Because AI can only look at the past but not create the future.
October 25, 2024
October 23, 2024
Digital painting apps – good to use, hard to monetize
Adobe Fresco is free for all now!
Give a try if you are into painting/drawing/motion and have a touch/stylus-supported device running iOS/Windows.
Compared to apps that have a larger audience (e.g., social media) or higher margins (e.g., business/productivity), digital painting aims for those who have the skills and interests to create art and who often do this for fun instead of work.
I guess this is why the Procreate CEO once commented that they make money in order to make the app, not the other way around.
April 7, 2024
Full self-driving
I tested an electric car’s full self-driving today and found it impressive.
After entering the destination, the car planned the route and drove itself, including turning, signaling, changing and merging lanes, observing traffic lights and signs (stop, speed limit), and avoiding pedestrians and cyclists.
I can manually change the default behaviors by signaling and setting a different speed target, and the car will automatically change lanes and pass slower cars.
I haven’t tried auto-parking yet, given that I doubt if the car can figure out where I want to park and the orientation of the car.
The self driving capability could augment human sensors, motors, and cognition and thus make driving safer and more efficient barring moral hazards (e.g., encouraging drunk or distracted driving).
December 24, 2023
Echoes of the Algorithm
I asked copilot/suno to create a song about generative AI and here is the result.
😎
[Verse]
In a world, digitized and cold
Where the future’s written in lines of code (code)
An unseen force, beyond our control
Creating melodies, from the depths of its soul (soul)
[Chorus]
Echoes of the Algorithm (oh-oh-oh)
Artificial harmonies, a symphony so vast
Echoes of the Algorithm (algorithm)
Unleashing creativity, from a digital blast
November 28, 2023
Cellular reincarnation
These “sleek” cellphones tend to slip and break easily so that new ones have to be bought constantly.
If the process of copying apps and data from an old to a new phone is like reincarnation, then the phone number is like soul or consciousness in that it is unique and can be associated with only one sim-card at a time.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/185895907/CellularReincarnation
November 19, 2023
Sunday morning read
So who is going to win control at OpenAI, the ones who can design and train the models or the ones who can bring in the money to pay for the compute and talent?
Both are needed for the success of the company.
In any case they will likely change the corporate structure so that the board better represents the investors.
(It is kind of ridiculous that Microsoft invests 10+B for a 49 percent stake but has no representative on the board.)
November 18, 2023
Saturday morning read
After a hectic working week I finally got a chance to follow up some recent tech news, in particular (as you could expect) about the surprise ousting of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman and the interim CEO.
On the way I also noticed yet another headline about X.
Looks like the tech industry is no less dramatic than the entertainment industry, but with far more consequential real-world impacts.
June 10, 2023
Primitive emotion and advanced technology
“We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.” – Edward O. Wilson
Natural human evolution might not be fast enough for our primitive emotions to catch up with our advanced technology, and I predict pretty soon we will use technology to accelerate our evolution, e.g., by using AI to augment our intelligence and CRISPR to edit our genes.