markjgsmith

Monday, June 3, 2024

Utopias in the age of AI & crypto

I'm not so suprised many of the experiments mentioned in Rohit Krishnan Wither Utopia thought piece failed. They are all tiny projects compared to a full blown utopian society. It’s not to say that they weren’t useful in some way. Perhaps they were useful learning experiences.

The internet and world wide web have been a success, and these really are society scale inventions. I don’t know the history completely but I do know there were all sorts of failed projects and protocols. There were many failed starts. One of the core ideas of the web is that it’s simple. Anyone could write a bit of HTML, CSS and Javascript and get a site up and running pretty easily. Heck you could do it with just HTML.

In the early days of the web there were all sorts of complicated visions about two way linking and being semantic and what not. But in the end what worked was something simple that anyone could do. I think we should continue striving for Utopian goals but it’s more like growing a garden than designing a perfect building. I wonder what patterns promote utopian outcomes. That might be something AI could help us with.

War, AI and more war: the 2024 Bilderberg agenda is sure to set off alarm bells - Haven't herd this lot mentioned in quite a few years. It was Bilderberg this and illuminatti that about a decade ago. Interesting they are trying to re-inventing themselves. Perhaps they should try being more 'open' and less secretive, have the attendees do some blogging. I'm struck today about the 'builder' root in the name that I hadn't noticed before. This year it's a who's who of heads Big AI tech apparently, oh and Big pharma, and Big warfare. So nothing to be worried about then. Probably just like Davos. theguardian.com #

Napster Sparked a File-Sharing Revolution 25 Years Ago - That era of the internet really was kind of wild. I don't remember being into Napster specifically but Bit torrent and NZBs were really awesome. Great post download automation features. I miss those days, you could really vicerally sense how the web was going to change literally everything. torrentfreak.com #

U.S tech giants are building dozens of huge data centers in Chile. Locals are fighting back - These data centers are massive and use huge amounts of water extracted from the ground to cool their servers. That's a big problem in areas that already have droubts since many years. I like that these environmental organisations are springing up to both highlight the issue but also to facilitate projects where the very rich Big Tech companies can offset their environmental footprint. I just hope there is transparency, I could imagine such efforts could easily fall victim to corruption. restofworld.org #

Computer makers unveil Nvidia Blackwell systems for AI rollouts - Two big new things in this article. First, 25-30X improvements in power comsumption, and second, the idea of "AI factories" that produce a new type of commodity: artificial intelligence. AI ETF anyone? venturebeat.com #

Young French leader's rise and Belgium's future existence: What to watch in EU elections - Pretty good article that briefly samples the pulse in various countries accross the EU. I didn't realise that Belgium was in danger of disapearing, I suspect it's a bit of an alarmist view. Lots of focus on the rise of far right groups. It would be good to find a few similar articles by different news orgs to compare and contrast. Certainly interesting times politically in the EU at the minute. bbc.com #

I’m a brown, Muslim European. For people like me, these EU elections are terrifying - Shada Islam piece about how the EU elections affect people like her. Every country has it's own slightly different flavour of disfunction when it comes to immigration, racism etc. I think also each place has it's own particulars where it's working well and producing net benefits for those involved. I wish we could spend some time unearthing those stories too. Interesting article nonetheless, both positive and negative aspects need to be written about and shared. theguardian.com #

‘I cannot take it lightly’: young voters urged to take part in EU elections - The view from young voters, also very interesting, they face quite different pressures and influences. And across the EU this group is massive. Some varied beliefs in ex-autocratic and russian states. Lots of concern for environmental issues. theguardian.com #

The future of financial analysis: How GPT-4 is disrupting the industry, according to new research - At some point the prediction capabilities are going to approach perfection. Won't that break the econony? Why would anyone invest? I guess when predicting company perfornance and economies has been solved those analysts will need to move on to analysing more complex systems? venturebeat.com #

UK within British empire is like last person left at a party, says David Olusoga - Quite the analogy. I'm not sure it's so accurate, it feels like we've been hungover for years at this point. theguardian.com #

The Guardian view on social media harms: the tech giants must be more open - I'm not so sure this is such a good idea. Yes there are occasionally some horrible cases that occur, but you have to realise the other side of the coin. There are also horrible cases of abuse by parents. I wonder what Britney Spears would think about social media companies allowing parents to snoop on their children. theguardian.com #

Whither Utopia? - This article by Rohit Krishnan has been getting some attention. I thought it started out as a sort of book list maskerading as a thought piece. But it does get more interesting from about half way through. It's a topic I'm curious about, especially in this new age of AI and crypto where everything can be predicted and everything can be turned into a transaction. strangeloopcanon.com #

As tech gets better as we head into infinity, how do we educate people to the fact that they can be tricked, and bigly? And keep doing it generation after generation? When people only really learn these things by experience. #

With AI we are modelling the way the brain works. But the brain is essentially analogue, neurons aren’t either on or off, they can be a little bit on. How will digital models ever really recreate an analogue process? Maybe that will, in the end be the difference between human and artificial intelligence. #

Cory Doctorow used to work in VFX. I had no idea. The company in question was Alias Wavefront. Skim through the Wikipedia page and you will see they created the Maya software, which is the standard for 3D modeling throughout the VFX industries. Pretty cool. #

Another fascinating factoid from Lex's podcast with memory researcher and expert Charan Ranganath:

The act of recalling memories can strengthen or distort the memory depending on environment conditions at the time, but also can have an effect on memories that you didn’t even recall! Memory is more like an ecosystem.

That's so frigging strange. How did we ever get this far with such a weird thinking apparatus! #