Ai

Super Humans and Super AI I had an issue with my buttondown newsletter. I wrote to support. Got an automated reply telling me they got my mail, they are looking into the issue but since they only have limited staff, working in a US time zone, it might take a bit for a proper reply. Within 1 hour, Steph is in my inbox, kindly explaining the issue and how they would resolve it. I said thank you for the quick answer Steph and for being a kind human Steph and Steph said no problem arjen, we don’t like talking to chatbots, and we don’t want to make you all deal with them either. <3 (<- I got that one from the emoji museum). ...

Conference time. Two conferences, serendipity, long form essays, the future. I didn’t go to a lot of conferences the past few years. Let alone speak at conferences. But then I got invited to speak at 2 conferences last spring. Many good things came from both. I made a lot of notes but reviewing them I realised they don’t make much of a coherent story. But who needs coherence? Instead I present you observations, impressions and random thoughts. ...

Today, I wrote nothing. ¯(°_o)/¯ The asymetric nature of change: Humans change slow The machine changes fast “The machine” as systems of power (politics, technology, institutions, finance). They are self-reinforcing, self-interested, and largely autonomous from the individuals inside them. A banker, a politician, a programmer; each feels like they are making choices. But the system they inhabit has its own logic, its own momentum. The machine moves, whether or not any individual wills it. ...

Scanning the surface. A preview edition. More to come. Always. There’s always more to come. And always later. Interesting stuff 1 I got an email from one of our IT service suppliers about how they joined another company for scale and efficiency reasons and how they made some changes in management. So far so good. So far all generic text and reassuring language. “Nothing will change for you”, “you can be sure you receive the quality you deserve” or something along those lines. ...

Short one. Gary doesn’t like Yann AI flame war, Gary Marcus puts Yann Lecun’s fame in perspective. An evening stroll I was walking my dog the other day when we ran into the sphinx “Good morning sphinx”, I said The sphinx said nothing “How was your weekend sphinx?”, I tried The sphinx stared into the distance My dog came up carrying a note in his mouth I deciphered the note: “The net serves to catch the fish; once the fish is caught, the net must be forgotten. The snare serves to catch the rabbit. Once the rabbit is caught, the snare is forgotten. Words serve to catch meaning; once the meaning has been caught, the words can be forgotten. If only I could find someone who has forgotten the words, someone I could talk to for a while.”[1] ...