Challenges in an AI First world
There is an AI race going on. No one knows where or what the finish line is, but it’s a race nevertheless. Run or be left out. So everyone is running. Developers, designers. product managers, companies, countries. To be clear, there was always a race. A race to get products out first, to get features in time etc. But there were guardrails. There were rules. Now, they seem to be absent/de-prioritized. “Move fast and break things” - then fix them even faster with AI !
I put my stamp album online
When I was a child, I was gifted a stamp album for my 10th birthday. I had almost forgotten about it until recently. Back in those days folks were actually writing letters to each other. One of those things that has just about died now. Also my aunt was working in some kind of diplomatic service so she would get stamps from many countries I had never heard of. Thus started my hobby !
How We AI
Have you ever wondered how folks are using AI ? At work or in their personal lives ? AI is changing faster that anyone can keep up. We constantly hear of flamboyant/pie-in-the-sky use cases. But what about the ways it is being used “right now”. Yes it is a great coding and peronal assistant…but “how” exactly are others using it ? Have you ever booked a vacation using AI ? What worked and what did not ? What is your dev setup ?
Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters
In case you have not seen it, the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters are in the public domain, all the way from 1977! They are a great read about how one of the most iconoic companies in the world is run. Warren Buffett writing style is a mixture of phenomenal insight and humor. A very hard thing to do propely. Here are some gems I came across after reading them: The textile industry illustrates in textbook style how producers of relatively undifferentiated goods in capital intensive …
Economic Possibilities for our future
In 1930, the English economist and philosopher John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay titled Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. An excerpt from it: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 It is common to hear people say that the epoch of enormous economic progress which characterised the nineteenth century is over; that the rapid improvement in the standard of life is now going to slow down --at any rate in Great Britain; that a decline in prosperity is more likely than an improvement in the decade which lies …
AI and the coming inequality
A lot of focus thus far on AI has been on safety. And rightly so. Safety of any new technology is critical before it should be made available to mass markets. But how about societal inequality? Inequality today is quite stark. The wealthy 1.5% own 48% of the world’s wealth. The fundamental premise of AI is to boost productivity. What happens when rich nations / corporations (who also happen to own the means of producing these models) get boosted productivity by AI ? AI enabling tech will …
Will AI take my job ?
Whenever a new technology becomes commonplace, there will be disruptions. Technology and their associated disruptions have occurred throughout history. e.g. The monks / clergy were primarily responsible for making books (by hand). This restricted the flow of knowledge. Then the printing press came along. In the 1920s, telephone companies employed thousands of folks as operators. Today algorithms have largely taken over. Essentially any manual / repetitive task was automated out of existence. …
Rates of Change
I don’t think we understand rates of change very well. The reason AI is all the rage now is that it offers an opportunity for a gigantic leap in the rate of change of innovation. No one can say what it will usher in. But it seems like an ideal vehicle to bring about this big change. Big rates of change is what brings about disruptions and opportunities. The big players can’t possibly address them all. That’s where opportunities (and entrepreneurs and VCs) step in. The chance of …
Getting Through Your Day
Some days can be exhausting. For many, most days are exhausting. We just think that it’s the way things are and plough along. Same thing, day in and day out. That’s life ! On one end of the spectrum things seem like they are exhausting because we are bored of it. It no longer excites us. The monotony carries over into boredom which carries over to exhaustion. On the other end of the spectrum are the passionate ones. The ones who have “found” their passion. Who loves what …
Assistive Vs Transformative Technologies
Software is eating the world. Or rather, software has already eaten the world. There isn’t an industry that has not or will not be disrupted by tech. But all tech is not created equal. Some help in making things more efficient (assistive) while some absolutely disrupt entire ecosystems (transformative) The internet began as a DARPA project. Initially it connected only a few universities. Today it’s pretty much a fundamental right. Since it’s inception it has transformed …