I think about investments a lot ... that makes sense given my profession.
Yet, as my kids get older, there is an investment I made that paid-off in a big way ... and I want to share it with you.
Like many parents, I wanted to teach my children that, to a large extent, they control what happens to them. One of the first ways I did that was to set up a "compensation system" for them to earn video games.
Some parents try to limit the amount of time their kids spend watching TV or playing video games. I tried something different. Instead, my kids earned their games by reading books. Here is a photo from way back then.
Paid With Play.
Here's how it worked. When they were younger, 10 books was enough to earn a small game. When they finished a book, it was their right, and my obligation, to take them to the bookstore for us to pick up the next book together. Likewise, when they finished the requisite number of books, it was their right, and my obligation, to take them to the computer store or game store for them to choose any game they wanted.
When they finished a hundred books, they got a bonus of earning the next game system. That meant if they had a Nintendo, they could now also get a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.
How Can You Encourage a Jump to the Next Level?
There came a point when I wanted one of my sons to start reading grown-up books. He was comfortable reading a certain type of book, and didn't want to read the kind of books that I read. So, I created a bonus system that counted a particular book as three books. I didn't force him; I just let the easier path to a reward "whisper" in his ear what to read. Once he finished that, he never went back to teen fiction.
It Is a Great Way to Learn About Your Kids.
I also used the bookstore visits to get a sense of how the boys were doing. For example, I might say "I notice that you read five books in that series, maybe you'd like this book". Or, "That sure is a lot of science fiction; what was the last biography you read?" For the most part, though, I didn't care what they read. The key was to get them to want to choose certain books for their own reasons. Ultimately, their preference meant they were learning to love reading.
It Puts Them In Control of Their Destiny and Rewards.
My younger son likes competition. He also broke or misplaced many things. So, in order to earn back the Game Boy unit that he lost, I challenged him to read five books in five days. These weren't easy books either. It was designed to stretch him, and also to teach him that he could read a book a night. The bet was that he either finished all the books in the allocated time, or none of them counted towards games or Game Boys. On the other hand, if he read a book a night for two weeks, not only would he get to have his Game Boy back, the books would count towards a game too. It worked like a charm, and we were both happy.
So, Who Got the Better Bargain?
As they started to get into their teenage years, I needed to up the ante a little. So, 500 books meant they got a laptop of their choice. Both boys cashed in ... and probably felt like they were taking advantage of their dad.
I got what I wanted, though; both my boys love reading. And know that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to … one step at a time.
That's an investment that pays dividends for a long time.
GPT-3: Boom or Bust?
GPT-3 was released by OpenAI in 2020 - and was considered by many a huge jump in natural language processing.
GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. It uses deep learning to generate text responses based on an input text. Even more simply, it's a bot that creates a quality of text so high that it can be difficult to tell whether it's written by a human or an AI.
GPT-3 is 100x bigger than any previous language AI model and comes pre-trained on 45TB of training text (499 billion words). It cost at least 4.6 million US dollars (some estimated as high as $12 million) to train on GPUs. The resulting model has 175 billion parameters. On top of that, it can be tuned to your specific use after the fact.
via Towards Data Science
Here are some interesting GPT-3 based tools:
Practically, GPT-3 was a huge milestone. It represents a huge jump in NLP's capabilities and a massive increase in scale. That being said, there was a frenzy in the community that may not match the results. To the general public, it felt like a discontinuity; like a big jump toward general intelligence.
To me, and to others I know in the space, GPT-3 represents a preview of what's to come. It's a reminder that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is coming and that we need to be thinking about the rules of engagement and ethics of AI before we get there.
Especially with Musk unveiling his intention to build 'friendly' robots this week.
On the scale of AI's potential, GPT-3 was a relatively small step. It's profoundly intelligent in many ways - but it's also inconsistent and not cognitively concrete enough.
Take it from me, the fact that an algorithm can do something amazing isn't surprising to me anymore ... but neither is the fact that an amazing algorithm can do stupid things more often than you'd suspect. It is all part of the promise and the peril of exponential technologies.
It's hard to measure the intelligence of tools like this because metrics like IQ don't work. Really it comes down to utility. Does it help you do things more efficiently, more effectively, or with more certainty?
For the most part, these tools are early. They show great promise, and they do a small subset set of things surprisingly well. If I think about them simply as a tool, a backstop, or a catalyst to get me moving when I'm stuck ... the current set of tools is exciting. On the other hand, if you compare current tools to your fantasy of artificial general intelligence, there are a lot of things to be improved upon.
Clearly, we are making progress. Soon, GPT-4 will take us further. In the meantime, enjoy the progress and imagine what you will do with the capabilities, prototypes, products, and platforms you predict will exist for you soon.
Onwards.
Posted at 08:13 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Gadgets, Ideas, Market Commentary, Science, Trading Tools, Web/Tech, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)
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