How do you think it changed the world? I don’t think that was an especially prescient thing to say/write at that time. The idea that software was poised to continue to grow in 2011 was pretty obvious to most people. It is true that some companies were undervalued and many VCs and other folks were scarred from the dotcom bust.
But if you go back and read it, you might notice that a lot of the companies and software he discussed and predictions along with them failed to be true or lasting.
They’ve lost a whole lot of people in prominent roles over the past few years. I wonder how much of the misfires and general thrash in product direction is a result of brain drain and/or so many hands changing. Or maybe I’m confusing cause and effect… hard to tell
That’s pretty crazy, I swear it wasn’t that long ago these companies were about the only people hiring and the comp packages looked absolutely deranged.
For a brief moment I regretted wasting any time of my life on anything but ML research. But I guess the bigger they come…
This project reminds me of a book I highly recommend called An American Sickness. It sheds a lot of light on the same sorts of issues.
One underlying, perverse incentive behind many of the problems is that insurers are regulated based on percentages of spending rather than total costs.
The US passed laws meant to limit marketing and overhead that tied insurers economics to the size of the overall medical bill... which means as healthcare spending rises, the dollars they’re allowed to retain can rise too, which basically means they're incentivized to drive costs up rather than down.
> The US passed laws meant to limit marketing and overhead that tied insurers economics to the size of the overall medical bill... which means as healthcare spending rises, the dollars they’re allowed to retain can rise too, which basically means they're incentivized to drive costs up rather than down.
Yes, this is an important piece of the puzzle. The "medical loss ratio" for large insurers (the kind we all know and love) is set to 85%. So they can keep up to 15% of their revenue as profit.
As you said, if total spending goes up, they get 15% of a larger number.
It's almost as if the insurance companies wrote those regulations. The same ones that required everyone to purchase their product and implemented government subsidies to pay them. Legitimately no way anything other than price increases and insurance profits could happen.
I originally thought AI-assisted writing would help synthesize what felt like original ideas I had, that I just wanted to get out there without the laborious task of editing. I didn't expect the writing to end up feeling so incredibly tired and watered-down, but upon more reflection on how the models actually work, it's not all that surprising. Uniqueness in writing is both in the style/structure and the message, and all AI seems to do is find the local maximum of both. Lately I've found myself going back to writing things myself (not all the time, depends on the task), and wishing there was a way I could just completely eliminate the slop from certain things I look at. I worry about all our minds, and the garbage-in, garbage-out net effect of this.
Maybe that's why the writing feels so terrible. The AI is attempting to maximize every sentence while simultaneously expanding on just a few actually meaningful points. And the net result of that dissonance is this rage-inducing vapidity. It's the written equivalent of the Uncanny Valley.
Would you like to see this extended globally? Could such a spirit exist multinationally? It’s asking a lot, because you’d be asking for a lot of courage from places like China, India, Russia, Middle East … anywhere that’s not Europe basically.
Well yes, but context matters here and this is the US government's decision to take with a US-based company.
While I understand why it matters for folks affiliated with prominent AI companies in particular to sign this, the more the American people stand together, the more pressure I think that puts on our government to act responsibly.
Idealistic and naive? Probably. But sometimes grassroots efforts do spark change, and it's high time the people of the USA start living up to the first word in our country's name.
Anyways, to answer your question directly: I welcome all the fine people of the world everywhere to join in what this open letter stands for.
Unfortunately, it's abundantly clear to many of us Americans that the current administration doesn't care what we think, never mind what people outside our country do. So I'll just start with the group that this department (in theory) is supposed to represent.
In realizing that a lot of my best work was effectively walled, I've started taking it upon myself to build up a showcase of work that's strictly my own.
I think you should look to have a portfolio online and an active Github account.
I have 3 things on my portfolio (www.bcooke.net):
1) Side projects I never finished or am still working on
2) Freelance sites I built alone (where my good relationship with the client meant I could openly share the work)
3) Brief blurbs about the salaried roles in my career, with a screenshot
I haven't updated it in a while but it's something.
Do you have a portfolio? Is your Github active? StackOverflow? You need things you can show!
It sucks because your best work - the stuff you spent the most time on - isn't always available to share. And even if you could, there'd be questions about which part you did.
Having a site you can point to and say, "I did that" is a good way to showcase your abilities, and if all your work is owned by your employer, you should probably start thinking about ways you can change that.
But if you go back and read it, you might notice that a lot of the companies and software he discussed and predictions along with them failed to be true or lasting.
I think mostly it was a good catchphrase.
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