Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 35 " We can know more than we can tell. " ―  Michael Polanyi  ( Polanyi's paradox ) Triggered by a reference to the paradox in a recent presentation at ICML 2023 by Prof. Subbarao Kambhampati :  Avenging Polanyi's Revenge: Exploiting the Approximate Omniscience of LLMs in Planning without Deluding Yourself In the Process

Quote of the Week 34 " The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what they say is true or false. " ― Harry G. Frankfurt (" On Bullshit ")  Triggered by the ongoing discussion of trustworthiness of Large Language Models' (LLMs) output. Under this definition LLMs are bullshitters, not liars. But liars can use them to amplify their lies. Full quote : "The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what they say is true or false, but rather only cares whether or not their listener is persuaded." Related : „It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.“ „Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstance require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.“

Quote of the Week 33 " You always own the option of having no opinion. " ― Marcus Aurelius     Triggered by the use of the quote in a recent Daily Stoic   tweet : “You always own the option of having no opinion.” — Marcus Aurelius — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) August 12, 2023 See also:  10 Stoic Rules From Marcus Aurelius RULE 5: You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

Quote of the Week 32 " It takes a long time to become young. " ―  Pablo Picasso   Triggered by John Maeda's compilation of Picasso quotes  including " One starts to get young at 60, and then it’s too late . " See also:  https://joemckeever.com/wp/it-takes-a-long-time-to-become-young/ In his book by this title, Garson Kanin , a well-known playwright, told how Pablo Picasso walked into a hall where a massive display of his paintings was being exhibited. The artist strode into the gathering with a beautiful young woman on each arm and a smile on his countenance. Someone approached him and after the greeting, said, “Sire, I have a question. There is something about your painting that puzzles me.” The man pointed out that in Picasso’s first paintings, done when he was a young man, the scenes are dark and formal and according to all the standards. But, he said, “The paintings of your latter years are alive and colorful and so youthful! How do you explain that?” Picass...

Quote of the Week 31 " The higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. " ― Esther Crawford   Triggered by Esther's tweet about working with Elon Musk at Twitter: Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about Twitter > X and figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company. I tweeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup to Twitter in… pic.twitter.com/bw7CHhk0Xg — Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) July 26, 2023

Quote of the Week 30 " The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. " ― Peter F. Drucker   Triggered by a discussion about leadership on Wednesday last week where I claimed that "Someone is a true leader when people follow the person voluntarily." just to find out that Peter Drucker has expressed a similar thought well before I ever did: " The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. To gain followers requires influence but does not exclude the lack of integrity in achieving this ."

Quote of the Week 29 " What goes up must come down. " ― Old adage  (sometimes attributed to Isaac Newton )   Triggered by a report on the declining interest in ChatGPT.    

Quote of the Week 28 " The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. " ― Stephen King  (variation of a quote by Oscar Wilde)   " The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. " ― Oscar Wilde     Triggered by King's tweet last week reflecting on the positive consumer reaction to Meta Thread vs. X Twitter.   Musk vs. Zuckerberg reminds me of what Oscar Wilde had to say about fox hunting: the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. — Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 7, 2023    

Quote of the Week 27 " You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it. " ― Ryan Holiday ( The Daily Stoic ) A variation of: " You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it. " ― Ryan Holiday   See also: “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude  toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather  than allowing it to master you.”  ―  Brian Tracy " It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. " ―  Epictetus Triggered by the use of a variant of the quote in a recent Daily Stoic  tweet : You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it. — Daily Stoic (@dailystoic) June 29, 2023 Related: " Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness. " ― Viktor Frankl  

Quote of the Week 26 " So GPT-4 is actually 8 expert raccoons in a trenchcoat. " ― Sasha Luccioni   Triggered by the citation of Luccioni's tweet in the article " GPT-4's Secret Has Been Revealed " by Alberto Romero. So GPT-4 is actually 8 expert raccoons in a trenchcoat 😂 https://t.co/eRWhcZoJ5l — Dr. Sasha Luccioni 💻🌎🦋✨🤗 (@SashaMTL) June 20, 2023 Image created with Microsoft Bing Image Creator (powered by DALL-E):  

Quote of the Week 25 " You can make a short road take forever . " ― Sophocles  (Antigone) " Es braucht viel Zeit, einen kurzen Weg zu gehen . " ―  Sophokles  ( Antigone , 232) " Derlei bedenkend, ging ich müßig langsam.  Und so wird auch ein kurzer Weg zum weiten."   ―  Sophokles  ( Antigone ) "And so, mulling it over, on I trudged, dragging my feet,  you can make a short road take forever."  ―   Sophocles  ( Antigone ) Triggered by the use of the quote in German as banner on a theatre truck:

Quote of the Week 24 " Direction is much more important than speed . " ―  Richard Feynman   Shreyas Doshi did offer a related thought: 3/ It is important to move fast, but the direction of our movement is more important than the speed. Backtracking after ending up in the wrong place sounds easy in theory but is extremely hard in practice because of our ego, our users’ attachment, and our code’s inelasticity. — Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) October 6, 2020 Triggered by the use of the quote in a recent @ProfFeynman tweet : Direction is much more important than speed. — Prof. Feynman (@ProfFeynman) June 7, 2023

Quote of the Week 23 " Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic . " ― Arthur C. Clarke   ( Clarke's 3rd Law ) Adapted by Grey's Law : " Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice ."

Quote of the Week 22 "A computer  is the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. " ― Steve Jobs Triggered by the use of the quote in a Microsoft keynote by Satya Nadella last week:

Quote of the Week 21 " He who can go to the fountain does not go to the water jar. " ―  Leonardo da Vinci Cited in the biography " Leonardo da Vinci " by Walter Isaacson. Triggered by a recent vacation trip to Florence .

Quote of the Week 20 "'No' is a complete sentence . " ―  Anne Lamott Actually, I do prefer a variation of the statement : "'No' is a valid answer . " Triggered by Bary Kaufman's tweet : "No is a complete sentence." @JFM — Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman ⛵🛵 (@sbkaufman) May 8, 2023

  Quote of the Week 19 "I f you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop. " ― Keith Jarrett (*May 8, 1945) Happy birthday to the master of perfect improvisation.* Triggered by unforeseen and hence unplanned circumstances during a recent vacation trip that reminded me of the story behind " The Köln Concert " bestselling solo-piano album ever  ―  in any genre  ―  covered here : "If I did The Köln Concert again, there'd be so much less ornamentation. It's all been transcribed and exists as sheet music now, but that just shows me all the sections I'd cut out. One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop." Source: " There is no plan " (The Guardian, October 2006) *See The Aesthetics of Imperfection in Music and the Arts for those that don't agree with the juxtapostion of "perfection" and "improvisation".

2nd Quote of the Week 18 " The road to AI is paved with good attentions. " ― Alan Bipe Malaphorism triggered by the title of Gary Marcus' blog  "The Road to AI We Can Trust".

  Quote of the Week 18 " Just because chatbots can't think doesn't mean they can't lie. " ― Maria Bustillos Triggered by the title of the article in The Nation covering the Internet Archive .

  Quote of the Week 17 " A ruler who is not wise can never get good advice. " ―  Niccolò Machiavelli See also:  https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-prince/summary-and-analysis/chapters-2223

Quote of the Week 16 " Nukes don't make stronger nukes. But AI makes stronger AI. " ― Aza Raskin  (The A.I. Dilemma)  Triggered by the use of the quote in the thought-provoking (and controversial) talk " The A.I. Dilemma " by  Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris : BTW, I was not able to find another reference of the Yuval Harari quote they used in the presentation. [ LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 15 " Art must hurt. " ― Theodor W. Adorno    Triggered by the use of the German  quote   "Kunst muss weh tun." in a piece on German TV without referencing Adorno. Can AI-generated art ever qualify? See also: "Art must hurt. First, it must hurt the artist himself; the artist must experience pain before he creates. Otherwise, he won't be able to produce tears. A true artist must describe the things he is most afraid of, all that which he wished to avoid." ―  Itamar Yaoz-Kest [ LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 14 " Large Language Models are going to do to human discourse what fossil fuels did to climate. " ― Alan Cooper  Triggered by Alan 's tweet : Large Language Models are going to do to human discourse what fossil fuels did to climate. — Alan Cooper (@MrAlanCooper) March 31, 2023 See also " I am not afraid of robots. I am afraid of people. " by Gary Marcus: " ... the reality is that large language models remain exactly what I have always described them to be: bulls in a china shop, powerful, reckless, and difficult to control. Making new systems that are “more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal” should literally be at the top of everyone’s agenda." [ LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 13 " We suffer more in imagination than in reality. " ― Seneca   Triggered by the use of the quote   "There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality." in a  tweet by Billy Oppenheimer  published on Saturday. In Jaws, you don’t see the shark until 1 hour and 21 minutes into the movie. That wasn’t the plan. According to the script, the mechanical shark, “Bruce,” was supposed to get way more screen time. But Bruce was built for and tested in a North Hollywood freshwater tank. Oops:… pic.twitter.com/FchkwhcVYm — Billy Oppenheimer (@bpoppenheimer) March 25, 2023 [ LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 12 " Business outcomes measure the health of the business. Product outcomes measure a change in customer behavior. " ― Teresa Torres Triggered by a discussion of how to align product development goals with business goals in the context of an OKR initiative. My take which is  influenced by T. Torres and others including M. Cagan and T. Herbig :  In the triangle of "business", "customer", and "product", do not try to directly derive the product objectives from the [internal] business objectives, instead look at the [external] business impact for the customer first. See also " What’s the Difference Between OKRs and Outcomes? " by Teresa Torres: "Product teams don’t typically have direct influence over business metrics like increasing revenue. But they do have the ability to directly influence product outcomes—changes in customer behavior—that can ultimately contribute to business outcomes." As Melissa Suzuno st...