DeepSeek was just the beginning 🤖

AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits

Training methods appear to be proliferating with the number of models available:

The s1 paper suggests that reasoning models can be distilled with a relatively small dataset using a process called supervised fine-tuning (SFT), in which an AI model is explicitly instructed to mimic certain behaviors in a dataset.

A race to the bottom we can actually benefit from:

After training s1, which took less than 30 minutes using 16 Nvidia H100 GPUs, s1 achieved strong performance on certain AI benchmarks

& a lesson we can all learn from:

The researchers used a nifty trick to get s1 to double-check its work and extend its “thinking” time: They told it to wait. Adding the word “wait” during s1’s reasoning helped the model arrive at slightly more accurate answers

via TechCrunch

Chesterton’s Fence

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

Or, as Nudie says:

Not all change is progress

Amazon is ramping up to release its gen-AI powered Alexa (unless it gets delayed again).

Pricing model is up in the air at this point, but $5 to $10 month sounds pretty locked in.

This is the make or break moment for voice assistants.

You get personalities out of the shop and all that’s left is the retail experience.

You need the crust of the human.

Scale necessitates the removal of personality.

Which means personality becomes a differentiator.

How long until we’re asked to measure return on attention and return on personality? And how will we do it?

via the Weird Studies podcast

Life gets better as you replace transactions with relationships.

-Kevin Kelly

So do brands and customer experiences.

Everything is customer service.

Here is my summary of a 1-Minute summary of a massive social media trends study for 2025.

• Instagram is more than stories & Reels, posts are making a comeback
• LinkedIn is (still) having a moment
• Pinterest is not for videos
• Facebook Reels aren’t dead yet

How much of the resilient consumer spending trend is due to buying before Trump’s Trade War increases prices?

Buying before the promised / threatened tariffs hit.

If a meaningful %, purchase pull forward + lower purchasing power from higher prices could mean a rough year (or more) ahead.

This ad read (not ad, just read) is great.

You can hear the bit of a laugh after the reality TV line and tell the actor had fun with that part, or at least gives us the impression of enjoyment.

It’s filled with personality in a way that doesn’t overshadow the messaging, but makes it memorable.

Jan Swafford:

The ability of a machine to do or outdo something humans do is interesting once at most.

We humans need to see the human doing it

John Haugeland:

the most ordinary conversations are fraught with life and all its meanings

Austin Kleon wrote Show Your Work. Now you must also show your humanity.

The guiding principles for marketing content now are:

Personality + Behind the Scenes + What’s “Boring” to You

If this sounds like influencer style social content to you, you’re right.

via DC

Marketers are privileged indeed to make promises. Why make promises you know you can’t keep?

-Seth Godin

Marketing is a game of promises.

Conversion rates are promise delivery measurements.

Repeat customer rate is a trust barometer.

Puffery is over promising, repeatedly.

These definitions from Robin Sloan are helpful:

An accurate definition of “influencer” is: a virtuoso of a particular internet platform; someone who has learned to use its mechanisms to achieve their own objectives, rather than the other way around.

An accurate definition of an internet “creator” would have to be: someone whose income is determined by a platform’s algorithms.

Aligns with why platforms suddenly started talking about the “creator economy” instead of just influencers.

Give them pleasure—the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

-Alfred Hitchcock

Isn’t this essentially the premise of painkiller based marketing?

Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.

-Tyrone Guthrie

Brands typically try to smooth out the edges—polish everything to a uniform shine. In the post-AI world, it’s the idiosyncrasies that will make for truly winning brands.

Mission, vision, values are pieces of paper that can change with a board meeting.

Personality is actually having something to say and a unique way of saying it. Something that is core to the brand itself and not a committee’s reaction to societal trends.

See: Liquid Death

Doing business on the internet is about convincing people you don’t know that you have something they need or want. Think of a brand as the bridge between the two.

-Jack Butcher

Brands bridge the identity narrative between business and customer.

Brands are bat signals.
Not logos.

I love this. It’s ridiculous. And it works because it’s ridiculous.

It’s so over the top that it’s not a dark pattern or a trick.

It’s also a great way to figure out who your true fans are.

via Harry Dry

The best businesses understand and embed themselves into the lifestyles and self-conceptions of their customers.

When you sell a product, you’re not just selling a product, you’re affirming an identity.

-Greg Isenberg

Identity is a narrative.

The brand-customer relationship happens when the narrative the brand is telling dovetails with the narrative the customer is telling themselves.

This quote from The Daily Upside doesn’t surprise me:

Sales of new homes picked up considerably to end 2024. But sales of old homes are at their slowest pace since 1995.

A big part of the pandemic housing market insanity was older workers buying their forever homes. Locking up the existing inventory at that time and taking a big portion off the potentially liquid market for the near future.

Also, more evidence of The Great Splintering.

In the theatre the audience want to be surprised—but by things they expect.

-Tristan Bernard

And what is social media (and other digital outlets) these days if not a form of theatre?

People want to be surprised by your marketing, but not confused.

The comforting warmth of the familiar wrapped in a new package.

Of course, sometimes a big leap followed by consistency reframes the initial surprise as expectation.