Science

  • Artificial Intelligence Is Great, Artificial Stupidity Is Scary

    When I first got out of Law School in the 1980s, "professionals" didn't type … that was your assistant's job (or the "typing pool," which was a real thing too).

    At that point, most people couldn't have imagined what computers and software are capable of now.  And if you tried to tell people how pervasive computers and 'typing' would be … they would have thought that you were delusional.

    My career has spanned a series of cycles where I was able to imagine what advanced tech would enable (and how businesses would have to change to best leverage those new capabilities).

    Malcolm Gladwell suggests that it takes 10,000 hours of focus and effort for someone to become an expert at something.  While that is not necessarily true or accurate, it's still a helpful heuristic.

    Today, we can do research that took humans 10,000 hours in the time it took you to read this sentence.  Moreover, technology doesn't forget what it's learned – As a result, technological memory is much better than yours or mine.  Consequently, the type and quality of decisions, inferences, and actions are better as well.  Ultimately, we will leverage the increased speed, capacity, and capabilities of autonomous platforms.  While that is easy to anticipate, the consequences of these discontinuous innovations are hard to predict.  Things often take longer to happen than you would think.  But, when they do, the consequences are often more significant and more far-reaching than anticipated.

    Still, technology isn't a cure-all.  Many people miss out on the benefits of A.I. and technology for the same reasons they didn't master the hobbies they picked up as an adolescent. 

    I shot a video discussing how to use technology to create a sustainable creative advantage.  Check it out. 

     

     

    Many people recognize a "cool" new technology (like A.I.), but they underestimate the level of commitment and effort that mastery takes. 

    When using A.I. and high-performance computing, you need to ask the same questions you ask yourself about your ultimate purpose. 

    • What's my goal?
    • What do I (or my systems) need to learn to accomplish my goal?
    • What are the best ways to achieve that goal (or something better)?

    Too many companies are focused on A.I. as if that is the goal.  A.I. is simply a tool.  As I mentioned in the video, you must define the problem the right way in order to find an optimal solution. 

    Artificial Intelligence is a game-changer – so you have to approach it as such. 

    Know your mission and your strategy, recognize what you're committing to, set it as a compass heading and make deliberate movement in that direction. 

    I end the video by saying, "Wisdom comes from making finer distinctions.  So, it is an iterative and recursive process… but it is also evolutionary.  And frankly, that is extraordinarily exciting!"

    I hope you agree.

    Onwards!

  • Compute Trends In Machine Learning

    I often talk about Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in broad strokes.  Part of that is based on me – and part of that is a result of my audience.  I tend to speak with entrepreneurs (rather than data scientists or serious techies).  So talking about training FLOPs, parameters, and the actual benchmarks of ML is probably outside of their interest range. 

    But, every once in a while, it's worth taking a look into the real tangible progress computers have been making. 

    Less Wrong put together a great dataset on the growth of machine learning systems between 1952 and 2021.  While there are many variables that are important in judging the performance and intelligence of systems, their dataset focuses on parameter count.  It does this because it's easy to find data that is also a reasonable proxy for model complexity. 

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    Giuliano Giacaglia and Less Wrong (click here for an interactive version)

    One of the simplest takeaways is that ML training compute has been doubling basically every six months since 2010.  Compared to Moore's Law, where compute power doubled every two years, we're radically eclipsing that.  Especially as we've entered a new era of technology. 

    Now, to balance this out, we have to ask the question, what actually makes AI intelligent?  Model size is important, but you also have factors like training compute and training dataset size.  You also must consider the actual results that these systems produce.  As well, model size isn't a 1-t0-1 with model complexity as architectures and domains have different inputs and needs (but can have similar sizes). 

    A few other brief takeaways are that language models have seen the most growth, while gaming models have the fewest trainable parameters.  This is somewhat counterintuitive at first glance, but makes sense as the complexity of games means that they have more constraints in other domains.  If you really get into the data, there are plenty more questions and insights to be had.  But, you can learn more from either Giancarlo or Less Wrong.

    And, a question to leave with is whether the scaling laws of machine learning will differ as deep learning become more prevalent.  Right now, model size comparisons suggest not, but there are so many other metrics to consider. 

    What do you think is going to happen?

  • The Future of Spaceflight

    When I talk about exponential technologies, I almost always end up discussing Tesla and SpaceX. 

    Elon Musk is an interesting guy.

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    Whether they end up doing everything they say they're going to, his companies massively accelerate the rate at which capabilities turn into products and platforms for future growth.

    I recently shared the Elon quote: "Stop being patient and start asking yourself, how do I accomplish my 10-year plan in 6 months?  You'll probably fail, but you'll be a lot further along than the person who simply accepted it was going to take 10 years!"

    I don't know if he really said it.  Nonetheless, it sounds like him … and I agree with the sentiment.

    The New Space Race.

    When I was young, the Space Race captured the heart and souls of Americans.  But, for the past few decades, it was in the background.  Recently, that has changed.  The space race is getting hot again.  Resources are pouring into this area, and SpaceX is leading the pack. 

    In 2018, I shared excitement that the boosters he used were reusable.  Today, people are talking about how the newest ship, Starship, could render other rocket programs obsolete. 

     

    Cost-of-space-flight-chartvia visualcapitalist

     

    While there's always room for competition, I can see many programs falling far behind if they haven't been focusing on reusability.  Assuming Starship delivers on its promises (keeping in mind that Elon is often over-confident about his timeline), it will be cheaper and more versatile than anything out there. 

    I think it's naive to assume that other companies aren't doing interesting things … but by the time they release anything comparable, it's possible that SpaceX will already dominate the market. 

    The economics of reusable rocketry isn't yet cost-effective for most potential customers, but Musk is undoubtedly moving the needle in the right direction. 

    Hopefully, he can continue to raise the expectations of both consumers and producers.  The results could be out-of-the-world.

    Right now, suborbital trips from Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin cost between 250K to 500K per trip – and trips to actual orbit cost over $50 million. 

    However, I believe the cost of space travel – and space tourism – will drop radically within my lifetime. 

    It's hard to comprehend the scale of the universe and the scale of our potential … but that's what makes it worth exploring!

    Even though we've only been talking about space travel, there are so many other exponential technologies that this applies to just as well.

    Onwards!

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – February 13th, 2021

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

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  • Functional Mapping: Nature’s Desired Path

    There's a concept in design and transportation called Desire Paths. 

    The desired path is the path that users take despite the intended path by the builder of a community or application. 

    Here's a great example. 

    6tj18p093vb81Reddit via itstartswithani

    And, here's a whole community forum focused on desire paths. 

    It's often easier to take advantage of human nature … or just nature … than fight against it. 

    To that effect, I shot a short video on how this relates to your business and tech adoption. I call it functional mapping. Check it out. 

     

    Understanding the natural path for both technology and your clients makes it easier to understand and anticipate the capabilities, constraints, and milestones that define your path forward.   That means you actually have to understand the different types of users and what they expect to do.

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    Each stage is really about the opportunity to scale desired capabilities and automation.

    It isn't really about building the technology, rather, it is about supporting the desire.

    You don’t have to get it right.  You just have to create momentum in the right direction.   Meaning, if you understand what is coming, you don't have to build it … but you should figure out where you want to build something that will move things in the right direction.

    You’ve probably heard me talk about how Capabilities become Prototypes. Then Prototypes become Products.  And, ultimately, Products become Platforms.

    This model is fractal.  That means it works on many levels of magnification or iteration.

    What first looks like a product is later seen as a prototype for something bigger.

    SpaceX's goal to get to Mars feels like their North Star right now … but once it's achieved, it becomes the foundation for new goals.

    This Framework helps you validate capabilities before sinking resources into them. 

    It helps you anticipate which potential outcomes you want to accelerate.  Rather than simply figuring out what the easiest next step is … you have to figure out which path is the best next step to your desired outcome.

    The world is changing fast! Hope you're riding the wave instead of getting caught in the riptide!

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – February 6th, 2022

    Have you paid attention at all to the Spotify controversy?

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

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  • It Isn’t Whether Tom Brady Is Retiring – It’s About When … and Why We Care?

    In 2017, I wrote an article “asking” why the Patriots were so good. Then Tom Brady left, the Patriots have suffered (somewhat), and Tom Brady won another Super Bowl with the Buccaneers. 

     

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    Now, several sports pundits are reporting that he may be retiring. Tom Brady insists that he hasn’t made a final decision yet. 

    Of course, there is the matter of the $15 Million portion of his signing bonus that becomes payable to him on Friday. That might explain the “confusion” on timing?

    Regardless, all this talk reminded me about what makes Tom Brady special. 

    There is a difference between ‘luck’ and ‘skill’.

    Both exist … yet, luck favors the prepared.

    In life, as in sports, hard work often beats talent (especially if talent fails to work hard).

    But, when you see this picture from the 2000 NFL Combine, it’s hard to believe that Tom Brady would be a 7-time Superbowl MVP taking the Buccaneers to the Super Bowl in his first year with them. All at the geriatric (for an NFL player) age of 44. 

     

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    via CBS Sports

    When I talked about the Patriots, I focused on the fact that they were a well-oiled machine with a powerful framework of success that allowed individual greatness to shine. 

    I think Brady’s continued success is emblematic of that. 

    Tom Brady is a paragon of culture, process, and hard work. Much of his approach was molded by his time with Belichick, but of course, he gets enormous personal credit as well. 

    He expects the best of himself and brings out the best in his teammates. That’s enabled him to stay a top-level competitor despite not being the strongest, fastest, or most mobile QB (and that was when he was young). 

    As well, Tom Brady is remarkably consistent and disciplined; his diet, his routine, his exercise, his film routine, etc. All NFL athletes have impressive routines for the most part, but take a look at Tom Brady’s routine. It’s a routine built for him and his needs – and he’s got it dialed in. He doesn’t need to waste time trying to get big in the gym, so he focuses on 9-key exercises to support his goals. 

    The System is the ‘system’; but, within it, you can measure what works, who contributes, and then use those insights to identify the best things to try next.

    Win, lose, or draw … some things speak for themselves. And whether he retires today, next year, or never, we don’t need to wait five years to know he’s a Hall of Fame player with an incredible career. 

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – January 30th, 2021

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

    Lighter Links:

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  • 2022 Predictions

    About a month ago, I shared visualcapitalist's 2021 predictions to check how well they fared at the end of the year. 

    Honestly, the list was pretty good. It wasn't perfect, but you wouldn't expect it to be. 

    In that article, I asked this question: 

    What's going to happen as a result of the continuing pandemic, inflation, interest rates, the ongoing supply chain issues, and the growing anxiety and unrest brewing underneath the surface of the new normal? In January, we'll get to see VC's predictions. Before that, what do you expect to happen in 2022? – How'd These 2021 Predictions Fair?

    With that, here are visualcapitalist's 2022 predictions: 

    Prediction-consensus-2022-1via visualcapitalist

    Let's be clear – most predictions are either vague and easily guessed (and therefore not helpful) or random conjecture. 

    But, there's value in prediction, and there's value in analyzing the data before you. The caveat is that prediction is better when it's applied to human nature and not the machinations of fate, and data can be a distraction if it's not being carefully curated and analyzed to remain relevant to your goals. 

    For example, I agree with their general direction for technology. Tech is continuing to grow in influence, and as Web 3.0, the blockchain, and AI mature as platforms for sub-technologies, I think their importance is only going to skyrocket. 

    Prediction can also be entertainment. I certainly catch myself looking for patterns and differentiators for everything from whether my meal is going to come to the table correctly, to who's going to win the Super Bowl. 

    I know the chances are low, but I still think it's going to be the Cowboys … 

  • How Markets Performed in 2021

    2020 was a roller coaster of volatility, and while 2021 was as well, most asset classes saw improvements as the world reopened. 

    But it wasn't all smooth sailing.  There were significant supply chain struggles and rising inflation … not to mention the rising cases of COVID. 

    Regardless, markets are not the economy, and while there are numerous factors to think about, I've always found markets interesting. 

    Maingraphic-asset-class-2021via visualcapitalist

    2021 was a year of rampant speculation, in part because so many systematic traders underperformed.  For example, Renaissance reportedly saw ~15 billion in outflows last year (despite double-digit returns) as their clients likely moved towards more "exciting" opportunities. 

    Of course, some of those "exciting" opportunities were cryptocurrency-related.  Moreover, chasing performance like that is often mean-reverting.  Yet, I've seen a massive increase in interest among various business groups in crypto, Web 3.0, and the Blockchain. 

    Cryptocurrencies

    While crypto generally performed well in 2021, 2022 has seen a drop that erased over $1 trillion in value. 

    Crypto-Performed-in-2021_03via visualcapitalist

    The reality is that crypto markets matured a lot in 2021.  The thousands of coins are mostly a distraction, but there are many interesting coins from various sectors with interesting technology behind them.  There is increased infrastructure and decreased correlation between coins.  Unfortunately, not enough to keep this drop from affecting the whole space. 

    So the question is, is this a "discount" for people to buy into the space, or a sign of future troubles?

    It's no secret that I've always been a fan of Blockchain but cautious of cryptocurrencies. 

    I think there is a lot of money to be made speculating in cryptocurrencies, but how much of that money being made is attributed to luck vs. skill?

    Crypto's are interesting, in part, because they're a digital currency decentralized over a peer-to-peer network.

    The more people are willing to accept it as a medium of exchange, the more valuable it becomes (and the more it becomes a stable store of value).

    Supposedly, decentralization provides it safety from censorship and government interference – meaning it has value as an international currency and as a currency for black-market transactions.  But, in my opinion, that remains to be seen (and I consider it unlikely for most cryptocurrencies).

    However, the worth of a Bitcoin isn't just based on sentiment (on one hand, there are desires to avoid fiat currency vagaries, government interventions, and scrutiny, while having a fair price discovery method, etc.  … on the other hand, there are also the costs to mine a Bitcoin, transaction fees, etc. and crypto has recently been under fire for its huge environmental impact).

    Compared to a reserve currency – whose worth is primarily influenced by trade value and other macroeconomic factors – watching crypto's volatility can be scary. 

    That being said, as adoption increases and more businesses enable it, it's possible that it will continue to legitimize.  For the time being, I remain a long-term skeptic because there is too much working against it. 

    Many of my initial complaints are centered on coins as currency.  I get that there are already many interesting uses of Blockchain that will also help to bring credibility to coins as a store of value. 

    The question for me is, even if cryptocurrency is here to stay long-term (and avoids government control), which coins will it be?  Do they even exist today?

    I'm positive there is money to be made related to the Blockchain, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies.  But, at this point, it's a speculators game, and I think the best way to capitalize on this trend sustainably is to sell picks and shovels for the gold rush, instead of trying to stumble upon gold.