ai

Software systems exhibit a peculiar property: the more sophisticated they become, the more they tend toward catastrophic rather than graceful failure. This pattern isn’t unique to software - it’s characteristic of all complex systems, from neural networks to financial markets. But software’s rapid evolution and ubiquity makes it a particularly interesting case study. A complex system isn’t merely complicated. Rather, it possesses specific properties that make its behavior fundamentally unpredictable:...

Nvidia is one of the largest companies in the world, frequently taking the top spot. It’s revenue is growing at an astonishing rate, with margins better than a lot of pure software businesses - something usually unheard of for hardware companies. All of this is on the back of a massive AI hype cycle. During a gold rush, you should sell picks and shovels. Nvidia is selling bulldozers. In this post, I will dive into the components of Nvidia’s competitive moat, its strengths and weaknesses, and the competitors trying to cross it....

We’ve lived with like ChatGPT for over a year now. Last year seemed to be the height of the hype cycle, at least for me. It felt like everyone, from friends to Uber drivers, was excitedly discussing the potential of this groundbreaking technology. However, as often happens with new technological advancements, the initial excitement has dimmed somewhat when faced with the reality of day-to-day use. The trough of disillusionment is real....

“The Coming Wave” explores the advantages and risks associated with a surge of emerging technologies. Authored by Mustafa Suleyman, a British artificial intelligence researcher and co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI, the book extends beyond just AI. It delves into the merits and drawbacks of other developing technologies, such as quantum computing and synthetic biology. In the initial sections of the book, the author paints a picture of the potential benefits of these emerging technologies, reading like utopian science fiction....

Melanie Michell is an AI researcher and professor at the Santa Fe Institute. In her book “Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans,” she seeks to make artificial intelligence understandable for laypeople, and for the most part, achieves that goal. She begins by discussing the history of artificial intelligence, starting from the “perceptron” and working up to deep learning for natural language. Michell explains each concept in concrete terms and apt metaphors, with minimal technical jargon and math....