• I’m learning a lot
    • MCP servers
      • tool calling, is that just another API?
    • agentic AI and the next trends but maybe it’s time to take a step back
  • AI and society
    • making big waves
    • seen as the solver of all things
    • ‘work will never be the same again’
  • industrial revolutions
    • 1st Mechanical Production (Steam-based machines),
    • 2nd Mass Production (Electrical Energy-based mass production),
    • 3rd The Digital Age (Computer and internet-based knowledge),
    • 4th AI?
      • IT’s not the first time that we’ve had technology fundamentally change how we operate in society and work
      • dotcom bubble
      • crypto bubble
      • AI bubble?
    • They each left beneficial things in their wake
    • Current wave: quite a lot of job loss but without the hard working conditions - knowledge work is being transformed
    • What are we not seeing?

Changing the world

  • It might all be a small group of people trying to push a narrative and make some spectacular coin, true it is useful - to a degree, but it might not be all it’s cracked up to be.
  • A sentiment I’ve been resonating more with is that it’s good but only just so - the bigger issue is actually knowledge atrophy and the loss of the craft / imagination of people.
    • if an image can be generated, why draw? If text can be written, why write? if code can be generated, why program?
    • This is the problem. One argument is that things should be done for their own sake, but actually relinquishing full creative output to the Other will lead to a steady decline in faculties we once cherished.
    • My biggest issue is that chatbots confidently give you crap and hallucinate, chasing wild geese. You might as well go for a walk and have a think.
    • Sometimes you need a sparring partner, but more often than not, it’s just a question of time and a bit more thought.
    • Chatbots are predictive machines; I’d argue the true genius is in human creation.
    • There is more coming (rethinking of the transformer being the foundation for the next generation of AI, ‘World models’, etc.), but I think the current generation of models is plateauing.
    • LLM creativity is bounded by small context and they are unable to solve moderately complex problems in a specific domain and do tasks that humans find easy still. They are marketed as a solution to drive automation and I agree to a point. However, they are not an endgame solution.
    • Find creativity in the hard work, the struggle, the time it takes to make something great. Greatness and expertise cannot be generated, but it can be assisted.
    • That’s where the balance lies: have tasks simplified and pushed along by the chatbots but the real work must come from you.
    • What does changing the world mean? Another app? A faster phone / laptop? I’m not sure..

Philosophy and expression

  • Thinking of some of the greatest minds in philosophy (List of your philosopher(s) of choice) - they helped us make leaps in how we think of ourselves and the choices we make. The major shifts came from deep thought.
  • It took me some time
    • I’m learning about ML and really enjoying it, thinking of some of the deeper issues made me think about what really matters to make big change happen - changes of behaviour in society
  • Today computed thought is cheap (meaning of less value than human thought), and attention the currency - Tools should remain just that. Tools.
    • What is the purpose of these tools?
    • What is their value?
  • Seems a shame to lose one of the essences of humanity: self-expression. If the chatbots homogenise our output, does culture get flattened? What is the role of art if it’s generated?
  • The deeper problem is maybe the loss of free thinking?
  • It’s not about faster horses (à la Ford), but where are we going with this?
  • It seems that we’re living in an age of AI where if the words are said enough times, like an incantation, the miraculous future will come to be
  • Seems like fanaticism
  • I’m of the view the Kasparov expressed, it should be people + machines, not just machines.

Not the last Transformer

  • I listened to a podcast about the current architectures for transformer-based models, there is a possibility to move forward in that direction, but to get to the next generation of models a new architecture is needed. This means more investment, unfortunately, the industry has invested in the transformer architecture, and it will take an undeniably better solution to move to a new style of architecture.
  • I believe that we are still in the first wave of the LLM-based AI change but that this is far from the end of the line. It is changing work, no doubt, but not the complete human replacement that some people are talking about.
  • There have been and will be more waves of AI, as others came before, this is the wave of the chatbot, very public and accessible but not the endgame
  • Like with many technologies, society needs to live with it a bit longer with it to determine its true value. There will be many more changes before we get to true AGI as some people call it
  • We just need to work alongside generative AI and integrate it into products
  • Watching the 1980s film ‘War Games’ reminded me of just how far we’ve come, but working and living with LLMs isn’t the magic bullet that VCs and AI companies are touting them to be.