All posts by JPY

I should start by saying the not-so-obvious to many VCs and investors- A.I. does not exist yet. Yet…

What many misinterpret as AI, are LLMs, a cool tool to help predict the best outcome response based on the highest confidence rating from a set of trained data. The Singularity is the eventual sentience of machines that assumes to explode in unimaginable growth of a technological superintelligence, which will likely and irrevocably change life as we know it. Until that day, you still have to deal with humans, and the businesses that choose to assume LLMs masquerading as AI, “can do it all”.

This has led us to the perception this is the gold rush of my generation. Adapt AI into your business or fall into irrelevance and be forgotten to time. This is just a fad- a farce pushed by companies eager to garner business relationships by selling more than they have. This is capitalism. How money works and markets are influenced is probably not a discussion for this place, but these are important factors in why we push these false claims and CEOs eat it up. In reality, this is the snake oil of my generation.

This is not to say that LLMs are not invaluable tools. They are what they are, a tool. An implement to help you with your purpose and when used correctly, they simplify the task. I write this, because today I received an impressive recruitment message on LinkedIn. This message was personalized and professional such that it made me feel valued and seen. The message referenced my last blog post on this web-site and gave insights and praises about specific pieces with generic (yet professional) observations. Overall I felt impressed. Either the recruiter had access to a tool that A- fed my LinkedIn profile to a script, which scraped my links in my bio and then identified blog posts, to then include an tie-in as part of the intro for the message (bravo) or B- spent real time going through LinkedIn profiles that came up on their recruiter feed and clicked on my website to read my blog (dubious, but still cool). Either way- Nice. This is how you use an LLM!

After a recent conversation with a collegue, I felt inspired to address this topic. While the title addresses learning, this will be more about the broader scale of learning, specifically how to find answers.

Our schools are meant to educate us on material that is approved by their department to be relevant to the course topic. But as we start to build focus to a specific discipline, this information becomes more generic and less relevant to the questions being asked in class. This is on purpose, or at least it has been conveyed to be this way by school faculty since the application of the knowledge needs to be malleable to any circumstance. Building a fundamental understanding of the general concepts and behind the scene workings, is really the focus of the course. The problem, that so much other information is being presented to create this “general base of knowledge” that is not being applied to working projects, that building familiarity and by relation, understanding, is lost in the minutia.

For my education, this led me to seek other sources to then focus my attention on the task specifically. This might be the most important thing I learned from my undergrad, how to evaluate and find information. This is not something that came directly from my instruction, and my professors always promised they provide support if needed, but ultimately we are all individually accountable for our learning.

This has been an increasingly invaluable skill, as often it helps with problem-solving and making contributions even outside of your domain. I have learned is that more often than not, problems arise with no immediately discernable solution, but being able to know where and how to find answers (and hopefully understand those answers) has not only made me better at my job but a more valuable asset to my team and peers.

I will leave you with a story. A reporter interviewed Albert Einstein for an article he was writing. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked if he could have Einstein’s phone number to call if he had further questions. “Certainly,” Einstein replied. He proceeded to pick up the phone directory, looked up his phone number, wrote it on a slip of paper, and handed it to the reporter. Dumbfounded, the reporter said, “You are considered to be the smartest man in the world, and you can’t remember your own phone number?” “No,” Einstein answered. “Why should I memorize something I can so easily get from a book?”

The current form of this idea is popularized by Nick Bostrom, but the idea goes back much further. When the first stories were told, the life of the story would change form in retelling, or from another’s perspective. The story would adapt form to the needs of the audience and the story teller, each time growing in life and detail. This does not directly relate to Simulation Theory, but it sets the stage for the next form of its progression, Game Theory. This idea is popularized in 1983’s “War Games“, but the idea goes back nearly as far as written history. Create a board with realistic as possible environment features and set the pieces on the board. The purpose, to evaluate the potential outcomes to be able to take action to ensure a favorable outcome. This has been a popular practice for centuries, to help envision the outcome and control potential variables.

While simulating a victorious battle has not always produced a favorable result, a reflection of the cause is generally the same: the variables were inadequately assessed. With a more realistic, and accurate simulation, real-world results are more likely to match. This is further refined when multiple scenarios are explored, then outlining what potential actions result in the desired outcome. This is the heart of simulation theory, or at least a primary motivation to pursue such endeavors. If provided with a simulator that accurately mimics reality and accounts for any and all variations, a path to any desired outcome is produced. As for evidence of our possible existence in such a reality is possible, look at the Double-Slit experiment, quantum error-correcting found in general relativity, or the actual likelihood of existence at all.

Hold on to your seatbelts, because here is where things go off the rails. I am going to take some creative pose here, with little in the way of scientific fact to paint a picture, so this is your warning to turn back if this is too much.

I present, the “Fate Machine”. A monstrosity of technological mastery, so large and powerful, it mimics the size of a planet and cools itself with frozen temperatures of space. This machine would simulate a near-infinite number of realities that produce realism and accuracy such that it could fool its creator. The purpose? This is open to speculation, but it is conceivable that it would be to create some desired outcome, for gain or survival.

Ok, you can take your tinfoil hat off now. This is simply a theory, and even if true should not impact your daily life anyways. You should live your life doing what makes you happy, and pursue meaningful goals. I would like to think that if the time comes when we are faced with such a possibility, we have some grasp of care and ethical responsibility.

The autonomous vehicle(AV) industry is the next market that will create major disruption. Removing the driver from vehicles changes everything about how people move around and even where they live. AVs will deliver people faster, safer, and with significantly reduced carbon emissions. This opens the possibilities for all the benefits of owning a car without the costs. No more insurance, gas, maintenance, parking lots will turn into parks, traffic fines- gone! Parking lots and garages are estimated at $9.5 billion, traffic fines estimated to be $5 billion, and parking tickets from 16 cities was $1.5 billion. While much of this revenue goes to the cities that collect those fines, surely we can do better than rely on income from penalized behavior.

When I envision AVs, films like iRobot (2004), and Minority Report (2002) come to mind. There are so many hurdles from here to the end vision, but instead of saying “it can’t be done”, or “it’s too hard”, I prefer to keep the goal on the horizon and aim the helm for the next stop in the goal.

After years of wanting to, I finally pull the trigger on launching my first website. I have dabbled with websites before but never launched my own, and with a great name to back it up www.ultraalgorithms.com – so great!

What this site is for is to track and share my journey as an emerging Software Engineer during the most prolific pandemic of my time (Covid-19 if this becomes dated). I hope to share my passions, my hopes, and generally cool things that are happening around me.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, and I hope your trek was rewarding.