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https://auroracollective.io

In this first video we’re going to talk about the rise of Artificial Intelligence by way of Large Language Models, and with it of AI-powered everything, from apps to people.

In this video we will answer questions like:

• How come AI is suddenly everywhere?

• How did LLMs become good to the point of threatening even tech and knowledge workers?

• Will AI take my job?

We’re also going to answer questions like: is chatGPT magic? Just kidding, but we are going to try and dispel some of the mystique around this tech

By the end of this video you’re going to have a good general idea of what recent advances and conditions made these new applications possible, what are current limitations of the technology that can be overcome, but otherwise how they will continue to be limited in many other ways.

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Artificial Intelligence is just Machine Learning is just Statistical Modeling is just Algorithms in which explicit code instructions to the machines were replaced with data generated by humans. There's a lot to unpack there, so let's integrate it by parts. First, let's simplify the first statement: AI=ML=SM, we'll do that…

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It’s important to acknowledge achievements of science and technology, but at a time when tech billionaires turned philanthropists are pledging billions to solve problems like disease and poverty using what amounts to engineering thinking, it’s also important to be accurate about what was actually achieved and how (especially when working with statistics…

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For those coming of age already already in the 21st century, it may seem that today's insane pace in news, style trends, and technology is how it's always been, but for the previous generations there was a reasonably precise moment when things changed radically from a manageable amount of information to a deluge of data. Yes, The Internet. When computer…

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This is an un[professional blog], do not confuse it with an [unprofessional] blog — this is a formal medium, and bracket and parenthesis placement matters. It will therefore have posts that differ radically from companies that try to use a dry and confident tone to reassure and convey certainty — that should irk anyone who has some understanding of statistics, as well as of science in general, as there is no such thing as absolute certainty.

Our research, training, and advising/consulting is formally, mathematically and scientifically accurate. As a consequence, posts in this blog will often state hard mathematical and statistical facts, with all the propositions, lemmata, an theorems necessary. All statements we make are based on the best science available; nevertheless, we cannot confine ourselves in this safe space, because that is not where real-world problems live. To tackle these problems we must put ourselves out there and take the risks of surfing the bleeding edge. In that space, things get really complex, and actually interesting; there, we will still make strong statements, but we will also acknowledge the uncertainty around any prediction (statistical or otherwise).

These pages are therefore a space for exploration. When we negate the status of "professional blog", we dismiss the sanitized style and language that is required for the appearance of knowing it all, of always being in control (because if we can be certain of anything is that that is a lie). We forgo the cowardice of certainty and embrace the unknown. We are not sure, but we are very confident that the best way of navigating an unpredictable environment is to be honest about what we know, what we don't, why we get things right, why we got some wrong — the best way forward is to be realistic, but also be brave.