#6: So what is AI anyway?
are we all going to die? or become slaves to the robots? find out here
Today’s been busy. BUT I said I wanted to post a newsletter every day, so here I am at 11:59PM GMT in the office scrambling to finish it up. Proud of you, Ato.
So I told a friend of mine that I’d start reading AI Superpowers China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order with her so we compare our notes, but I cheated and started last night. Was planning to read just 20 pages, but reached 70 (typical Ato).
Anyway, let me give you a pretty simple explanation on AI: Artificial intelligence is the elucidation of the human learning process, the quantification of the human thinking process, the explication of human behavior, and the understanding of what makes intelligence possible. It is men’s final step to understand themselves, and I hope to take part in this new, but promising science.
Pretty easy to understand, yea? NOPE. I don’t know what was going through Kai-Fu Lee’s mind but where is the explanation in this? If you asked me, Ato, what AI is, my response would probably be something like “human intelligence but not thought of by humans. You get?” —of course that makes no sense whatsoever so that’s why we have Tim Urban here to do a phenomenal job explaining AI to us! Very long read but I promise it’ll open your mind to AI and all the possibilities around it…and how close we are to getting fucked (or not) as humans. Next time you see an ant and kill it without regard for whether it was going home to its family or is the provider for its friends, know that that is the exact type of action AI-powered machines will do to humans. We won’t be able to control is and we’d probably all be dead in a few decades with robots running the show here.
I’d let Tim clear it up for you a little bit. After you should read the articles. Seriously, read them. I can see your open rates on my dashboard. :)
What is AI?
If you’re like me, you used to think Artificial Intelligence was a silly sci-fi concept, but lately you’ve been hearing it mentioned by serious people, and you don’t really quite get it.
There are three reasons a lot of people are confused about the term AI:
1) We associate AI with movies. Star Wars. Terminator. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Even the Jetsons. And those are fiction, as are the robot characters. So it makes AI sound a little fictional to us.
2) AI is a broad topic. It ranges from your phone’s calculator to self-driving cars to something in the future that might change the world dramatically. AI refers to all of these things, which is confusing.
3) We use AI all the time in our daily lives, but we often don’t realize it’s AI. John McCarthy, who coined the term “Artificial Intelligence” in 1956, complained that “as soon as it works, no one calls it AI anymore.” Because of this phenomenon, AI often sounds like a mythical future prediction more than a reality. At the same time, it makes it sound like a pop concept from the past that never came to fruition. Ray Kurzweil says he hears people say that AI withered in the 1980s, which he compares to “insisting that the Internet died in the dot-com bust of the early 2000s.”
And since no one asked me for AI Superpowers China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (🌚🌚), I’m letting you know again that I HAVE THE PDF AND I AM WILLING TO SHARE IT WITH WHOEVER WANTS TO READ AS WELL. Thank you and enjoy reading the following posts on Artificial Intelligence.
Anddddd I’m going to add another thing to this newsletter, which is a more serious non-free form piece on one particular subject each month. Working on September’s right now. That will be filled with sources and what not and would read more like a thesis. 1 a month, so 12 a year. Not bad exercise. I’m gradually becoming Tim Urban. One post would definitely be about AI because as soon as I started reading this book, a couple of thoughts jumped up: “How can we compete when china is light years ahead of us? We can make AI solve our particular problems as Africans. Plus we need money. or should we even compete? thats another question. because no doubt theres some Chinese kid somewhere in Africa figuring out those problems and going back to China telling his investors that theres this and that opportunity and next thing you know, he's getting 10m in seed funding which would most definitely not happen here. So Africa, what are we at the forefront of doing?” Yes, these are just some of the thoughts that percolate in my brain throughout the day. PS. I found the opportunity for Africa in AI…at least I think I do. Willing to brainstorm with anyone interested in hearing my crazy thoughts.
Finally, here are the posts. I’m typing too much.
Article List—Articles I’ve read in the past 24 hours or so (plus my comments)
Workplace Collaboration Space Crowds Further With Another Hot New Startup: “So what’s going to happen to Slack? I mean how many of these apps can we really have? Alexis told me about Notion and Tasked. Check them out too.”
KFC will start testing Beyond Meat fried chicken: “Honestly I don’t care if it’s not actual chicken. As long as it tastes like chicken, I’m good.”
Kraft Heinz brings back former CFO after accounting missteps: “Warren Buffet’s biggest miss?”
Ethiopia's Packaging Industry: “Apparently Ethiopian manufacturing industry is really cheap and that’s why China is promoting heavy investment there? Yea, I’d know. I wrote e paper on this in college. Interesting statistics.”
Podcast— A podcast channel listened to this morning
This morning, I listened to Network Capital. Deep-dive into Venture Capital and Impact Investing with Vineet Rai, Founder of Aavishkaar Group. Here’s some takeaways (s/o to Sedinam for the suggestion on writing my personal feedback).
On young people getting into investing:
He pretty much said he’d discourage people from getting into investing because its easier to do something than to advise on something. if you’ve never done something and you’re sitting on the side giving money, the question he’d ask is: how exactly will you add value?
asking questions on why something cannot be done is the easiest task in the world (which I disagree with because learning to ask the right questions is where the money is at. Anyone can ask questions but asking the right ones is very very key and not everyone knows how to do that. For more, read A More Beautiful Question) and thats what basically VCs do.
Going out and doing it (re: starting a business) requires naivety, enthusiasm, energy and excitement of youth, which young people have.
He also says when you’re young, trying to tell somebody “I’ll give you the money and help you do it” requires experience.
To him any young person better of joining an impact entrepreneur than a fund because your ability to learn by being a fund manager is very limited and there is no real value add you can give to a fund beyond building your own company and learning from that or bringing a new network. Both of these activities require time and credibility
in the absence of that, you’re not really going to be a great impact fund manager starting there.
if you’re really bright, go and solve a big problem and then go to VCs to raise money and gain from their expertise.
or else, if you want to go against his advice, think of something that can add value to a fund manager, one thing like an unconventional thought process and being very persistent.
Book—What I’m reading now or in the recent past or want to read…my book list is nearing 1000 books 🌚
Didn’t get the chance to read today :( But yesterday, I read for today so that’s all that counts.
Remember folks: “until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”