Notes and links
"Wyle occupied a special place right at the center of “ER.” He was the youngest of the core cast members — almost painfully young. His face looked as if two babyfaces got together and had a baby babyface."
"The best reason to ban vehicles from Oxford Street is simple: it would be nice." The case for banning vehicles from Oxford Street in London is weak
"What’s easy to overlook in the prediction market hype is that gambling is a branch of the entertainment industry, not a financial service. To attract new customers, gambling needs to seem fun. Winning is fun. Losing to a gamma-neutral Sequoia market hedging algorithm that snipes for mispricings and whittles away every inefficiency is not fun."
FT Alphaville
"‘Is it a bubble?’ John Lanchester asked in a recent LRB of the colossal amounts of money pouring into AI firms. ‘Of course it’s a bubble. The salient questions are how we got here, and what happens next.’"
A good listen on how we got to where we are with AI and what might happen next.
"The TBI's largest donor is one of the wealthiest men in the world: Larry Ellison, the founder of tech giant, Oracle, whom Donald Trump has referred to as "CEO of everything". Ellison's personal foundation has donated or pledged at least £257 million to the TBI. Some TBI staff – including a number who left in recent years because of Ellison’s influence – say the cash injection has produced a culture that is dominated by a form of AI boosterism, and which, as they see it, amounts to lobbying for Oracle.What are the connections between Tony Blair's AI evangelism and Larry Ellison's money? And what impact is this having on the policy agenda of Keir Starmer and the Labour government?"
Another good listen (which these days, means a watch):
Also, a podcast for watching, this reduces the gloom slightly:
