Episode notes
How going from exploration to exploitation can help you as both a consumer and creator of everything. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Read the transcript · about 500 words, follows along as you listen
S1:There's a really cool concept that I always come back around to, which is the oscillation in life between explore and exploit. A good example of this is trying new restaurants. When you try a new restaurant, you're taking a risk that it could be bad for the potential reward of it being better than anything you've ever had. Once you've tried enough restaurants, you eventually have a list of them that you know you'll like. So they're kind of known goods.
S1:And when you decide to use one of those known goods, you're now in exploitation mode. So the key point here is that if you do too much of either of these, exploring or exploiting it reduces your overall enjoyment. There's another way I frame this a long time ago, which is pattern versus novelty. And the example I use there is for music. So my go to is like a melody or a hook and a song, which the song keeps coming back to. That's the pattern. And then there's the unique things in the song as well, most importantly the lyrics and maybe the tone or maybe the performance of the artist. And those would be the novelty. But once again, it's the oscillation between the two that's necessary. People love familiar patterns, but if you do too much of it, it becomes boring. People also love novelty, unique sounds and ideas and tastes and lyrics and voices or whatever. But within novelty, if there's too much of it, or if it goes for too long, they eventually search for a pattern so that it feels familiar. So they have something to anchor on. Too much novelty. And you want patterns.
S1:Too much pattern. And you want novelty, too much exploit going to your favorite restaurants. And you'll want to seek to explore, to try something new. Too much. Explore looking for new restaurants, but keep getting disappointed every once in a while or too often, and you just want to go to someplace that you know you will like. Here are some other examples in relationships. Taking your spouse to your favorite restaurant few times a year, but constantly surprising her with new restaurants as well. In content creation, it's great to have new content and ideas all the time coming from a creator, but we also love when our creator has like a catchphrase or a familiar sound associated with the videos or the podcast or whatever, or a logo present in the stuff. Romance. You have known goods, but you want excitement as well. Business customers know you're trustworthy and dependable if they see your logo, but they know you're also releasing new things as well. So yeah, I see this as a really powerful concept for thinking about how to get the most out of life, but also to provide the most value as well. And now
S1:that you've heard it, you're probably going to see it everywhere.
Transcript supplied by the publisher with the episode.
Unsupervised Learning
by Daniel Miessler · English · Tech & Science
Unsupervised Learning is about ideas and trends in Cybersecurity, National Security, AI, Technology, and Culture—and how best to upgrade ourselves to be ready for what's coming.
More from Unsupervised Learning
-
22 Nov 2025 · 7 min
Judge AI based on Output, Not Mechanism
How we can use an output-based system to judge whether or not different kinds of technology achieve understanding or intelligence. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-
16 Nov 2025 · 4 min
Humans Need Entropy
How humans and AI models both share the weakness of deterioration without novel inputs. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-
20 Oct 2025 · 10 min
Why I Think Karpathy is Wrong on the AGI Timeline
Karpathy is confusing LLM limitations with AI system limitations, and that makes all the difference. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-
14 Oct 2025 · 7 min
Magnifying Time
Some thoughts on how novelty and attention magnify the time that we have. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-
22 Sep 2025 · 35 min
A Conversation With Harry Wetherald CO-Founder & CEO At Maze
➡ Stay Ahead of Cyber Threats with AI-Driven Vulnerability Management with Maze: https://mazehq.com/ In this conversation, I speak with Harry about how AI is transforming vulnerability management and application security. We explore how modern approaches can move beyond endless reports and generic fixes, toward real context-aware workflows that actually empower developers and security teams. We talk about: The Real Problem in Vulnerability Management Why remediation—not just prioritization—remains the toughest challenge, and how AI can help bridge the gap between vulnerabilities…
-
18 Sep 2025 · 22 min
A Conversation With Grant Lee CO-Founder & CEO At Gamma
➡ Upgrade your presentations with Gamma, the best AI presentation maker: https://gamma.app In this conversation, I speak with Grant, co-founder of Gamma, about how their platform is transforming presentations and idea-sharing. Instead of starting with slides, Gamma helps you focus on the story first—then builds the visuals, structure, and delivery around it using AI. We talk about: From Slides to Stories Why presentations should begin with narrative flow and core ideas, not pre-existing slide templates. Gamma enables creators to design around the message rather than being trapped by…
-
17 Sep 2026 · 24 min
Evolution, Lit RPG and AI Harnesses
I went on a walk and ended up connecting three things I've been thinking about: evolution, LitRPG, and personal AI harnesses. Why listening to The Primal Hunter keeps getting me excited to work on my own goals, and how a personal AI harness is your own LitRPG system. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-
31 Aug 2026 · 21 min
The Missing Piece Is Ideal State
📝 Theo put out a video saying you should turn off Claude Code's memory, and it triggered me enough to record a response. My argument: the real problem with all AI is the gap between what's in your head and what the AI knows you want. I walk through how LifeOS closes that gap with the Ideal State Artifact, one document that works as both the build spec and the testing harness, and show the skill system and blogging pipeline that run on it. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-
14 Aug 2026 · 4 min
The Different Games OpenAI and Anthropic Are Playing
Anthropic is going after the enterprise operations layer; OpenAI wants to be everyone's personal agent. Both are multi-trillion-dollar markets, and they barely overlap. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-
9 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
Debating the Morality of Dario Amodei
A debate with Zack Korman on the morality of Dario Amodei specifically, and Anthropic in general. Zack's version of the video: https://youtu.be/mQ9-YoE9ykE Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Take it with you
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
