Prioritization is hard. I use a lightweight framework to quickly prioritize what I work on and how I work on it, both at work and in everyday life. I find that applying this simple framework saves me time. I waste less time working on unimportant problems and the solutions I implement are more effective.
I recently discovered "Annual Life Reviews". A methodical process where you reflect on the last year, map out your priorities/values/etc, and plan out the next year.
This post is meant to be used in conjunction with https://wyaber.com/life-review, which explains how to use these life areas and priming questions. These questions are mostly copied from http://alexvermeer.com/download/8760-hours-v2.pdf, which prompted these…
Artificial Intelligence may be the most important technology of our time. It simultaneously has the potential to be extraordinarily good or exceptionally bad. First, imagine a world without scarcity, disease or possibly even aging. It sounds too good to be true but that's the world that the most optimistic futurists think AI will enable. Next, imagine a world of unprecedented inequality, unbreakable authoritarian regimes, or even an extinct human race. That's the pessimists' view of how bad AI might be..
I don't like social media platforms. There are plenty of reasons; they exploit user data, violate user (and non-user) privacy, enable genocide, enable trolls, addict users, lower user well-being, and more (1, 2, 3). Still, I love the promise of social media. It's supposed to seamlessly connect you to the people and information you care about. In reality, the existing platforms fail to live up to this promise while actually managing to harm their users. There isn't an obvious solution to this problem as the social media business model naturally incentivizes them to neglect user interests in order to make more money. When the leaders of these platforms are asked about the problems above, they respond with fluffy statements about "protecting user privacy", "ensuring user trust", and "connecting users". These are token responses. The truth is that these platforms care about users only because those users can view ads. Let's look at why.
This month, OpenAI and IBM each demonstrated a very impressive machine learning project. These projects are perfect exhibits for demonstrating the potential power of AI tools. As with most tools, they can be used positively or negatively. A hammer can be used to drive a nail or injure a person. Unlike a hammer, however, these tools can be scaled virtually without limit, a feature which gives them the potential to have massively positive or negative effects. In this post, I use these new AI tools as examples to explore why scale makes AI tools different than most.
Problem: Bad Explanations -> Giving a good explanation is deceptively difficult. When we give an explanation, the idea we are communicating is clear in our mind. Everything fits into place. It's frustrating when the person we're explaining to doesn't understand. Why does this happen and how can we prevent it?
Not Starting...In early 2018, I decided I would start a blog. I was excited. I had plans. I would start, not with 1 blog, but with 2. One year later,…
Two MindsI'm of two minds on creating a blog. On the one hand, it's intimidating. I'm asking people for their time. The only thing they get in return is my…