Month: June 2018

The Blockchain Bubble will Pop, What Next?

Last week, I flew from London to Tel Aviv. The man sitting to my right was a road warrior, just this side of a late-night bender in London. He was rocking an ostentatious pair of headphones and a pair of pants ripped wide apart at both knees. Perhaps a D.J.? At some point, circumstances emerged for us to commiserate over the experience of flying on Easyjet (not the easiest). Soon after, we stumbled through the obligatory airplane smalltalk: Where are you going? What do you do?

Turns out I was flying next to the CEO of an AI+Blockchain startup.

This image ran in an article in the Express discussing conspiracy theories suggesting that cryptocurrencies were invented by an advanced artificial intelligence.

It’s always a bit surreal when I learn of entrepreneurs combining AI with blockchain technology. For the past few years, whenever I found my myself bored among Silicon Valley socialites, this was my go-to satirical startup. What do you do? Startup CEO. What does your startup do? Deep learning on the blockchain… in The Cloud. Whoa. Continue reading “The Blockchain Bubble will Pop, What Next?”

From AI to ML to AI: On Swirling Nomenclature & Slurried Thought

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we work (Venture Beat), turning all of us into hyper-productive business centaurs (The Next Web).  Artificial intelligence will merge with human brains to transform the way we think (The Verge). Artificial intelligence is the new electricity (Andrew Ng).  Within five years, artificial intelligence will be behind your every decision (Ginni Rometty of IBM via Computer World ).

Before committing all future posts to the coming revolution, or abandoning the blog altogether to beseech good favor from our AI overlords at the AI church, perhaps we should ask, why are today’s headlines, startups and even academic institutions suddenly all embracing the term artificial intelligence (AI)?

In this blog post, I hope to prod all stakeholders (researchers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, journalists, think-fluencers, and casual observers alike) to ask the following questions:

  1. What substantive transformation does this switch in the nomenclature from machine learning (ML) to  artificial intelligence (AI) signal?
  2. If the research hasn’t categorically changed, then why are we rebranding it?
  3. What are the dangers, to both scholarship and society, of mindlessly shifting the way we talk about research to maximize buzz?

Continue reading “From AI to ML to AI: On Swirling Nomenclature & Slurried Thought”