Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - December 8th, 2019

For a candidate with an "age" issue, not sure if this was a smart move ...

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Don't Apologize for Having High Standards. (LinkedIn)
• Automation is Not Intelligence. (Forbes)
• How to Talk to Aliens. (Economist)
• 52 Things I Learned in 2019. (Medium)
• McLaren Unveils $1.7 Million Supercar with No Roof and a Windshield Made of Air. (CNN)

 

Trading Links:

• When to Buy into Aramco. (Wall Street Journal)
• How Spices Have Made, and Unmade, Empires. (New York Times)
• The First New US Airport since 2010 is in North Dakota's Oil Country. (TPG)
• This Widening Crack in the Mortgage Market Could Sink U.S. Home Prices. (MarketWatch)
• One Man's Quest to Challenge Wall Street With a New Silicon Valley Stock Exchange. (Telegraph)

Is WiFi Becoming Part of Our Hierarchy of Needs?

My wife's mother and sister were staying with us last week.  We also had two other house guests.  And our Internet service went out.  Not just momentarily, but for days.  Catastrophe!

Is Internet access becoming one of our basic human needs?

In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow published his famous “Hierarchy of Needs”. The idea was simple: the essential survival needs in the lowest level of the pyramid must be satisfied before the individual can turn his or her attention to the next level, and so on. Maslow’s “essential needs” are physiological; food, water, shelter, and physical safety.

Today, as we approach the 2020s, perhaps we need to add one more layer to Maslow’s pyramid: WiFi.

 

 

OK, humans probably don’t really need WiFi more than food, but without it, we feel frustrated and "twitchy". 

My solution: dual providers and a fail-over router.  

On a higher level, is Internet access a "basic human right" that should be handled like the New Deal treated electricity at the beginning of the 20th Century?

Expect to hear more about this (and not just because Bernie Sanders made it a campaign issue).

What Do You Do When AI Beats You?

When Beethoven was at the peak of his career, several of his contemporaries struggled to deal with the realization that they may never create anything that lived up to his creations. Brahms, for example, refused to make a symphony for 21 years. Schubert is quoted as saying, "Who can ever do anything after Beethoven?"

We're apparently seeing the same effect via Artificial Intelligence. 

When it comes to popular AI, not much surpasses the popularity of AI's growing chokehold on gaming. Recently, I've shared about AI winning at video games,  but in 2016 I shared about humans losing to AI in Go for the first time. 

What it is:  A computer has just beaten the world's best Go player. AlphaGo, a program created by Google-owned AI company DeepMind, beat European Go champ Fan Hui all five times they played in tournament conditions, and also won 99.8% of Go games against other computer programs. Unlike IBM's Deep Blue, which defeated chess champ Garry Kasparov, AlphaGo wasn't programmed to play Go. Instead, as Nature reports, it learned how to play via a general-purpose algorithm that interpreted the game's patterns.

Why it's important:  AlphaGo's learning technique means it can recognize complex patterns, long-term planning and decision-making: refined skills that were once stricly human in nature. Imagine the possibilities when neural networks like AlphaGo, infinite computing and the 'Internet of Everything' converge.

via - Google AI Algorithm Masters Ancient Game Of Go - February 2016

This week, a former Go champion who was beaten by DeepMind retired after "declaring AI invincible." 

Lee Se-dol quit for a couple of reasons. According to him, even if he's the #1 human, there's an undefeatable entity above him and he felt he had failed his country by losing to the AI. It's an unfair fight - AI plays untold millions of games to learn to play better and it doesn't get tired, bored, sick, distracted.  - we can't do that.

Much like Beethoven, AI is discouraging competition. 

Was Lee wrong to quit? It's hard to say, but as AI gets better at more activities, it's an issue we're going to see more often. There's always someone (or something) better - and a purely utilitarian approach isn't necessary or productive. 

I'm an advocate of intelligently adopting AI, and a believer that the scale of AI's "wins" is going to skyrocket - but I'm also a believer in the idea that "the game isn't over until I win". If I enjoy something, I'm not going to let 2^nd place stop me. 

 

 

The passionate pursuit of a goal is valuable regardless of the result, and bettering yourself at a skill - like Go - may not be a sustainable job, but it can still make a great hobby. 

AI is coming - but it doesn't have to be joy-sucking. 

Onwards! 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - December 1st, 2019

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is Changing Medicine. (NewsNetwork)
• The Lines of Code that Changed Everything. (Slate)
• Why All Birds CEO Just Asked Amazon to Steal Its Idea. (Inc)
• Storytelling is a Powerful Communication Tool Here's How to Use It, from TED. (Ideas)
• 3,000-Year-Old Tablet Describing Babylonian Noah's Ark Tale Could Be 'Earliest Ever Example of Fake News,' Scholar Says. (FoxNews)

 

Trading Links:

• Eyeing Presidential Bid, Michael Bloomberg Makes Big Television-Ad Buys. (Wall Street Journal)
• This Invisible Company Powers Almost the Entire Finance Industry. (Forbes)
• Malls are Dying. the Thriving Ones are Spending Millions to Reinvent Themselves. (Washington Post)
• These Maps Show How Many People Will Lose Their Homes to Rising Seas – And It's Worse Than We Thought. (Popular Science)
• Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Ray Dalio Says the Economy Isn't Growing Because 'The World Has Gone Mad'. (CNBC)

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

My children came to town, and we continued our tradition of going to the game as a family, and then having a family dinner afterward. This year, my wife's family joined us as well. The more the merrier! 

 

Thanksgiving is a reminder to be grateful for the blessings in your life - big and small. But it's also a time to be thankful for the challenges in your life - the opportunities for growth.

Many times, when I think about what I want, the first thing I think of is what I don't want. Similarly, when I think about what's going well (or something worthy of being thankful for), I first think about what has been difficult or isn't yet to the standard I hoped for.

Challenges are often hidden gold mines. Instead of thinking about them being obstacles for you, recognize that getting past them creates an obstacle for competitors. In other words, figuring out a strategy to achieve these lofty goals creates a new status quo and a sustainable competitive advantage.

At Capitalogix, we often talk about "finding a way," "creating breakthroughs," and "setting new standards."  The reason is that most things an innovator wants are just outside their current capabilities (otherwise they'd already have them).  

Dealing with this on a daily basis requires a resilient mindset and the ability to be comfortable being uncomfortable. 

Having no problems either means you're blind to your flaws, or you aren't playing a big enough game (which is a problem in itself). 

I am thankful to face a continually better class of challenges that forge a path to a bigger future.

Happy Thanksgiving!