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Ethan Mollick Profile picture
@emollick
Jun 6, 2021 • 8 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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A thread on the science of stories:

Stories are persistent: this paper traces back fairy tales across languages & cultures to common ancestors, arguing that the oldest go back at least 6,000 years. One of the oldest became the myth of Sisyphus & Thanatos in ancient Greece. 1/
That may be the start: this paper argues some stories may go back 100,000 years. Many cultures, including Aboriginal Australian & Ancient Greek, tell stories of the Plaeades, the 7 sisters star cluster, having a lost star- this was true 100k years ago! 2/ dropbox.com/s/np0n4v72bdl3…
Stories share similar arcs: Analyzing 1.6k novels, this paper argues there are only 6 basic ones:
1 Rags to Riches (rise)
2 Riches to Rags (fall)
3 Man in a Hole (fall rise)
4 Icarus (rise fall)
5 Cinderella (rise fall rise)
6 Oedipus (fall rise fall) 3/
epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.11…
Stories have links to cultural values. You can make predictions about economic factors from the stories people tell, as this 👇cool paper shows 4/
The stories organizations tell matter, too: When firms share stories in which their executives were clever but sneaky, the result is less helping & more deviance! Firms that share stories about low-level people upholding values have increased helping & deceased deviance. 5/
Firms also transmit learning through stories. This paper shows stories of failure work best. They are more easily applied than stories of success, especially if the story is interesting & you believe that it is important to learn from mistakes. But make sure it is a true story. 6
Entrepreneurs especially rely on stories, as, all you have initially is your pitch - a story about your startup. You have to use that to get people to give you resources, buy your product, join your company, etc. Here is a thread on how to do that: 7/
One of the most fascinating examples of the power of stories in startups is how the Theranos fraud relied on Elizabeth Holmes’s ability to tell a compelling story, which involved her tapping into the archetypes of what we expect an entrepreneur to be (black turtleneck & all) 👇

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More from @emollick

Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Sep 10
Claude's new ability to work with Excel files is the best I have seen so far

I have given it existing spreadsheets to work with and asked it to create new ones. Good use of formatting, formulas, etc.

It created all of this, including 406 formulas, from one prompt (& its solid). Image
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This is like an assignment I give, and it would be a good result of a week-long team project for my MBA class. I can't promise it is error free, but I haven't found any issues so far.
If I were giving feedback, I think I would say that I think I would take a different tack to the business model (less money on instructors initially, more spend on marketing), but there are no technical issues I have spotted, more a difference of opinion over a vague prompt.
Read 4 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Sep 2
This chart is being horribly misinterpreted.

This is not where the training data of AI comes from, it is a study done by a SEO firm that claims to show how often sites come up at least once in THE WEB SEARCH FUNCTION of certain AI agents when they do a web search for more info. Image
The company searched for a bunch of keywords using Google AI Mode and ChatGPT web search and Perplexity and then said they measured how many times these sites were included in the reply.

If you are search for "find me a good stove" or whatever, this should look like the results.
“Not really” added by me to the image. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Read 4 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Aug 22
We have data on the environmental impact per AI prompt:
Gemini: 0.00024 kWh & 0.26 mL water
ChatGPT: 0.0003 kWh & 0.38 mL
...the same energy as one Google search in 2008 & 6 drops of water.

Seems to be improving, too: Google reports a 33x drop in energy use per prompt in a year. Image
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These numbers match independent direct measures: 0.00004 kWh for 400 tokens on Llama 3.3 70B on a H100 node.

We do not know the amount of energy required to train these models, which was estimated at a little above 500,000 kWh for GPT-4, about 18 hours of a Boeing 737 in flight.
Google paper on Gemini: services.google.com/fh/files/misc/…

Sam Altman post: blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-sin…

Google search energy in 2008: googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/poweri…

Llama 3.3 power usage: gist.github.com/lhl/bf81a9c7df…
Read 5 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Aug 10
“Claude Opus 4.1, De-Carcinize the Great Gatsby” (That was the only prompt)

Pretty clever, actually. Image
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# The Great Gatsby: De-Carcinized

## Chapter 1: Direct Approach

Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and immediately walked straight to his neighbor Jay Gatsby’s house.

“Hello,” Nick said. “I’m your new neighbor. I notice you throw parties.”

“Yes,” Gatsby replied, opening the door fully instead of peering through a crack. “I throw them hoping Daisy Buchanan will attend. She lives across the bay. I love her.”

“She’s my cousin,” Nick said. “She’s married to Tom.”

“I know. Would you arrange a meeting?”

“Sure.”

## Chapter 2: Honest Communications

Tom Buchanan stood in his living room, addressing everyone directly. “I’m having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Daisy, you probably know this. Myrtle, you should know I’ll never leave Daisy for you.”

Myrtle nodded. “I understand but choose to continue anyway.”

Daisy turned to face them. “I’m unhappy but too comfortable to change anything.”

## Chapter 3: The Party Without Pretense

Gatsby’s next party featured a sign at the entrance: “These Parties Are Specifically to Attract Daisy Buchanan’s Attention.”

Guests arrived and immediately stated their intentions:
“I’m here for free champagne.”
“I’m networking for business.”
“I enjoy judging rich people.”

Gatsby stood on a platform with a megaphone: “Thank you all for coming to my Daisy-attraction event. Please enjoy yourselves while I wait hopefully by the window.”

## Chapter 4: Swimming Forward

Gatsby drove Nick directly to the city—no detours through the Valley of Ashes, no sideways routes through East Egg.

“I should tell you my backstory without any embellishment,” Gatsby said. “I was born poor as James Gatz. I made my fortune through questionable means with Meyer Wolfsheim. Everything I’ve built is to win Daisy back.”

“That seems unhealthy,” Nick observed.

“It absolutely is,” Gatsby agreed.

## Chapter 5: The Reunion

At Nick’s house, Gatsby walked straight to Daisy when she arrived.

“I’ve loved you for five years,” he said. “I’ve built my entire life around the hope of resuming our relationship.”

“That’s concerning,” Daisy replied. “But I’m flattered and bored in my marriage, so let’s proceed.”

They looked at each other directly, no dancing around the truth.

“This will end badly,” they said in unison.

“Want to see my house?” Gatsby asked.

“Yes, though material possessions won’t fix our fundamental incompatibility.”

## Chapter 6: Clear Waters

Tom attended Gatsby’s party and immediately announced: “I distrust you and will investigate your background.”

“Fair enough,” Gatsby replied. “I am indeed hiding things.”

Daisy pulled Gatsby aside. “These parties make me uncomfortable. You’re not the same person I loved five years ago.”

“You’re right,” Gatsby admitted. “But I’m unable to accept that.”

## Chapter 7: Direct Confrontation

In the hotel room, everyone laid their cards on the table—literally, they brought actual cards with their feelings written on them.

Tom’s card: “Gatsby is a criminal.”
Gatsby’s card: “Daisy loves me, not you.”
Daisy’s card: “I love security and comfort more than either of you.”
Nick’s card: “I’m uncomfortable and want to leave.”
Jordan’s card: “This is entertaining.”

“Well,” Tom said, “since Daisy has clarified her priorities, and I offer more security, I win.”

Gatsby nodded sadly. “Your logic is sound.”

## Chapter 8: Forward Motion

Driving home, Daisy didn’t swerve or panic. She drove straight and responsibly, arriving home without incident.

“That was anticlimactic,” Gatsby said.

Later, Wilson approached Gatsby at his pool.

“Did you have an affair with my wife?” Wilson asked directly.

“No, that was Tom Buchanan. He just told you it was me to deflect blame.”

“Oh. My mistake.” Wilson left to find Tom.
## Chapter 9: The End Without Shells

Gatsby, still alive, realized his obsession was unhealthy. He sold his house and moved to California to start fresh.

Nick wrote in his journal: “Today I learned that approaching life directly, without sideways scuttling or defensive shells, leads to less tragedy but also less poetry. The green light across the bay was just a light. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg were just an advertisement. And we all moved forward, not backward, walking upright instead of sideways, exposed but honest.”

Tom and Daisy stayed married, openly acknowledging their mutual dysfunction.

Myrtle left Wilson and opened a successful boutique.

Jordan became a professional golfer who actually followed the rules.

And Nick? Nick went back to the Midwest immediately instead of lingering to narrate everyone else’s drama.

## Epilogue

So we beat on, boats moving directly forward with the current, making excellent time to our clearly stated destinations, no longer crushed by the weight of our own protective shells or the insistence on moving sideways when forward was always an option.

*The End*

-----

*Author’s Note: In this de-carcinized version, all characters have shed their protective shells of pretense, ceased their sideways approaches to truth, and emerged from the murky bottom-feeding of their social world. Without their crab-like qualities, they resolve conflicts with unsettling efficiency, proving that sometimes evolution’s mistakes make for better literature.*
Read 4 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Aug 2
This is, in fact, what early acceleration of science looks like with jagged AI.

Writing abstracts takes a lot of time, many scientists are bad writers and clearly written abstracts are important. As long as the authors check over the results, this is a good use case for AI.
I wrote about some of the early impact of AI on science last year, including for writing. oneusefulthing.org/p/four-singula…
We do not yet have true autonomous science or breakthrough ideas from AI, but AI provides time savings throughout the process when used carefully by humans: data cleaning, exploratory analysis, writing, pushing back on ideas, (deep) research - all can be helpful when used well.
Read 4 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Jul 27
Kinda amazing: the mystery model "summit" with the prompt "create something I can paste into p5js that will startle me with its cleverness in creating something that invokes the control panel of a starship in the distant future" & "make it better"

2,351 lines of code. First time
Code: editor.p5js.org/emollick/sketc…

Play it: editor.p5js.org/emollick/full/…
This is through LMArena, where you are given random models to test. You will likely get a chance to use "Summit" fairly often (it came up three times in my six attempts): lmarena.ai
Read 5 tweets

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