Daniel Akuoko Jnr

Studying hard what is extremely interesting to me in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@nikunj I love this! Thanks for writing.

[Daniel Lemire @lemire]

« Don’t ever make the mistake [of thinking] that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That’s giving your intelligence much too much credit. » (Linus Torvalds)

« In my field of research (machine learning, and especially deep learning & neural nets), [theory lags practice] is a truth I have experienced first-hand. » (Yoshua Bengio)

Watt invented the engine long before scientists conceived thermodynamics. We built electric circuits before scientists founded electromagnetism. We hacked computers together and then founded computer science. We created large language models and in the future, we will understand why they work.

Daniel Lemire, "Theory lags practice," in Daniel Lemire's blog, January 7, 2015, https://t.co/CcI9wtCRWe

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@Benedict_Q @karpathy Sounds exciting! I'd love to learn more.

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

# on shortification of "learning"

There are a lot of videos on YouTube/TikTok etc. that give the appearance of education, but if you look closely they are really just entertainment. This is very convenient for everyone involved : the people watching enjoy thinking they are learning (but actually they are just having fun). The people creating this content also enjoy it because fun has a much larger audience, fame and revenue. But as far as learning goes, this is a trap. This content is an epsilon away from watching the Bachelorette. It's like snacking on those "Garden Veggie Straws", which feel like you're eating healthy vegetables until you look at the ingredients.

Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the quickie doesn't do anything, it's just that it is wildly suboptimal if you actually care to learn.

I find it helpful to explicitly declare your intent up front as a sharp, binary variable in your mind. If you are consuming content: are you trying to be entertained or are you trying to learn? And if you are creating content: are you trying to entertain or are you trying to teach? You'll go down a different path in each case. Attempts to seek the stuff in between actually clamp to zero.

So for those who actually want to learn. Unless you are trying to learn something narrow and specific, close those tabs with quick blog posts. Close those tabs of "Learn XYZ in 10 minutes". Consider the opportunity cost of snacking and seek the meal - the textbooks, docs, papers, manuals, longform. Allocate a 4 hour window. Don't just read, take notes, re-read, re-phrase, process, manipulate, learn.

And for those actually trying to educate, please consider writing/recording longform, designed for someone to get "sweaty", especially in today's era of quantity over quality. Give someone a real workout. This is what I aspire to in my own educational work too. My audience will decrease. The ones that remain might not even like it. But at least we'll learn something.

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@T_maine @emollick Interesting times ahead!

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@T_maine For folks interested, the book is available here: https://t.co/1dqU37cKWY

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@AmineJv Looks clean!

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@T_maine Oh, Don. 😂

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@PeterHndrsn @Princeton @PrincetonCS @PrincetonSPIA @PrincetonCITP Congratulations!

[Jeremy Howard @jeremyphoward]

The most powerful and compelling writing I've seen on AI safety was a random HN comment from some anon poster.

knodi123, whoever you are, thank you...

[sarah guo @saranormous]

1/ Incredibly easy to make something cool with LLMs, but hard to make something robust and consumable by end users.

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@jtvhk Congratulations!

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@jerroldsoh Epic tweet!

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@dazzagreenwood @LegalHackers @OpenAI @AnthropicAI Thanks for sharing!

[François Chollet @fchollet]

What is life if not the pursuit of knowledge, beauty, and love -- and having the freedom to engage in it

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@jtvhk @CohereAI Congratulations James!!

[William Rose @dodecahedra]

Very strong opening to a math video. Ok, you have my attention.

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@ohenebarushtyme Congratulations!!

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

@NaderLikeLadder Less darker than the background. You may also consider improving the contrast between the label and the background to make it more visible.

[Daniel Akuoko Jnr @_akuokojnr]

This is the way.

[François Chollet @fchollet]

It's often worth trying out new hobbies simply to acquire new perspectives. The more different the better.