An eclectic researcher and engineer interested in AI, art, side-projects, philosophy, and many more things.
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Writings
I started blogging in 2014, and have tried to continue writing consistently ever since. Below you'll find essays,
educational articles, and even a few poems. Enjoy!
PS, feel free to check out these posts in chronological form.
Highlights
Facts about depression everyone should be aware of, and some recommendations
Things learned the hard way, conveyed here so hopefully you can learn them the easy way
What are best practices AI researchers can follow to avoid unintended consequences of their research?
Recent studies suggest the impact of AI on jobs in the near future will not be significantly more disruptive than the impact of automation in the past
By definition, learning from scratch inefficient.
Condensing years of frustration into a one-page guide on how to get it right
An attempt to convey what it was like to have clinical depression and de-stigmatize the topic
The start of the story of how humanity made computers good at Go
Organizing emails into folders quickly gets old - why not get some help from AI?
The beginning of a story spanning half a century, about how we learned to make computers learn
A trip through the lands of Tarkovsky, Bergman, and so many others
What have we worked for? What do we work for? What will we work for?
AI
An extensive overview and debate concerning how much of a risk to humanity AI may pose
An overview of what this hypothesis is
Why the transcript of Blake Lemoine's conversation with the LaMDA chatbot does not in any way support the notion that it is sentient
A recap of the GPT-4chan controversy regarding 'the worst AI ever'
There is evidence that Russia may have used 'killer robot' drones in Ukraine
A brief overview and guide to playing with cutting edge AI easily with Google Colab
Facial recognition company Clearview AI has faced much media scrutiny and numerous legal challenges in 2020 and 2021
On why GPT-3 as is will not cost many people their jobs or soon lead to AGI
GPT-3 was by far the largest AI model of its kind last year. Now? Not so much.
There's too much misunderstanding, hype, and misinformation surrounding AI, and those developing it should do more to change that
One PhD student’s curated list of 21 newsletters to help you keep up with AI news and research
A look at trends from 100 weeks of AI news, and AI-generated AI news snippets!
An overview of the big AI-related stories of 2020
Popular usage of the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ adds to misunderstanding of AI as it exists today.
There was a big messy discussion on Twitter, which I reflected on.
At 13,000 attendees and 1,428 accepted papers, NeuRIPS has unquestionably become a huge conference. Does that make it worse or better as an academic conference?
AI researchers often bemoan low quality coverage of their field; here are their recommendations.
The Rubik’s cube solving hand is representative of a true research contribution, but its many caveats do not merit the PR hype
What are best practices AI researchers can follow to avoid unintended consequences of their research?
Recent studies suggest the impact of AI on jobs in the near future will not be significantly more disruptive than the impact of automation in the past
Is China winning the global AI race? How will developments in AI impact the job market, wealth inequality and the global economy?
What do robotics researchers even do? This.
Learning how to learn better.
By definition, learning from scratch inefficient.
Why DeepMind's Go playing program is not about to solve all of AI
On the two-decade story of how two revolutionary ideas were combined to make AlphaGo
About how we got from the crummy Chess programs of the late 50s all the way to DeepBlue
The start of the story of how humanity made computers good at Go
Organizing emails into folders quickly gets old - why not get some help from AI?
About the mid-2000s neural net comeback, and how deep learning ascended to the tsunami it is today
About neural nets' flaws in the 90s, and how a new AI Winter dawned
How the foundations of deep learning were developed in the 90s
The beginning of a story spanning half a century, about how we learned to make computers learn
Projects
Condensing years of frustration into a one-page guide on how to get it right
Some bonkers stuff conjured up in the process of doing research
A look at how many movies of each genre get released, the IMDB rating distribution, and more!
What for, where, and how do software developers work?
Some graphs and stats about a post that made it to the Hacker News front page
Why and how this website was created
Art
In the end, it was not a super-intelligent AI that decimated humanity
A little short story musings about middle age mentalities
Some fun absurdity co-written with AI
The nominees are all great, but which are best? And why they are they so great? My take.
A brief catalogue of some trailer and trailer types I find particularly cool
A trip through the lands of Tarkovsky, Bergman, and so many others
A critical comparison of two AAA blockbuster games with overt Serious Art ambitions
Or, what this game has that most do not
Music videos can have a dream-like magic few other forms of art can. Here are some to watch.
The second season was so dissapointing compared to the first. What changed?
How it was to connect to my Russian roots, while in Switzerland
Life
Some things I use and do to make me healthier and more productive.
Trying to explain my past year in mental health
Or, if you are not doing great I hope it sort of helps to know I've been in rough spots too.
Or, why I donated more than $7000 in recent weeks
Just some reflections on why the site is not a total waste of time, and how to get the most out of it
Facts about depression everyone should be aware of, and some recommendations
A little poem about endings
Things learned the hard way, conveyed here so hopefully you can learn them the easy way
An attempt to convey what it was like to have clinical depression and de-stigmatize the topic
The things I do and use, and hope to start doing and using
A short reflection about my experience with meditation
A short post reflecting on becoming a full time grad student at Stanford
An essay-poem
What have we worked for? What do we work for? What will we work for?
Reflections on having worked myself to the brink of burning out
A short treatise on why I think haters of Soylent are wrong
More lofty principles I hope to live by
Some principles I hope to abide by
When no one checks if you have a ticker, ought you still buy one?
TLDR new fancy technology that may or may not revolutinize computing
The significantly outdated justification for this blog.