Mar 18, 2018When All Gun Owners are Shunned…When it comes to politics, it should be of no surprise to anyone that we’re in uncharted, nonlinear territory now. Weaponized social networks have seized control of the political process from the traditional political parties and their media gatekeepers. They are in charge now and, more importantly, they are rapidly…Metoo3 min readMetoo3 min read
Jan 19, 2018Why Social Networking will get WorseFacebook just announced sweeping changes to fix significant problems with its newsfeed, the main conduit for news and information for over 2 billion people. However, the problems with Facebook’s newsfeed won’t be fixed with these tweaks. …Social Media3 min readSocial Media3 min read
Sep 18, 2017Facebook & The COMPLETE Social GraphFacebook recently passed: 2 billion monthly users. That’s~70% of the 2.8 billion Internet users living outside of China/Russia (they use a different social networking system). With slowing rates of growth for Facebook and the Internet (due to saturation), Facebook is likely to hit 3.5 billion monthly users by 2025. The Complete Social Graph At…Facebook2 min readFacebook2 min read
Sep 18, 2017AI Jobs: The Coach“Her new job at Amazon is to babysit several robots at a time, troubleshooting them when necessary… ‘For me, it’s the most mentally challenging thing we have here,’ Ms. Scott said of her new job. ‘It’s not repetitive.’ (via NYTimes) Traditionally, workers use machines as tools. They run them, use…Artificial Intelligence1 min readArtificial Intelligence1 min read
Aug 30, 2017Best Buy didn’t ‘Disaster Proof’ its Corporate AlgorithmsBest Buy is getting hammered online. Here’s what happened: Best Buy sells bottled water by the bottle at $1.79 a bottle (or $2.50 for smartwater). They don’t sell them by the pack, but the pack price, if you did buy them at that price is $42.96 and $29.98 respectively. Hurricane…Water3 min readWater3 min read
Aug 28, 2017Work in the AI economy: The job of “Foxes”What will people do for work in the AI economy? We will train AIs. Really? Yes really. Here’s a good early example from Waymo (formerly Google’s self driving car project). They employ people in a role they call “foxes” (a word derived from the word faux). Foxes build real world simulations for training AIs quickly and safely. How? They stage live performances for AIs. They: Serve as extras: from other drivers (to simulate traffic) to pedestrians to bike riders.Self Driving Cars1 min readSelf Driving Cars1 min read
Jul 25, 2017Global Identity, Troll Armies, and Factionalized ElectoratesSome items of interest: Singapore: “Changi (airport) will be using facial recognition technology to offer self-service options at check-in, bag drop, immigration and boarding” What happens over the long term? Automated systems like this will seek to partner with companies like Facebook. Why? Facebook will have, if they don’t have…Privacy2 min readPrivacy2 min read
Jul 24, 2017The AI@Home Consortium (…is the future of work)Why did Artificial intelligence suddenly take off in the last decade? It wasn’t because we found a powerful master algorithm for building artificial intelligence. Just the opposite. AIs became possible because the brute force processing power needed to train artificial neural networks suddenly became affordable. The cost of processing power…Artificial Intelligence3 min readArtificial Intelligence3 min read
Jul 23, 2017Rethinking ChinaI just got back from a great conference in Singapore. A central theme of the conference was that China (and Asia in general with substantial US help) isn’t ‘rising’ anymore, it has risen (again), and that the US and much of the rest of the world hasn’t recognized this yet…Artificial Intelligence2 min readArtificial Intelligence2 min read
Jul 13, 2017How to turn the AI Economy into wealth, income, and pensions for millionsSix years ago, I floated a business plan for building a new type of company (an open source venture). An open source venture is structured in a way that makes it possible for millions of worker/owners to collaborate on the construction of extremely valuable databases. That initial attempt wasn’t successful…Artificial Intelligence3 min readArtificial Intelligence3 min read