Recent posts – dr.Pep

The world is still on course for achieving the singularity -and nanobot in your bloodstream – in the 2030s.

Ray Kurzweil – The singularity is nearer

The book feels as if it is written for a different age than the current one in which the most relevant challenges in AI are not about the theoretical fronteir but about real-world implementation.

In a region where Russia may want to regain influence over lost territory, the need for good old, Cold War-style, deterrence is raising for small countries that want to keep their independence and a NATO alliance that wants to be taken seriously.

Oliver Moody – Baltic, the future of Europe

The conscientious exploration of different viewpoints sometimes makes for slow reading, but leads to a comprehensive and surprisingly nuanced book.

Autocracy has become a team sport in which autocrats team-up with kleptocratic financiers, tech surveillance providers, and each other to bring liberal democracy to its knees

Anne Applebaum – Autocracy Inc.

Unfortunately, the strongly opiniated perspectives of the authortake away some of the power of the solid analyses.

Love should instill caring, compassion, and strength in all aspects of our lives

All about love – Bell Hooks

What starts with an analytical exploration of the meaning of love branches out into a series of sermons on different aspects of the topic.

From an agent perspective, ‘explore’ often trumps ‘exploit’ because they can choose their own adventure.

Range – David Epstein

The book relies too much on anecdotes to get its point across, taking the typical Mlcolm Gladwell approach to its extreme.

Conscious realism posits a locally consistent perspective on the world, working from the premise that our mind creates a simulation to make fitness predictions.

Donald D. Hoffman – The case against reality

I love the attempt to give mathematical grounding to philosophical ideas; and would be curious how explicit the connection with sheaves and topos theory can be made.

Piet van Eeghen was a leading force behind major private initiatives in 19th century Amsterdam, resulting in the creation of a.o. the Prinsengrachtziekenhuis, the Vondelpark, and the Rijksmuseum.

Laura van Hasselt – Geld, geloof, en goede vrienden (in Dutch)

An in-depth economic analysis of the business dealings and charitable causes of Van Eeghen and the way they were intertwined would have created a more complete picture.

Facebook leadership does not care about employees or humanity, but only about market power and profit.

Sarah Wynn-Williams – Careless people

To make the central thesis compelling, it would have been better to split the book in two: one on Facebook’s policy choices and one on how it treats its employees.

Shipwrecks are time capsules that provide a fascinating and dramatic window on the past that makes maritime archeology unique

David Gibbins – A history of the world in twelve shipwrecks

In particular, the retracing connections and trade routes in prehistoric times through chemical analysis is impressive.

The combined innovations in politics, warfare, religion, and finance around the turn of the 16th century laid the foundation for developments that would shape Europe for centuries to come.

Patrick Wyman – The verge

The personal stories of individual actors are a bit over-done, but fascinating references to original sources ensure the whole is sufficiently balanced.

The phone-based childhood lies at the basis of many societal issues

Jonathan Haidt – The anxious generation

Refreshingly opinionated.

Only preciously few companies have achieved the holy grail of continual learning… yet

Chip Huyen – Designing Machine Learning Systems

The book touches upon a refreshingly broad range of relatable challenges that are illustrated with practical examples.

The CDO should be the Switzerland between Business and IT

Martin Treder – The Chief Data Officer Manaegment Handbook

A solid run through the basic that manages to touch on a surprisingly high number of recognizable concrete examples.

Set your own standards and use the power of commitments to raise the bar

Jason Jaggard – Beyong high performance

The shameless pursuit of excellence is inspiring.

“It is essential to understand the underpinnings of the technology so you have an intuition for how the industry is going to change” – Jensen Huang

Tae Kim – The NVIDIA way

A juicy founder story if there ever was one.

The failure to recognize the implicit philosophical hypotheses underlying a naive scientific triumphalism can be harmful for humanity and the planet

Adam Frank – The blind spot

Delightfully broad perspective, although with a far too anthropocentric perspective on intelligence and consciousness.