We're in the midst of a revolution, and no, I don't mean a political one.
Artificial Intelligence has been around since the 1950's. But, we are at an inflection point. It is no longer an "if" … it is a "when". And the answer is probably "Now!"
AI technologies are expanding into broad and diverse markets.
Artificial Intelligence is no longer seen as a massive R&D effort – it is becoming a core competency.
Here is a chart showing AI adoption in various industries. (replace image with non-blurry one)
While AI is promising on many fronts, this "revolution" elicits fear from many.
For example, Elon Musk told the National Governors Association that the risks posed by A.I. are so great that it needs to be proactively regulated before it's too late.
What about you? Are you afraid of Skynet turning on, becoming self-aware and setting out to destroy the human race.? Or, are you looking to benefit from the new capabilities and possibilities AI creates for us?
In Part 2, I talked about normalizing your habits and picking consistent, normalized metrics. This doesn't just work at the gym; it applies to life and business as well.
Today, I want to explain how and why this helps. To do so, we will talk about controlling your arousal states.
Chemically, most arousal states are the same. Meaning, the same hormones and neurotransmitters that make you feel fear also can make you feel excited. They affect your heart rate, respiration, etc. … Though, the outside stimuli you experience likely determines how you interpret what is happening.
In most situations, a heart rate of 170 beats per minute is an indicator of extreme danger (or an impending toe-tag). If I felt my heart racing like that in a meeting, it might trigger a fight or flight instinct. I prefer conscious and controlled responses. So, I train myself to recognize what I can control and to respond accordingly.
One way I do that is by being mindful of heart rate zones during exercise.
My goal is to get as close to 170 bpm as I can, then stay in that peak zone for as long as possible.
Here is a chart showing a Fitbit readout of a recent exercise session.
As you can see, every time I reach my limit … I get my heart rate back down. It becomes a conscious and controlled learned behavior.
It's a form of biofeedback; it's not only gotten me better at controlling what happens after my heartrate reaches 170 but at identifying when I'm close even without a monitor.
Now, when my heart rate is at 170 bpm(regardless of the situation), I don't feel anxious … I think about what I want to do.
This is a very useful tool.
It's the same with trading … Does a loss or error harsh your mellow – or is it a trigger to do what you are supposed to do.
Getting used to normalized risk creates opportunity.
When you are comfortable operating at a pace, or in an environment, that others find difficult – you have a profound advantage and edge.
Even if I'm not an expert in a field, based on context and patterns, I quickly see the big picture – and recognize the bottlenecks and leverage points that impact transformative results.
A scrambled cube presents an insurmountable challenge to newbies. It almost seems that there are infinite possibilities … and most lead towards chaos and failure. In reality, a Rubik's cube is pretty easy to solve if you understand a few simple algorithms (and match the positions of a couple key blocks in relation to the decisions you need to make next).
As more people learn to solve standard cubes, the game evolves. There is new generation of "Cubers" that attempt to find new creative situations to add difficulty, solve it faster than the next person, or try crazy variations of the cube that barely resembles the original.
Do you remember seeing a video of one of those old "exercise machines" that vibrated a belt around somebody's middle? While that might have been a fad, we now know that was not exercising.
Strangely, there is now something similar that is gaining in popularity and actually seems to work quite well. It's called the Power Plate.
This machine uses something called whole body vibration, a technology developed by Russia to use in its space program to combat the affects of zero gravity. Later, they used this technology to help train athletes; and you've seen variations of this in training methods like plyometrics.
Here is a picture of the Power Plate my5.
They claim that 15 minutes on this machine is the equivalent of about an hour at the gym. So how does it work? Well, as long as you understand that you have to exert some effort, the Power Plate works much better than I would've guessed.
At its simplest level, the machine vibrates 40 times per second. The movements happen in three different planes: front-to-back, side-to-side, and up-and-down. The movements are small enough, and happen so quickly, that they are rarely visible to the naked eye. Nonetheless, your body certainly feels them.
The Power Plate is a little bit larger than your typical doctor's scale. You stand on its platform while performing various movements or stretches. For example, imagine doing a deep knee bend and holding that position when your thighs are parallel to the ground (basically a half squat). As you hold this position, normally, your thigh muscles would get a decent isometric exercise – and you can probably imagine them burning a little. Now imagine what would happen if, as you are performing that exercise, the platform vibrated 40 times per second. Think how many more muscles you would engage. Think how much better this would be as a core stability exercise.
The Power Plate is designed to support a wide range of exercises for all of your main muscle groups – and comes with various accessories, like straps and mats. I found that many of the exercises I enjoy most are movements that my wife says are similar to yoga positions. I try not to let that discourage me from doing them.
The machine gets used every day. My wife and son like it too. It is exercise, and it does take work. With that said, it has had a noticeable effect on my strength, flexibility and my ability to do traditional workouts at the gym.
Have you ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse? On top of an endless supply of meat, they also have a unique "churrasco" cooking and presentation style.
Blake saw that style of cooking – and innovated it – creating the Carson Rodizio kit (which started as a Kickstarter project). It is a multi-rotisserie rack that converts your favorite backyard grill into an open and spinning Brazilian style Steakhouse. It's clever, functional, and cool … and it's been used to win multiple barbecue championships.
I love to experience an entrepreneur's mind at work.
It's not always about what you add. Sometimes, it is about what you take away. Less is often more.
I don't know if you've ever tried to paint a room – but if you have, I'm sure you've come across some bizarre paint names.
How does that relate to AI?
Well, Janelle Shane is a research scientist, and neural network aficionado – as any good data scientist should, she spends a lot of her free time playing with neural networks (… to varying results).
Recently, she attempted to train an algorithm (specifically char-rnn, a neural network that attempts to anticipate the next character in a sequence) to create new paint colors and accompanying names.
McKinsey Global Institute via Vox
