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Weeknotes 226; playful thinking machines

By Iskander Smit in weeknotes —
playful thinking machines (MidJourney)

Hi all.

Wars and natural disasters, rough times… Hard to shift to that totally different dispute, another week full of developments in the A.I. Arms Race… Microsoft declaring war… Google lost 100 billion in value due to one presentation; Last week I mentioned the announcement of Bard, but the presentation on Wednesday was disappointing. Everyone was surprised at how little progress the AI-first company had made in years. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella, in the meantime, made an interesting frame: all computing will start with a draft…

While preparing an update and roadmap for the AI strategy for Structural, I got back to a reflection pre ChatGPT on the role of the model by Bratton and Barcas "The Model is the Message", referencing the famous McLuhan of course; the difference between services will be defined by the models you use; OpenAI, Google, or others. And with ChatGPT the UI is becoming more and more key to defining freshness and quality.

The integration of AI functions has become part of all. Or just ChatGPT integrations, like in Opera browser. Microsoft is going one step further with AI copilot as part of Edge browser. ChainGPT, is an AI model designed for blockchain. The development was nicely framed by The New Yorker as “ChatGPT is a blurry jpeg of the web”. New variants are popping up in different big tech, like in China with Alibaba.  Much more can be found in the noticed news of last week.

Before jumping to these, here are some potential interesting events to join online or in person…

Three events further ahead: Interesting 2023, Mozfest, ThingsCon Salon.

And now on to the News:

Is This The Week AI Changed Everything?
Tech companies certainly say so. The reality is much more dizzying.
The AtlanticCharlie Warzel
AI VERTIGO - "AI vertigo comes from trying to balance thorny questions with the excitement posed by a technology that offers to understand us and cater to our whims in unexpected, perhaps unprecedented ways."
Inside the Heart of ChatGPT’s Darkness
Nightmare on LLM Street
The Road to AI We Can TrustThe Road to AI We Can Trust
AI DARKNESS - Gary Marcus is a critical scholar following the GPT hausse. "It’s a disaster in the making." He believes in the potential of AI, but is reluctant to the current hype. "The possibilities are now endless for propaganda, troll farms, and rings of fake websites that degrade trust across the internet."
Playing Software — Homo Ludens in Computational Culture
Homo Ludens in Computational Culture
Playing Software
PLAY AS DESIGN - I have been reading earlier works of Miguel Sicart and looking forward to this one for sure. "Play reminds us that this world is ours to make but also ours to unmake—that we can create all kinds of rules to shape who we are and what we think the world is, but that we can also break them."
ChatGPT is everywhere. Here’s where it came from
OpenAI’s breakout hit was an overnight sensation—but it is built on decades of research.
MIT Technology ReviewWill Douglas Heaven
HERITAGE AI - We know this is not the first AI spring. 
Presentations — Benedict Evans
Every year, I produce a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. This year, ‘The New Gatekeepers’.
Benedict Evans
TRENDS - Benedict published his yearly forecasting slidedeck; on the new gatekeepers, and two other trends for 2023: the end of three money, and dreams for the future. Full of stats as always. Everything Generative...
MotherDuck: Big Data is Dead
Big data is dead. Long live easy data.
MotherDuckMotherDuck
OPINION - "This post will make the case that the era of Big Data is over. It had a good run, but now we can stop worrying about data size and focus on how we’re going to use it to make better decisions."
Neuroscientists listened in on people’s brains for a week. They found order and chaos.
The study shows that our brains exist between chaos and stability—a finding that could be used to help tweak them either way.
MIT Technology ReviewJessica Hamzelou
REAL INTELLIGENCE - What can we learn for our AI design?
Dark Futures
Finding hope in the dark: shifting attitudes towards the future, ecology and identity
2sight2sight
FORECASTING - Is Dark a source of light?
ChatGPT is a data privacy nightmare, and we ought to be concerned
ChatGPT’s extensive language model is fueled by our personal data.
Ars TechnicaUri Gal, The Conversation
THE P WORD - No surprise this comes up; the real danger is the ultimate adaptiveness packed as sincere intelligence.
Press corner
Highlights, press releases and speeches
European Commission - European Commission
TRACKING AND TRACING - Someone marked this news as a step to an ultimo tracking system for our behavior as soon as presence data can be roamed...
Training Algorithms To Make Fair Decisions Using Private Data - USC Viterbi | School of Engineering
USC Viterbi researchers have developed a fairness enhancing algorithm that also keeps data secure.
USC Viterbi | School of EngineeringJulia Cohen
SOLUTIONISM - Would that work? Train fairness in the systems.
Quantum breakthrough could revolutionise computing
Researchers have transferred ‘quantum’ information between computer chips at record speeds and accuracy.
BBC NewsPallab GhoshScience correspondent
QUANTUM - There is more than GPT...
Ecosystems and supply chains: How do they differ and relate?
In developing (circular) urban value chains, we often discuss developing ecosystems to deal with the systemic questions involving multiple stakeholders in these value chains. How do ecosystems differ from and relate to supply chains? Ecosystems best suit dynamic business environments with complex an…
CityLogisticsMarc de Speville
LOGISTICS - "Ecosystems best suit dynamic business environments with complex and evolving technical systems. In contrast, supply chains are best suited for environments where firms can exert control on key resources across multiple firms."
How a digital twin for intense weather could help scientists mitigate climate change
Using a Cerebras CS-2 computer, scientists are able to simulate large computational fluid dynamics experiments in near-real time, which they say may have dramatic implications for energy and climate change projects.
ZDNETTiernan Ray
WORLD TWINNING - Intriguing visualisations too.
Next phase for Roboat to boost future-proof urban mobility as a spin-off company
At AMS Institute we design solutions for urban challenges, and educate tomorrow’s engineers. We develop a deep understanding of the city and research & valorize interdisciplinary metropolitan solutions to integrate these into the city of Amsterdam.
Next phase for Roboat to boost future-proof urban mobility as a spin-off companyStephan van Dijk
ROBOTICS - It felt long as an endless research project, but there is a new phase towards real use now apparently.
Assessment of readiness of a traffic environment for autonomous delivery robots
Introduction: Autonomous delivery robots are a promising alternative for last-mile delivery. To realise successful implementation of delivery robots in public spaces, it is important to study the interaction between robots and the traffic environment. The traffic environment includes the physical in…
FrontiersKinga E. Kijewska
LMV - Deeper research on delivery bots.
AI-powered Bing Chat spills its secrets via prompt injection attack
By asking “Sydney” to ignore previous instructions, it reveals its original directives.
Ars TechnicaBenj Edwards
NEW HACKING - Trojan horse's new style...
A notification center for progress bars that sounds like birdsong
Posted on Friday 10 Feb 2023. 1,294 words, 4 links. By Matt Webb.
Interconnected, a blog by Matt Webb
PROGRESSING PROGRESS - At one of my first SXSW visits I attended a talk from a designer talking on the impact of the progress bar on our experience of the video and other linear media. It was a good talk. It came back to mind reading these thoughts on the contextual progress bar.
What 2022 brought for repair in EU policy and what to expect from 2023 - Right to Repair Europe
Let’s have a look at ongoing and upcoming 2023 legislative processes which bear potential for the right to repair!
Right to Repair EuropeCristina Ganapini
THINGS - Some good old physical news...
Radar Trends to Watch: February 2023
Developments in Data, Programming, Security, and More
O’Reilly MediaMike Loukides
EXAMPLE GALORE - Looking for examples, the monthly newsletter of O'Reilly is there again.

And some other links:

Paper for the week

And to close, another interesting academic paper.

Ecosystems and supply chains: How do they differ and relate

“We study the evolution of the concept of ecosystems through a systematic review of the literature to describe how the two concepts relate throughout this evolution.

“We also show that practically supply chains and ecosystems can either compete or complement each other and we present some of the conditions for the emergence of such relations.

Hervé Legenvre, Ari-Pekka Hameri, Ruggero Golini, Ecosystems and supply chains: How do they differ and relate, Digital Business, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2022, 100029, ISSN 2666-9544, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.digbus.2022.100029.

See you next week!