Reading note: On the Edge
Nate Silver | On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything (2024)
I’ve followed Nate Silver since the get.
From the early day of 538 and poorly written stata code… I’ve always found him a bit of an enigma.
His latest instalment, On the Edge, was easily my favourite book of 2024, yet I find it hard to explain. Probably 70% of the book is about poker, poker strategy, or poker adjacent news. Odd, yes. And yet… it sets up this grand metaphor… that’s there’s two big communities forming among the internet intelligentsia - the river, and the village.
"The River," represents risk-tolerant, analytical individuals like poker players and tech entrepreneurs, and "The Village," symbolises risk-averse, consensus-driven figures in traditional institutions (including academia).
This metaphor is finally resolved in the latter third of the book. Here he dabbles in the origins of effective altruism and AI safety, viewed mainly from interview extract of those who built it (including SBF). This format works - but it does rely on Nate being the arbiter of truth. I’m happy to take his word as gospel, mainly because I don’t know better.
The book underscores the tension between rapid technological advancement and the need for government (or at least some external) oversight. Nate’s points around the importance of finding equilibrium to foster innovation while safeguarding societal interests are timely. AI isn’t a wave, more like a tsunami, moving at speeds that are going to catch many folks out.
As someone who constantly thinks about EV based ‘bets’, and how they relate to the future of technology/progress, I’m glad that this small pocket of the internet-psyche has been chronicled well. The last third of the book could probably use an annual update, and I’m excited to see how woeful the predictions truly were in ~5 years.
More than anything else - the book made me think.
It might not be a book I gift often… but it certainly one to which I’ll constantly reference. There’s something in that.