Commentary

In defense of technology lawyers or the mystery of leaving notes

Noam Bardin just wrote an interesting note on leaving Google. As the founder of Waze Bardin is without a doubt a brilliant entrepreneur and a great thinker. He is also by many metrics a long-time googler, with 7 years under his belt. His leaving note, however, does leave me feeling exasperated. Bardin details the story of the small start-up being absorbed by the mothership, slowly … Continue reading In defense of technology lawyers or the mystery of leaving notes

Nicklas LundbladLeave a comment
Commentary, Contemporary patterns

A weird lesson from prozac-infused fish

Scientists report that the residual amounts of drugs, like Prozac, are affecting the fish that live in waste water in weird ways. Here is a report from ScienceAlert: To probe further, Polverino and his team ran a two-year experiment in the lab, subjecting generations of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to targeted concentrations of fluoxetine at low levels, on par with the chemical’s pollution in aquatic environments, … Continue reading A weird lesson from prozac-infused fish

Nicklas LundbladLeave a comment
Commentary, Future Studies, Mental Models

Practicing predictions (Mental models IX)

Predicting is hard, especially the future, as Yogi Berra supposedly pointed out. But it is interesting – but not necessarily for the reasons we originally think. Predicting the future is interesting not because you want to find out if you are right, but you want to use the predictions you make to tease out the narratives that are organizing your understanding of the world. I … Continue reading Practicing predictions (Mental models IX)

Nicklas LundbladLeave a comment
Artificial Intelligence, Commentary

Balancing our intelligence investment portfolio

It is no secret that AI is currently a hot subject – in politics, law and, of course, in investing. The idea here is right: this new technology may well revolutionize business after business and not paying attention to it would be folly. But there is an interesting question sitting at the edges of the current fervor with which we pursue artificial intelligence, and that … Continue reading Balancing our intelligence investment portfolio

Nicklas LundbladLeave a comment
Future Studies

The importance of red team storytellers

In an Edge-seminar held by Tetlock recently there was an interesting back and forth about the value of predictions. One view – held by Danny Hillis – could be simplified as: people do not think in predictions, they think in stories and so when people are wrong about the future they are in fact not wrong about predictions, but about what story we are in. … Continue reading The importance of red team storytellers

Nicklas LundbladLeave a comment