Human flourishing with AI, Humans + AI teams outperform, great thinkers on AI today, and more

March 31, 2025

"The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free." — Baruch Spinoza

Historic perspective on AI today

Another big week in AI, as just about every week. In experimenting with using 4o image generation for complex concepts and text I ended up creating a compilation of historic figures and their perspectives on AI - see below.

This week’s podcast with Pat Pataranutaporn is on human flourishing with AI, and his MIT Media Lab team is doing amazing things in the space, be sure to have a listen.

Be well!

Ross

 

📖In this issue

  • Framework: Historic thinkers on AI in 2025

  • Anthropic Index Augmentation vs Automation by role

  • Professional Humans + AI teams outperform

  • What people are using LLMs for

  • Podcast: Pat Pataranutaporn on human flourishing with AI, augmenting reasoning, enhancing motivation, and benchmarking human-AI interaction

💡Framework: Historic thinkers on AI in 2025

In playing around with 4o image generation I ended up creating this visual. Full story on the process and models I ended up using here.

The broader point is that we do need perspective amid the heady pace of progress today. LLMs can help bring us perspectives that great thinkers who are no longer with us might bring to bear.

🧠🤖Humans + AI

Anthropic Index Augmentation vs Automation by role

Anthropic has updated its very useful Economic Index with data since the launch of Claude 3.7 Sonnet, offering a range of valuable insights into work with AI as the edge rapidly evolves.

Professional Humans + AI teams outperform

The value of Humans + AI collaboration in the real world: an academic study of 776 R&D professionals at Procter & Gamble revealed not just substantial performance gains from AI, but a host of other gains, including in emotional state.

What people are using LLMs for

What are people using LLMs for? LM Arena, famous for its LLM leaderboard, now provides a detailed breakdown of prompts used, with both frequency and prompt category-specific leaderboards.

🎙️This week’s podcast episode

Pat Pataranutaporn on human flourishing with AI, augmenting reasoning, enhancing motivation, and benchmarking human-AI interaction  

Why you should listen

The work of Pat Pataranutaporn and his colleagues at MIT Media Lab is right on the edge of human-positive AI, pushing the boundaries of how AI can make us better. This is not just positive intent, but based on deep research and creating practical products.

Thanks for reading!

Ross Dawson and team