I’m curious to see how this pans out in a year from now. Are these Baidu Research trends a global or a local phenomenon?
Their 2020 innovations blog also makes for interesting reading.
Category: Reading
Books, & links to all kinds of stuff I found interesting
[Link] AI systems design with purpose
An important subject, and Josh Lovejoy, Head of Design for Ethics & Society at Microsoft, tackles it here. The abstract:
For an industry that prides itself on moving fast, the tech community has been remarkably slow to adapt to the differences of designing with AI. Machine learning is an intrinsically fuzzy science, yet when it inevitably returns unpredictable results, we tend to react like it’s a puzzle to be solved; believing that with enough algorithmic brilliance, we can eventually fit all the pieces into place and render something approaching objective truth. But objectivity and truth are often far afield from the true promise of AI
[Link]: Clean the Tiles, Not the Floor
David Cain describes his mental switch to focus on one tile at a time instead of worrying about the pain of having to clean the whole floor.
As long as zeroed in on the current tile, rather than think about the dozens of tiles I had yet to clean, there was minimal discomfort and no tedium. Whenever my mind started to drift that way, I remembered my elegant strategy: look at a tile, and clean that tile. As far as I could tell, nothing more was required.
[Link] Jobs launching iPhone
Saving a link here because I never get tired of watching how he holds the audience in the palm of his hand – pun intended. Master presenter in action, one to learn from.
[Link] Business Storytelling
Creative storytelling is pure entertainment. Business storytelling has a targeted outcome.
How do you execute on this? This interview is worth a read in full if you work with data (who doesn’t?)
[Link] Atmospheric Carbon as a Commodity
Albert Wenger’s recent blog post about atmospheric carbon as the ultimate commodity begins to explore the concept that:
A ton of avoided emissions or a ton drawn down is the same anywhere on the globe. Solutions anywhere and everywhere can help us reduce atmospheric carbon!
[Link] Scott Eblin on 3 Big Things …
This resonated strongly with me.
The longer the pandemic goes on, the more important the need for connection is. The way we’ve been working for the past year leads us to default to just getting the work done in a very transactional manner. When it’s just about getting the work done, connection suffers. That’s a longer-term problem because people need connection to be at their best.
Read more here
To Read:
I seek out book recommendations -and don’t have a good system of keeping on top of them yet. At least here I can find them 🙂
[Link]: Controlling your destiny
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson has been blogging since September 2003. He feels strongly about doing it on his own blog, rather than on platforms that make the writing & sharing “convenient”. I concur.
they are controlled by someone else. You can get kicked off. And when you get kicked off, you lose all of your followers, all of your content. Gone.
I’m not down for that.
[Link]: Libraries, in the US, are going fine-free
This is awesome – and particularly so for the benefits it has to society at large.
fines are as much a social justice issue as a simple economic one. Library use fosters reading, and reading and literacy leads to better health outcomes. It’s a win-win for the whole community.