Graham Rowe

chilling

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@kruthamX @rationalhill Is there any reason for optimism about reform in trade and industrial policy under the GNU?

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@VusumuziWaZweli @Leon_Schreib This often relates to highly specialized company technical know-how that is learnt on the job globally, not via universities. For example it might be an expert in a particular drug for a global Pharma company. South Africa is a small economy and we have a lot of catching up to do

[Justin Sandefur @JustinSandefur]

This op-ed lives up to the hype in my TL

Claim: Chinese industrial policy flattens supply curves -- creating, e.g., a "Cambrian explosion" of EV firms --while in the West we cheer on our tech monopolies, confusing corporate profits with consumer surplus.

https://t.co/WUp0TvbNYK

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@tautologer You can see this even more clearly in developing countries. For example South Africa (where I live) is stuck at minuscule GDP/capita due to resolute societal refusal to make blatantly obvious growth enhancing changes that other countries already did decades ago. Homeostasis

[Alec Hogg @alechogg]

SA about to enter by far the most important fortnight in the Young Democracy's history. Dr Frans Cronje explains in some detail why the next two weeks will result either in the country catapulting ahead, or an implosion. Brilliant analysis. On BizNews now: https://t.co/yw17ffLUzn

[François Chollet @fchollet]

When you hear about "human-level AI" being just "one LLM training run away", it's as if people building 3D printers (the kind that makes small, flimsy plastic objects) were telling you that they've nearly built an infinite matter replicator, capable of scanning and cloning any object -- be it steel, gold, or diamond, be it minuscule or building-scale. "We're just one iteration away! Just need to increase spatial resolution a bit!"

As long as you have absolutely no idea what "matter" is and how 3D printers work, it might sound sort of plausible. But if you do, it's absolutely clown shoes. The way to navigate such claims is to have a proper, formal definition of intelligence.

[Andrew Côté @Andercot]

The lost heritage from Antiquity is unfathomable.

Sophocles wrote 120 plays, only 7 survive.

Democritus of abdura proposed atomic theory in 3rd century BC, but none of his original works survive.

Aristarchus of Samos proposed heliocentrism and that the moon shines by reflected light. None of his original works survive.

Barossus wrote a detailed history of the Babylon empire, beginning with the Great Flood to the founding of Babylon, a period he describes as 423,000 years. None of his original works survive.

What has survived from Antiquity is the faintest shadow of a revolutionary golden age in thought, literature, and science. This pale shadow was still enough to ignite the Renaissance in our own recorded history.

The ability to decode more lost scrolls is a profound opportunity to shine light into the unremembered depths of humanitys cultural heritage.

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@omshanti08 Thank you sir. Really enjoying being out surfing with you! Safe travels

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@WandileSihlobo Good news. How much of this growth do you think is driven by increased availability of electricity due to reduced loadshedding and increased generation self sufficiency? Very interested in 2024 to watch for green shoots from the electricity situation turning the corner…

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@michael_nielsen Otter Trail, South Africa

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@ricardo_hausman @CDEsouthafrica @HarvardGrwthLab @annbernsteinSA Superb diagnosis. There’s immense potential for SA if these recommendations can be even partially implemented

[Ricardo Hausmann @ricardo_hausman]

It was a great pleasure to discuss the @HarvardGrwthLab report on South Africa with @annbernsteinSA from CDE-SA. Collapsing state capacity and spatial exclusion are at the core of the economic malaise. We discussed how to turn the situation around. https://t.co/In0rUwpMgu

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@vumatel @KerrynLancaster @AlexGreenleaf Yes it came back on Sunday night

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@SanchiaTemkin @JamesTheSheriff @vumatel @webafrica Me too in 21st street

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@natfriedman Teaching me bioinformatics and helping me solve problems there - not just the coding

[Graham Rowe @grahamsrowe]

@Plinz More AI / animal domestication analogies please! The parallels re husbandry, training, economics, co-evolution etc are very interesting

[Peter Hartree @peterhartree]

Tyler Cowen recently compared the emergence of LLMs to the invention of the printing press.

I think he’s right. And it seems like we’re speedrunning it.

We should expect very good stuff & very bad stuff—this year; this decade.

[gfodor.id @gfodor]

GPT-4: finally someone you can chat with in rationalist pedantic autist mode to work a problem for arbitrary length and depth without it eventually tableflipping you as a pedantic bozo

[David Chapman @Meaningness]

Why did Microsoft Bing's chatbot "Sydney" generate text that resembled a conversation with someone with borderline personality disorder?

A guess: they got what they trained it on, and they were scraping the bottom of the internet barrel. 1/n