Four For Friday | May 5, 2023
Four For Friday | May 5, 2023
LF45 | AI coaches work, Peter Attia and Mark Hyman's new products, Brexit's searing costs and a new jet lag product
Welcome to a Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week relating to systems change, healthy longevity and / or Web3. Enjoy!
Three reasons why AI coaches are interesting
AI-powered robo coaches are having an impact. This articles notes that some people are finding being told what to do - such as on an exercise or health regime - by an AI bot is very effective. Given behaviour change to get people healthy is the holy grail in longevity, this is worth exploring.
It suggests three reasons why AI bots succeed where other ways of accessing the info - Google or your friend nagging you - may not be as effective. First, it’s convenient. It delivers just the right answers to your specific questions instantly and with (almost) no noise. Second, it’s personalized, They can tweak it the insights over time to make it more relevant. And third it is always improving - it learns constantly, it has the potential to integrate with other digital tools and it’s currently ad-free and seemingly not owned by anyone’s agenda.
Two new longevity killer apps
Looking for a present for that longevity-obsessed partner of yours? Uber doc Peter Attia’s new longevity program has just dropped. For a cool $2500, Early offers you a 12 month class that distills many of the insights from his personalized training program. But it doesn’t offer access to Peter himself, or the tests themselves. Functional medicine guru Mark Hyman has also just released a new testing product; for $500 for membership of Function, you get access to a panel of 100 + tests, analysis of them and another set after 6 months.
Brexit is making the UK poorer than Poland
This is a good summary of the mounting costs of Brexit I don’t talk much about this topic, as the multifaceted stupidity and mendacity of all those who connived to trick my home country into cutting itself off from its major trading partner and source of economic, strategic and cultural opportunities makes my blood boil.
The stats about the decline are powerful - the UK being the worst performing of the 20 largest countries, the 7% decline in incomes in the three years to 2024, and daily challenges like a shortage of fresh food. But the cherry on top is that Poland - one of the countries demonized by the right wing press for sending immigrants ‘over here’ - is now estimated to be richer than the UK by 2030.
New product claims to bust jet lag
How much would you pay to avoid jet lag? If it’s around $100 you may be interested in this new product, brought to you by the high-end personalized wellness concierge company Fount (the first three months of personalized wellness plan development costs around $12k). It has an app to manage your schedule, supplements and meal kits and blue-light glasses. Refills are available for $69. Sleep well!
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen