
It can move your fingers, make you play piano, even if you don’t know the song!
AI decides the hand movement. Wrist pads send signals to your muscles, so your fingers move even if you don’t know how
Brin retweeted
stupid fucking robot is going to take my job
Clients aren’t buying your app. They’re buying the idea of what it could become. A janky demo that shows the right thing wins every time over a polished app that shows the wrong thing.
Everyone's using AI to write code. Almost nobody is using it well. The difference? Tests written before the code. A plan reviewed before a file is touched. A context file the agent actually reads. Specs as source of truth. It's not about the model — it's about the workflow
switched from react native to flutter and bro... why did nobody tell me sooner. hot reload actually works. no random js bridge crashes. dart feels weird for 2 days then you never wanna go back 💀
Brin retweeted
SpaceXAI and @cursor_ai are now working closely together to create the world’s best coding and knowledge work AI.
The combination of Cursor’s leading product and distribution to expert software engineers with SpaceX’s million H100 equivalent Colossus training supercomputer will allow us to build the world’s most useful models.
Cursor has also given SpaceX the right to acquire Cursor later this year for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for our work together.
you can become a 10x engineer nowadays by being really good at devops
AI largely killed "feature developers"
deploying CI/CD pipelines well is the real missing piece
been on windows / linux most of my life but i gotta give it to the macbook
it so nice to work on
the unix based mac os, the touchbar, quality of screen, brew for installing software
i find myself not even need an external screen since the experience is so nice
