Most people believe that doing things should be as easy as possible. Suppose you wanted to listen to some music. You could either: Go to a store, browse through a catalog of physical CDs. Purchase an album which costs about 20 dollars. Then put the CD into your player. Sit down and listen to the music. When you wanted to skip to a different album or artist, you’d have to stand up walk over press eject then replace the CD in its old case....
I’ve been thinking about creativity lately and I found that there is a Wall standing within each one of us. Before I get to The Wall, let me set some background. When we take a break from doing things our mind does not rest. In fact, it becomes highly active, searching for the next thing to do. This manifests in a growing restlessness that feels uneasy the longer we sit still....
This article has been updated. It was originally published on November 23rd, 2023. 1. Outsourcing Human Capabilities In Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows, he advances the idea that modern technologies like the internet, hard drives, and other software innovations can negatively impact natural human abilities. To motivate this view to those who haven’t read his book I will sketch out a general form of his argument. Then I will show a particular cases as examples to help align our intuitions....
Recommendation Algorithms determine what content we see next on many social media platforms. These algorithms have risen to take the place of the previous method, where posts were sorted by newest to oldest. Algorithmic sorting prevades nearly all our social media apps. Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, X, and even LinkedIn, have all transistioned over to this new “For You” type experience. Not by mistake, social media companies adopt recommendation algorithms because of how effective they are at keeping users on app....
An Example (Recall): You are at a bar with some friends. You are talking about movies and you’re trying to remember that one movie from the 1960s about a court case. You feel like you really know it, but you just can’t find it in your head. You are also struggling to recall characters and other ways to signal to others what movie you are seaching for. You snap your fingers, look up the the ceiling, let out some “umms and ahhs” as you feel yourself getting frustrated....
Some Background Large Language Models like ChatGPT, Claude and Google Bard share a common persona, that of an AI Assistant. They all act as friendly, helpful, sensitive, human aligned chatbots. Let’s prompt two AI chat applications to ask who they are. You’ll see we get surprisingly similar responses. ChatGPT 3.5’s purpose is to assist with a wide range of tasks Anthropic Claude is an assistant that is helpful harmless and honest...
Correct vs. True? What is the difference between something correct and something true? Is correctness the same as truthfulness? In other words, are all instances of correctness identical with truthfulness? Correctness-Truth Alignment For a Proposition P, where P is correct, P must also be true At first glance, it seems like they must be. For example, consider a math test. On the test, if you solve an equation, you will be marked as correct....
The world is made of events and like any assortment of data points there can be patterns found. With these patterns we tend to find the story which underlies them, which makes sense of them. These patterns often help us predict the future, solve problems, and are sometimes just pleasing see. What can a deep dive on the concept of patterns reveal about their nature? 1. What is the form of a pattern?...