Sam Seljan

Dad, sports fan, V.P. of Data Science, Big Data algo designer. PhD in Political Science. Views my own.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@DouglasTS @FOXSports @USMNT Seriously? What a lame comment.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

An outsiders perspective on Knicks-mania and the miracle of Jalen Brunson and game 4: https://t.co/0WzJq8OOfX

[Daniel Jeffries @Dan_Jeffries1]

AI will create more jobs than any other technology in history.

The doomers' fundamental error isn't just the lump of labor fallacy. It's deeper than that.

They assume a finite problem space.

This is the fundamental error of AI and job doomers. They look at the economy and see a fixed amount of work to be done, a pie that can only be sliced thinner as machines take bigger bites. They see humans a competitive resource for a finite amount of work and a finite amount of problems to solve that must be eliminated.

This is fundamentally, totally and completely wrong.

The pie isn't fixed. It never was. And the reason it isn't fixed is baked into the very nature of technology itself.

Technology is nothing but abstraction stacking. And abstraction stacking is infinite. Therefore the work is infinite.

The hammer didn't reduce the amount of work. It moved the work up the stack. And the new work was more complex, more varied, and more interesting than the old work.

Complexity breeds more complexity and more variety.

Once you have houses instead of mud huts, you have a cascade of new problems that didn't exist before. Plumbing. Wiring. Insulation. Roofing materials that don't rot. Drainage systems so the foundation doesn't flood. Fire codes so your neighbor's bad wiring doesn't burn down the whole block.

Each of those problems becomes a job. A plumber. An electrician. An insulator. A roofer. A civil engineer. A building inspector. None of those jobs existed when we lived in mud huts.

They exist because we solved the mud hut problem.

Think of all of human technological development as a stack of abstraction layers, each one built on top of the ones below it.

At the bottom: raw survival. Finding food. Building shelter. Making fire. These are the base-layer problems.

Each major technology wave solved a base-layer problem and in doing so created an entirely new layer of problems above it:

Agriculture solved "how do we reliably eat?" — and created problems of land ownership, irrigation, crop rotation, storage, trade, taxation, and governance.

Writing solved "how do we remember things across generations?" — and created problems of literacy, education, record-keeping, law, bureaucracy, and literature.

The printing press solved "how do we spread knowledge at scale?" — and created problems of intellectual property, censorship, journalism, publishing, public opinion, and democratic discourse.

The steam engine solved "how do we generate mechanical power without muscles?" — and created problems of factory design, worker safety, urban planning, railroad engineering, coal mining, labor relations, and environmental pollution.

Electricity solved "how do we deliver energy anywhere?" — and created problems of grid design, power generation, appliance manufacturing, electrical safety codes, utility regulation, and an entire consumer electronics industry.

The Internet solved "how do we connect all human knowledge?" — and created problems of cybersecurity, digital privacy, online commerce, content moderation, network infrastructure, cloud computing, social media dynamics, and an entire digital economy that employs tens of millions.

Notice the pattern?

Each solution didn't just solve a problem.

It created an entirely new problem space that was larger, more complex, and more varied than the one it replaced.

The stack grows. It never shrinks.

It's turtles all the way down and all the way up.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@InsiderDucks @DucksRising_ @travisrookeley I can probably help you out. When do you need it by?

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@FPL_Harry Starting three spurs seems like quite the gamble

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@HypeDuck_ @hythloday1 Terrifying. Oregon uses good fundamentals but sometimes - like catching the ball in traffic, it’s tough. *Mostly* joking: maybe Ducks should just throw shots every play.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@hythloday1 11 Big12 OOC games against SEC, ACC, and B1G, two of which were UNC. Not a huge sample. Some info in the other OOC games, but definitely some high leverage games and uncertainty in power ratings in CFB.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@hythloday1 Yeah, was joking about sending to Dan. There are doubters in the fan base though.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@bcfremeau Love the graphs. Close losses against good teams are punished too harshly by the committee and “SOR” in my humble opinion.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

We could try to model both sides and infer the score but from visual inspection seems like 17-17 is not a bad guess.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

Taking a look at that B1G championship game. Too great teams. I think it will be low scoring. Plotting each team's score against the defensive FEI certainly "suggests" that. First Ohio State:

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

And what Ohio State allows, given the Offensive Efficiency of teams its faced

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@hythloday1 Yes on box count, but the safeties are making the tackle on a ton of these plays. They did a good job filling and tackling, better then teams we gashed. At least part of the story here.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@Erik_Skopil So easy: injuries. Oh, and not playing off coverage after seeing SC had one play that worked: rainbow ball v press coverage.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@Erik_Skopil Will Stein called an incredible game. Mixed run and pass to perfection. Dealt with injuries like a magician.

[Sam Seljan @sseljan]

@hythloday1 Iowa stopped itself in the second half as much as USC did. Conservative play calls. Dropped passes. Poor throws.