Bart Gajderowicz delivered a great talk at Machine Intelligence Toronto about how people go through stages in accomplishing a goal [1]. The talk was about homelessness and AI approaches to public policy. I instantly saw a connection to all sorts of tensions that people endure when they set out on a goal. To distill the concept, let’s start off with the idea that people have goals, people have emotions, and that time moves forward. As people make progress towards their goals, their emotions change over time. They start off in a good mood, in a state of uninformed optimism. Then, as negative information overwhelms their ignorance, they enter into a state of informed pessimism. So much negative information builds up[…]
Tag: technology
Ben Thompson calls culture the accumulation of decisions. Assume that it’s true. How do decisions at a tech startup come into being in the first place? A startup can be instantiated with the business plan. And if you take a Beinhocker (2006, The Origin of Wealth) approach to it, you may believe that there’s a Library of Smith which contains every single business plan that’s possible. There are trillions upon trillions of potential business plans. And management is pretty much reduced to a machine that is able to execute the plan to generate wealth. Everything that has potential is possible at the beginning and assume competent management. (Image related – a bit esoteric*). In the context of a startup, a[…]
Previously, I argued that you should look at the Q4-2016 VR sales figures closely and then make decisions about whether to jump in. Some figures are in. SuperData Research, a technology research firm, estimated that Oculus had sold 360,000 headsets and HTC 450,000 since their products went on sale in March and June, respectively. Both of those headsets require high-end PCs with powerful processors. The firm estimated that Sony, which began selling a virtual reality headset in October, has sold about 750,000. — NYtimes Jan 8/2017 Those aren’t encouraging install bases. Obligatory Gartner Hype Cycle image: Consolidation is a long ways off. Facebook, has deep pockets and can sustain a long chasm crossing. The legal issues with Zenimax are a distraction. This is[…]
“A study at Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research last year found that trade accounted for just 13 percent of America’s lost factory jobs. The vast majority of the lost jobs — 88 percent — were taken by robots and other homegrown factors that reduce factories’ need for human labor.” – AP Canada’s labour force is around 19.6 million people, of which 18.2 million people are employed. Together, they worked something like 2.4 billion hours that month. In December 2016, something like 1.7 million Canadians worked about 240 million hours in manufacturing. Roughly. Because of seasonal adjustments and different data at different times. And error. In terms of our working lives in Canada, collectively, manufacturing is about 10% of[…]