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No one:
My 2yo on a walk: “I was born”
Me: “You were born. You exist now.”
2yo: “It’s amazing!”
My 2yo on a walk: “I was born”
Me: “You were born. You exist now.”
2yo: “It’s amazing!”
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That feeling when you’re gradually but successfully indoctrinating your children into appreciating classic rock. 🎸
(They can’t stop humming “Who Are You” by The Who 😁)
(They can’t stop humming “Who Are You” by The Who 😁)
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
More evidence of data fraud from Francesca Gino. This is at least five cases of fraud she committed (and she is being sued for another in court as we speak).
I would not personally trust anything she published unless another author handled the data and can independently verify for Dan Ariely's research at this point).
Thanks to @AdamMGrant and David Hofmann for helping expose this one and issuing an expression of concern for their paper. We need more coauthors coming forward and working to correct the scientific record.
I would not personally trust anything she published unless another author handled the data and can independently verify for Dan Ariely's research at this point).
Thanks to @AdamMGrant and David Hofmann for helping expose this one and issuing an expression of concern for their paper. We need more coauthors coming forward and working to correct the scientific record.
New on Data Colada: strong evidence of fraud in another paper co-authored by Francesca Gino. No fancy forensics needed. datacolada.org/141
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
Masterclass
Rowan Atkinson barely says a word, yet somehow ends up being the funniest person in the room.
The two hosts spend the introduction congratulating Reverend Sebastian on a speech they've practically delivered themselves. Every joke gets explained, every clever point gets revealed, spoil the ending while insisting they wouldn't dream of spoiling it.
What makes this brilliant is the contrast. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are completely comfortable with their own performance, while Rowan Atkinson's silence says everything.
Sometimes the best comedy isn't what someone says. It's what they're forced to sit through.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
Now is a good time to revisit some old clips of Jensen trying to mislead people on why it's okay for NVIDIA sell AI chips to China.
This was the key moment from his interview on @dwarkesh_sp's podcast (time stamp 57:36):
1. Dwarkesh asks why it’s okay to sell NVIDIA chips to l security implications of AI models like Mythos.
2. Jensen gives a misleading answer, arguing that it’s okay to sell American chips to China because China already produces 60% of the world’s chips.
3. But as Jensen definitely knows, compute is measured in flops, not number of chips.
4. Dwarkesh then pushes back, pointing out that on a flops basis, China has 10% of the compute the US has, and giving them more compute would change their cyber capabilities.
This is a common pattern with Jensen. He's developed talking points that sound plausible to a non-technical audience about why there is no conflict between NVIDIA's financial interests and US national security.
But on the rare occasion when he's interviewed by someone like Dwarkesh who knows what he's talking about, it immediately becomes obvious that he's spouting nonsense.
This was the key moment from his interview on @dwarkesh_sp's podcast (time stamp 57:36):
1. Dwarkesh asks why it’s okay to sell NVIDIA chips to l security implications of AI models like Mythos.
2. Jensen gives a misleading answer, arguing that it’s okay to sell American chips to China because China already produces 60% of the world’s chips.
3. But as Jensen definitely knows, compute is measured in flops, not number of chips.
4. Dwarkesh then pushes back, pointing out that on a flops basis, China has 10% of the compute the US has, and giving them more compute would change their cyber capabilities.
This is a common pattern with Jensen. He's developed talking points that sound plausible to a non-technical audience about why there is no conflict between NVIDIA's financial interests and US national security.
But on the rare occasion when he's interviewed by someone like Dwarkesh who knows what he's talking about, it immediately becomes obvious that he's spouting nonsense.
The Jensen Huang episode.
0:00:00 – Is Nvidia’s biggest moat its grip on scarce supply chains?
0:16:25 – Will TPUs break Nvidia’s hold on AI compute?
0:41:06 – Why doesn’t Nvidia become a hyperscaler?
0:57:36 – Should we be selling AI chips to China?
1:35:06 – Why doesn’t Nvidia chip architectures?
Look up Dwarkesh Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. Enjoy!
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
We deleted an opinion video about the use of foreign languages in election night speeches. The post contained a factual error and its tone fell short of what we believe advances healthy public discourse. The rigorous editorial process that produces the work that appears on our website and in our newsletters must apply to everything we post on social media. We’ll be updating how we do things to achieve just that. We regret the error.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
Figures that a man who trusted Sam Altman would fall for a Chinese spy.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
I donated about $45k last year, mostly to malaria net distributions and seasonal malaria chemoprevention. If this is not improving the lives of the affected people, I will obviously donate somewhere different this year. What's your recommendation.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
Snapchat settled, rather than going to trial and letting a jury and the world see its internal communications. But so many damning quotations have already come out.
We collected them at After Babel last year; see for yourself:
afterbabel.com/p/industrial-s…
We collected them at After Babel last year; see for yourself:
afterbabel.com/p/industrial-s…
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
I study AI consciousness and personhood for a living, and people have been telling me to watch this episode for years. I finally watched it for the first time last week, and the writing and acting blew me away. It could be released today, and it would still be ahead of its time.
Also a guy with correct takes about AI consciousness.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
“We have powerful tools: openness, optimism and the spirit of curiosity” - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
go.nature.com/4idrT6b
go.nature.com/4idrT6b
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Just wanted to share something I found amusing this morning.
Don’t know why I laughed when I peeked inside this box of books on the sidewalk.
But I just knew that I spotted a gem because there’s something about the brazen improbability of having all those food items on a Liberty.
The chiding subtitle made me giggle as well.
Don’t know why I laughed when I peeked inside this box of books on the sidewalk.
But I just knew that I spotted a gem because there’s something about the brazen improbability of having all those food items on a Liberty.
The chiding subtitle made me giggle as well.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
Just learned that Patrick Stewart has passed away. Such a sad loss. Here he is in one of the best things ever put on television, the Star Trek episode “The Measure of a Man.” I show it to my students in Philosophy and Science Fiction every year.
Patrick Stewart has sadly passed away at the age of 86.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
Fox: Why are you here this morning?
Trump rally attendee: Well, in the late 70s, I was a little too young to go to South America for the Jonestown Massacre. But this is as close as I'll ever get, so that's why I'm here. There's nothing like seeing a cult right up front.
Trump rally attendee: Well, in the late 70s, I was a little too young to go to South America for the Jonestown Massacre. But this is as close as I'll ever get, so that's why I'm here. There's nothing like seeing a cult right up front.
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Brian Gallagher retweeted
Yesterday, Putin revealed that Russian authorities are "in close touch" with Elon Musk about the technology Ukraine needs to defend itself.
Our new report @TheAtlantic investigates how @elonmusk went from supporting Ukraine to coordinating with Moscow.
theatlantic.com/national-secur…
Our new report @TheAtlantic investigates how @elonmusk went from supporting Ukraine to coordinating with Moscow.
theatlantic.com/national-secur…
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I have a bias here because I've worked with Jon and was an editor on his book, but have to say this coming from Taylor seems pretty unfair. And the "discredited himself" phrasing is kinda curious, given revelations about Meta's scheme to demean Haidt's academic reputation.
Haidt is not an academic, he's a political actor making millions pushing a political agenda. He discredited himself by relentlessly lying abt an entire academic field that overwhelmingly refutes his false claims. It's good Meta is putting resources into getting the truth out
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Ashlee Vance wrote a topnotch biography of Musk years before the Isaacson one and is a model of patience and good-humored civility here, responding to one of the most frequent and silly accusations against Musk: that he isn’t an exceptional engineer
Oh, why not.
Haven't had a chance to watch the movie yet but have heard you on a couple of podcasts and find this line of criticism the most confusing.
It's not difficult to find employees across the companies who will talk at length about him making engineering decisions. I've seen this happen at Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink firsthand.
Mostly, though, I tend to think of the companies as being built by the thousands of employees and as group engineering exercises. There are tons of choices that have to be made and things that have to be fixed and resources marshalled. The top end of these tasks has quite often fallen to Musk.
People had pretty much given up on electric cars until Tesla came along. You will argue that Martin and Marc had the idea for Tesla, which is fine. But it would not be a going concern without the engineering fixes that took place to finally get the Roadster over the line and then the tons of choices that turned the Model S into a very surprising success.
This totally revitalized the electric car industry and made it a thing again. It changed the automotive industry worldwide.
Many people made many engineering choices along the way. Musk included. There are just too many stories and anecdotes to deny this.
SpaceX is perhaps the most dramatic example. People had tried and failed to build a commercial rocket company before. They have tried and failed since. Blue Origin and SpaceX started almost the same year, but only one of the two companies has changed the dynamics of the worldwide aerospace industry and our access to space. Many people deserve credit for this, but it's hard to argue that Musk was not the driving force behind a great deal of what SpaceX has achieved. SpaceX had far less resources than Blue Origin.
The engineering accomplishments of SpaceX are pretty nuts. The US aerospace industry would be in terrible shape without them. We'd be unable to put humans in space, behind China on all fronts and very, very slow to do launches.
Space is one of the last manufacturing and engineering strongholds for the US. Is this entirely because of Musk? Certainly not. Did he push the company forward on engineering? Certainly yes.
Neuralink has a great, great deal still to prove. But it took products that were trapped in acamedia and advanced them dramatically. I would argue that this does not happen without the engineering pattern matching Musk has done across these other two industries. He pushed changes on semiconductor, materials, robotics and implant design.
It's important to ask all these other questions about his empire and power and his evolution over time. And you're a tremendous filmmaker.
This will no doubt come off as cheerleading. All I can say is that Elon and I have had a very tumultous relationship, and he's been plenty unkind to me at times. I don't really have a need to speak up here.
Me writing this comes more from a place of confusion than anything else.
The products are all very real, and there's a common denominator across them. It's difficult for me to see them as lucky accidents, particularly when rivals trying to do similar things have struggled so badly.
All of these things are so difficult to build. Like verging on impossible.
Why do you fixate on the engineering thing when there are so many other more real avenues to explore?
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