Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer – No Rules Rules
Pretty strong boundary conditions need to be fulfilled in order for this scheme to work; including broad acceptance of a high level of interpersonal ruthlessness.
Recent posts
There are a huge number of ways in which Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) can take over the world, rendering humanity essentially useless
Nov. 2017: Interesting exploration of the implications of AGI, faulted by the typical preference of Analytical Philosophy for construction of intricate, highly theoretical scenario’s, under-emphasizing basic challenges (in the case of AGI: lack of robustness / antifragility).
Jun. 2023: The writer has leveraged the recent rise of LLMs like ChatGPT to further fuel fear about an AGI break-out – even though other AI-related risks require more imminent attention.
When you push the laws of physics to their extremes, weird things can – and will – happen
Katie Mack – The end of everything
Highly entertaining take on building a rudimentary astrophysics.
When it comes to regulating AI, I root for the bureaucrats
Following the launch of GPT-4, the silicon valley elite started hyping the AI-scare in an open letter.
The progress in LLMs and similar generative AI models is impressive and will have major impact on both society and the enterprise. But fearmongering is totally unhelpful and obscures the real issues.
Rather than naively stopping AI-development, society should focus on two more specific topics that are under-emphasized in the recent public debate:
- What data to train on? Current models aim to train on, roughly, ‘the totality of the internet’. Which already leads it interesting legal challenges about copyright infringement and ownership
- What applications to pursue? The current generation of AI can do amazing party tricks and can lead to major efficiency improvements. But it can also be used for deception and has has severe limitations and biases.
The key question to address: “How can we use existing legislation to protect society from misuse of AI and what additional legislation is needed?” Sounds less lofty that what the open letter calls for, but is much more constructive. Moreover, this perspective calls into question not just new AI models ‘more powerful than GPT-4’, but also existing models and the governance applied to them.
Already far before the recent open letter was written, the EU published the AI Act to address AI-related risks. Brought to you by the same institution that forced Apple to adopt compatible charging cables. It’s not perfect. It’s not complete. But it is a good start. It would have been so nice if the writers of the open letter had give credit where it is due.
When it comes to protecting my rights, security, and safety as a citizen; I put much more trust in EU bureaucrats than in the silicon valley echo-chamber that tends to over-index on libertarianism and techno-utopianism.
Over her impressive and long career, Agatha Christie evolved from an ground-breaking writer into a global brand
Lucy Worsely – Agatha Christie
The book over-indexes a bit on the domestic context, which does not help in de-mystifying the genius of its subject.
Neuroscience increasingly provides evidence how the Arts influence psychology and social behavior
Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross – Your brain on art
Interesting to read how advances in brain science lead to confirmation of intuitive but traditionally hard-to-prove hypotheses.
Crowd-sourced analysis of publicly available data can be a powerful tool in exposing lies, as is proved by an impressive track record of impactful scoops.
Eliot Higgins – We are Bellingcat
The book raises the question what happens if online sleuth methods are applied for profit maximization rather than for truth seeking.
If you update the brain-in-a-vat argument to the current state of technology, it reads: ‘We cannot prove that we are not in a simulation.’
The vocabulary of ‘sims’, and ‘VR’ makes for entertaining examples of traditional philosophical concepts; but the author’s core arguments about simulation and physical reality seem to implicitly assume a suspicious form of Cartesian dualism.
Contrarian thinking is a powerful weapon, if combined with genuine curiosity and a deep respect for facts and data
Richard Feyneman – Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman
Not all anecdotes have aged well but there are enough gems to make the book worthwhile.
The success of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics is an excellent example of how accidental biases affect scientific progress
A well-written account of the history of quantum physics in the wake of the Bohr v. Einstein controversy.
Structural shifts in energy production and usage (especially shale oil and EVs) have fundamentally affected the global power balance
The ‘it is all about oil’ narrative of international politics over the last 20 years made explicit is a comprehensive yet digestible form.
Metaphysical theories are constraint by the scientific knowledge, but plenty degrees of freedom remain for those in search (or need) of meaning
Sabine Hossenfelder – Existential Physics
Elegant combination of depth, playful curiosity and humbleness.
From its earliest origins math has been seen both as an formalization of divine perfection and as an effective, practical tool for solving real-world problems
Paolo Zellini – The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men
Guided tour through the philosophy of mathematics, seldomly deviating from the expected and missing in-depth reflection on the role of data science in this regard.
Africa and Africans have never been taken seriously by the Western world, simplifying the story of the continent to ‘famine and safaris’
Dipo Faloyin – Africa is not a country
Well known story told in a fresh style, which unfortunately still serves a purpose.
The lack quality control on generic drugs opened the door to fraud and deceit, endangering health and lives of the world’s poor
Katherine Eban – Bottle of lies
Impressive and concerning whistleblower story illustrating the subtleties in developing and producing effective generic drugs.
When managing your enterprise data, you should aim for a flexible, loosely coupled architecture that can handle large-scale batch and streaming data as well as APIs
Piethein Strengholt – Data management at scale
Thorough expose that goes through a lot, over-indexing on the architecture side.
Mixed flour sourdough bread
Ingredients
- 500g white flour
- 300g wholewheat flour
- 100g rye flour
- 300g starter (120% hydration, activated)
- 500g water
- 18g salt
Method
- Mix flours and water
- Leave for 30 mins
- Add starter and salt
- Knead. In my BOSCH 1600W MaxxiMUM machine c. 9 mins:
- c.5 mins slow (“speed 1”)
- c. 4 mins fast (“speed 3”)
- Let the dough rise for c. 8 hrs
- Shape (I shape 2 batons from this amounts)
- Let rise for another 90 minutes- 2 hours
- Bake in pre-heated oven at 230C for 45 minutes, with cup of water at the bottom and extra moisture from the plant sprayer
- First 15 mins: put the baking sheet with the bread on the low oven rack, with another baking sheet on top
- After that, remove the top baking sheet and move the bread to middle rack for the final 30 minutes
Inspired by Das Brot
- I use a bit more wholewheat compared to Das Brot.
To succeed in business: conform to reality, be cunning, but stick with whatever moral compass you have
Robert Ringer – Million dollar habits
Life advice packaged as ‘business zen’ but lacking elementary kindness towards others and ‘borrowing’ its title from the more well known Bryan Tracy book.
Since the invention of the micro processor, chip production has become of imminent strategic importance for both the USA and other geopolitical power blocks
Nice historical overview, very topical in an era where technology significantly affects the Ukraine war and the power play between the USA and China around Taiwan.
Sourdough pita from the BBQ
Ingredients
- 500 gr plain white flour
- 175 gr plain yogurt
- 12 gr salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 100 gr sourdough starter (120% hydration, activated)
Method
- Mix the dry ingredients
- Knead for c 5 mins
- Rise for 6-8 hours
- Bake on BBQ of c. 200-230 C
- Oil your grid to avoid dough sticking
- Monitor progress closely to avoid blackening
My twist v the original:
- Use sourdough instead of commercial yeast
- Longer rise to compensate