Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my current or any previous employer. This blog may also contain links to other websites or resources. I am not responsible for the content on those external sites or any changes that may occur after the publication of my posts.
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A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.
-J. R. R. Tolkien
AIML
The Subprime AI Crisis- GenAI can be transformative and a giant bubble
Scaling: The State of Play in AI-
“Now feels like a good time to lay out where we are with AI, and what might come next.”
“The existence of two scaling laws - one for training and another for "thinking" - suggests that AI capabilities are poised for dramatic improvements in the coming years. “
Microsoft wants Three Mile Island to fuel its AI power needs- Wow
“Microsoft just signed a deal to revive the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. If approved by regulators, the software maker would have exclusive rights to 100 percent of the output for its AI data center needs.”
Anthropic: Introducing Contextual Retrieval- I don’t know whether it’s their marketing or eagerness/willingness to share research and appear more transparent, but Anthropic is the anti-OpenAI:
“The method is called “Contextual Retrieval” and uses two sub-techniques: Contextual Embeddings and Contextual BM25. This method can reduce the number of failed retrievals by 49% and, when combined with reranking, by 67%. “
“ If your knowledge base is smaller than 200,000 tokens (about 500 pages of material), you can just include the entire knowledge base in the prompt that you give the model, with no need for RAG or similar methods.”
Forget ChatGPT: why researchers now run small AIs on their laptops-
“If an audit were to happen and you show them you’re using ChatGPT, the situation could become pretty nasty,”
“In most of science, you want things that are reproducible,” he explains. “And it’s always a worry if you’re not in control of the reproducibility of what you’re generating.”
Painting
Thomas Fransioli, USA, (1907-1997), Rain in Charleston (1951)
Cyber
‘Pig-Butchering’ Scams Cost Americans Billions. This Lawyer Is Taking Them On.-
“They are called pig-butchering scams because the swindlers “fatten” up their victims by building trust—over days, weeks, even months—then “butcher” them by taking the money and ghosting them. Some victims lose their life savings, families and even their will to live. “
Markets
Stopping hurricanes is bold, risky and failed idea. Some want to try again.-
“For two decades, a bold and promising experiment sought to answer a wild question: Could scientists artificially weaken hurricanes before they bring devastation to U.S. shores?”
Amazon’s return to office order provides excellent cover to cut headcount-
“Mandating a five-day return-to-office will naturally cause some employees to lay themselves off, providing the desired outcome without the unpleasantness of job cuts.”
“Top performers in any company have leverage, and Amazon is no exception. If you’re indispensable to your company, and you value work-from-home flexibility, your company will grant that demand, because they know you’ll easily be able to find work elsewhere if they don’t. “
“Yes, for many employees, being in the office and interacting with coworkers throughout the day is valuable, but you can capture most of that value in 3-4 days per week.”
Why insuring star players has become a source of NFL tension-
"It's kind of taboo to talk about insurance"
"It's usually the teams that get absolutely steamrolled into overpaying a player [that buy insurance], and so it's like [the front office's] saving grace to try to present it to ownership," an ex-cap executive said. "It's like, 'We'll get your money back if he gets hurt.'"
Misc
Why are killer whale attacks on the rise?- They know why
“Of course they can sink you.”
“Researchers believe a massive die-off of the birds led to over 100,000 additional human deaths per year in India.”
“They can strip a large mammal carcass to bones in a few hours, and their stomachs contain some of the strongest acids in the animal kingdom, which kill off germs like anthrax and botulism before they can spread. Recent research also suggests they are climate allies, keeping tens of millions of tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere each year.”
Every Outdoor Basketball Court in the U.S.A.- satellite imagery of 59,507 outdoor courts in America
Podcasts for a Road Trip
Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen
Books
My Favorite Business Mischief Books
4 books I’ve read and 5 books I want to read