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12 Feb, 13 tweets, 5 min read
I am going to make a short thread to explain how Sutskever's tweet signals (IMHO) the beginning of the next AI winter

You may understand my use of a pseudonym to comment on "work ethics" on the Internet, as potential or current employers might read it
If Sutskever's opinion were not relevant enough, it has been seconded by other famous AI researchers, like Brockman, arguably making a point through example, and not just words

I am personally never sure if Domingos' "factual" descriptions are criticizing or supporting making a deal with Moloch for efficiency

Arguably, if you have the stamina to work 2x hours, you will get 2x results, all other things being equal
I guess someone has made the point of hiring twice as many people, which is not a great point for the mythical man-month, people × 2 does not work, you need 2x people

But who has that stamina? Chollet points at sustainability
I share the same experience, also pulling one-nighters, but it is a type of credit from the future, the arguable productivity gains are paid with interests later

This is hardly new it is becoming a tradition in AI and tech in general, with job ads
And greatly influential people like Musk

[[
Note: TBH I think it is BS

Butterfly effect: small actions may have large consequences

The impact on the world may motivate you to put more hours, but putting dumb hours guarantees nothing
]]
Smart vs hard work vs combine both, is an interesting topic, but the topic today is the AI winter, not China

Supposedly, people gain productivity with technology. Accelerating returns is exponential, weekly work hours is capped at 168 tops
Why the focus on putting more hours?: Diminishing returns

The way to keep the productivity in AI is putting more hours, doing more of the same: graduate descent, putting more computing on the hyperparameter slot machine,…
And that is not bad, it keeps the wheels spinning, it squeezes some more results, and helps some people and companies to get great success, money, fame

Props to them! Keep it up!

Eventually, in software that backfires, and in AI it triggers winters
Which is not bad either!

Honestly, a winter may be even be necessary, to cool down, relax, stop all the buzz and noise around deep learning and find a paradigm shift that takes AI higher peaks

The natural cycle of life
In the meantime, if you do not think you can reconcile "ethics" and "health", bet on health, IMHO they are the same thing

If some people want to be _insanely successful_ by being _insanely_ successful, and you are not interested, just congratulate them 👏
If you are today a student in the university: learn, play, and innovate

Do not worry too much about deep learning and these "work ethics"

For most of your career, if everything goes…
…well: AI will be very different
…bad: AI will not exist
The AI purpose should be work automation. The gained productivity should be used to release human work hours, for fun and well-being

This Cthulhu-like AI demanding our lives to rise to the singularity is not why I got into AI, and you don't need to

HTH

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10 Aug 20
Substraction thread
Particularly relevant for time management
Set an aspirational hourly rate, it will help you to quantify the importance of activities and stay focused
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Not enough has been written about how the Dunning-Kruger effect is a self-fulfilled prophecy by the Thomas theorem:

1. Redefining mediocre as excellent

2. Creating a kakonomy (lemons ≻ peaches), with positive feedback loop & Matthew effect

3. Resulting in a race to the bottom
The Matthew effect, e.g. network effect, impedes beating the mediocre, e.g. blub paradox and market dynamics

The peaches result not indistinguishable from the lemons but actually worse, possibly even "harbingers of failure", even at an axiological or first principles level
Differently from other multipolar traps, the main causes are epistemic and the strength of numbers; not a moral hazard. If there is a moral decision, it is beyond the comprehension of the mediocre majority

The few peaches, irrelevant as they may be, face a complicated decision:
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25 Mar 20
#COVID19 thread
Fear not, I'm only linking tweets of other people. I'm not an expert on the topic

💰 vs ⚕️
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🦾🧠⚗️ Profile picture
15 Mar 20
This is not the best message

If population was divided between immune & elder, then the elder should be the ones in their homes

You cannot infect any elder by having a beer with your friend Josh in a pub if the elders are at their homes in quarantine
Rather, consider you are increasing the probability of:
1. recurrence into a version of the virus that may kill you (even before you are old), and
2. saturating the healthcare system, that you may need, for example after a car accident
So you don't really need to be altruistic. You don't need to think about others, or that we-are-all-in-this-together

It would be appreciated, and would make you a decent human, as opposed to scum unworthy of life

But it is not necessary, you see?
Read 6 tweets
🦾🧠⚗️ Profile picture
1 Dec 19
Thread on intelligence

First: health

For every system, what allows it to operate in a wider range of situations in the future and for longer time, contributes to its health, it is beneficial (game & value theory)

Easy to see in systems like: body, mind, economy, ecosystems,…
This fits with the usual definition of adaptability to the environment, and the less common ability of pursuing an objective function in a wide range of situations, but there's more to it

The objective function is more specific: increasing health

The adaptation is not necessary
Intelligence cannot be understood without upper and lower holistic levels

Parasites have by definition a detrimental effect on the health of their hosts, less health means less intelligence for their strategy for survival, e.g. if they cause the death of their host, they may die
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🦾🧠⚗️ Profile picture
14 Nov 19
HR departments highly scientific algorithms may be (very accurately and systematically) selecting for lemons, discarding peaches

Perfect example of kakonomy in many levels: HR, executives, candidates, managers,… take any two
If you make questions for a job interview without due attention, you may ask something different from what you think you are asking, and you will effectively filter out people that know better than you.

Please do, otherwise meetings will be very frustrating later on.
If you want to do new things, you have to be your own boss

Work 9 to 5 on boring repetitive tasks to pay the bills, then be your own boss to grow

HR depts will rarely risk putting you on something new, they will tell you to do what you have already done
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