AI tipping points
Read a disturbing article about an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the DRC. The causes include a lack of clean water and sanitation facilities, i.e., clean toilets and sinks. At the same time, an AI bubble created a trillionaire and the rapid construction of water-guzzling data centers. We don’t need to solve intelligence and then solve everything else, the stated goal of Demis Hassibis of DeepMind. We need to redress poverty, inequalities and dire circumstances starting now. A long-term benefit of AI is that it’s radicalizing society and making us realize that there are different visions of our future and different ideas about what constitutes progress. AI caused our economic system to descend into an absurd caricature. First tragedy, then farce, as we were warned.
Another tipping point may be happening in academia. For the last few years, researchers have jumped on the bandwagon of AI for science, promoting hype that AI will accelerate scientific progress. This is reflected in academic literature, conferences, personal statements and webpages, and grants. From what I can tell, the bandwagon is now full. AI-scientists are ten a penny. Insights and lasting advances remain rare, and the actual expertise and value of AI scientists, in many cases, looks threadbare.
Only time will tell, but for now I am happy to ying while everyone else yangs. Paradoxically, as a consequence of the rush towards AI, actual understanding of statistics, statistical reasoning, statistical computation, and reasoning under uncertainty in general are at present rare and underdeveloped. I remain interested in AI, but through the perspective of traditional statistics and computing, and with a critical eye on who made it, how and why, and what harm it might cause.
32 Programmes
Read 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts (or should that be 32 grams?), a football book, fitting for the start of the World Cup. It's a nostalgic book, based on the author's memories of attending matches, and who he was with and what was going on in his life at the time. I thoroughly enjoyed most of it, though it took a surprisingly sombre turn at the end, as the author suffered from mental and physical health issues.
The author's memories of racism in football crowds in the 1970s sadly didn't feel that far away from where we are now in society.
Short stories
Read several colletions of short stories. First, aborted Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, written in 1902. I expected colonial attitudes about e.g., seeing the animals as resource or as something to be put to work, but I didn't expect explicit racism about non-European people.
Switched to Stories for Seven Year Olds, a collection published by Harper Collins. On the whole, we enjoyed it, and discovered some interesting stories and authors. Vardiello was a highlight, as was discovering Leila Berg, an advocate of children's rights and children's literature.
For myself, read the collection The People's City, a collection of short stories centered in Edinburgh, with a rousing introduction by Irvine Welsh and contributions from Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith.
Finally, attended a wonderful seminar by Jordan Stoyanov, an academic grandson of the great Kolmogorov. The talk introduced a few intriguing problems and their connections to probability theory. The problems discused were similar to recreational maths, for example, find random variables for which $$X + Y = XY$$ with equality in distribution. These little problems are, to me, the short stories of maths. They have intrigue that captures you, but can be consumed satisfying in a single period, without multiple strands to the story line or many characters entering.
Tags: reading, short stories, maths
Nanjing
Visited Nanjing for the 2026 Workshop on New Physics and Interdisciplinary Sciences. It was a pleasure to discuss physics with new and old friends. I spoke about forthcoming work on the axion quality problem; a nice work to discuss as it has a clear narrative. Nowadays I try to tell a compelling story about our research - why we did it, how we think about the problem, what we found and why it matters - rather than a complete technical exposition of the work.
A personal highlight was a chance to revisit Stone Elephant Road, a path lined with huge stone sculptures of horses, elephants, camels and dragons to guard a mausoleum.
The Last Bell
Read The Last Bell by Donald McRae. A thoughtful and moving book about boxers and boxing, worthy of the William Hill nomination that drew me to it. McRae is a veteran sports journalist, and writes about grief and death in his personal life and in boxing bouts that end in tragedy.
The case of Patrick Day is particularly poignant. His brothers remark that he had so many qualities that boxing didn't value. I was already conflicted and ambivalent about the sport, but no longer think noble champions, even Oleksandr Usyk, can justify or redeem it.
RIP Patrick Day.
Craghead Colliery
Watched Craghead Colliery, a documentary made by the BBC in 1969 about the fate of the Craghead Colliery and community between Newcastle and Durham. The miners performed dirty, dangerous and depressing work to provide coal and power for us. They worked hard for each other and support their families for 50 years in the pit and then often passed away shortly after retirement, suffering from chronic health conditions associated with their work.
The coal ran out, or at least, became expensive to extract. The documentary features speeches from Margaret Castle and Harold Wilson at the Durham Miners' Gala. In my opinion, the Labour Prime Minister Wilson let them down: he was evasive about their future, telling them only that a decision on the future of energy in the North East would be based on technical, economic, as well as social factors. He later buried news about the future of the mines on the day of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
I liked Margaret Castle's words though:
I am deeply conscious of the of the tribute that you have paid in allowing me to be here this morning … you are not the ones who theorize about the need for change in Britain you are the ones who have to experience it …… By definition the Labor Party is the party of fundamental change and therefore by definition the task of a Labor government will always be more difficult than that of a Tory one.
Tags: tv
Dwayne Fields
Listened to Dwayne Field's episode of Desert Island Discs. Dwayne is an explorer, motivational speaker and an ambassador for the Scouts. He had an amazing story, growing up in Jamaica, at first raised by his great grandmother, before moving to the UK aged six. He navigated gangs, crime and social problems in inner London, before a life-changing opportunity to join an expedition to the North Pole. In doing so, he became the first black person to reach the magnetic North Pole.
There were two takeaways from his story stuck with me. First, I loved his statement that as an explorer he was about planting seeds, not flags. That he wasn't interested in claiming firsts and discoveries and successes for himself, as his; he wanted to lead the way, to inspire and support other people. I think this works as a metaphor for what we should try to do in academia. Second, I loved his message that we were all capable of doing and giving so much more than we realized. If he could start where he started, and go to the North Pole, and now inspire other people, what can I do?
Tags: inspirational, podcasts
Nero
Read and thoroughly enjoyed Nero by Conn Iggulden. This is the first part of a trilogy of historical fiction about ancient Rome. This first part traces the emperors Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius, ending with the Roman conquest of Britain.
I've read other books by Iggulden many years ago, and it's similar, though much less biographical, to Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy. It also reminded me of Eagle of the Ninth
by Rosemary Sutcliffe. I remember listening to it on tapes from the local library many, many years ago.Tags: books