Dumb and Dumber

Last week, the most important paper being discussed in AI was the Apple Research - telling us that AI is not as good at deductive logic as the industry would like us to believe. It is still, to put it mildly, rather dumb. 

This week, the hottest paper is the MIT research telling us that adults who use Gen AI are losing cognitive skills. Gen AI is making humans dumber. 

To sum up, AI is dumb, and humans are getting dumber. 

So, this fortnight of research is hereby summed up as: Dumb and Dumber. 

When ChatGPT tells you your MBTI type

Over the weekend, Saloni and I got playing with ChatGPT. She was exploring its use in therapy and I just decided to explore personality types. 

Our approach was to give it pieces of our writing and asking it to analyse that. 

I first asked about the Jungian personality archetype that I am most likely to fall into. The explanation given by ChatGPT seemed logical enough. 

And then, I asked it to guess my MBTI type based on the content given. 

Now, this is a game I have played often with CoPilot. So I was not looking for miracles. 

BUT, to my surprise, within no time at all, it gave me the accurate MBTI type. 

Not easily convinced, I asked it to also give me the difference between my T and F dimensions. It was accurate on that too!! 

Go on, try it! 

Obituary for Jasjeet sir

When he was trying to explain something to you and you were generally unable to comprehend (read: being a blockhead), he would not show even a sliver of irritation. He would address you as "Raje" and explain again. S-l-o-w-e-r this time. But he would explain until you did it right. Quality of output was not negotiable. 

Whether it was over chai or in office meetings, the smile was ever-present and hugely infectious. It is impossible to forget the cheer that always accompanied his presence. 

On social media, he made posts for his parents, and for his children. For ma'm, his love was easy to see. They recently finished 36 years of togetherness. 

So, no, it was not an easy message to read at 6 30 am on a Sunday. One stared at the photograph in the message for a long time. I don't think I have ever seen him without that easy smile, even in the middle of the toughest conversations. It was still there. Making the message even harder to believe. 

He was an easy mentor to have. Easy, because he made mentoring look easy. When you asked him for advice, he was direct, blunt, and super honest. If you asked him what you needed to do, he told you. In Punjabi, we have a word - Lag-labed. Roughly, it translates to circumlocution with an intent to clutter or confuse. He never had that. 

He carried himself lightly. 

At GDC and then at Labs, he was an active member of the social contribution team. Even though he was a senior leader, he made time for this voluntary group. To him, it just was the most natural thing to do.

In kindness and empathy, he was like a father figure. In conversation, like a friend.  

It is now 3:00 am the following morning. And I am typing out this obituary. He was a mentor, teacher, senior. A nurturer. A Smiler. And so much more.  

Jasjeet sir, you will be much missed.  

Yesterday, some of us from SAP reconnected. Unable to understand this. Sharing a grief. As if the square white table of the cafeteria was back, and we were sitting around it, chai in hand. But one chair was empty. 

Words I identify with

 Dendrophile 

What China did right in preparing for the age of AI

 Within weeks, the market is flooded with Chinese LLMs - either free to use, or significantly cheaper than known LLMs.

They are flooding the market faster than countries can ban them. Deepseek, in a predictable move, has upped its prices.

I am wondering:
A. HOW are so many LLMs ready for commercial release within such a short time?
B. WHY are so many LLMs flooding the market?

Any thoughts?

Update:
So, I did some digging and found out some very important things.
1. China has as many as 130+ approved LLMs. Unlike the US, in China, every LLM has to be approved by the government before it is available for public use.
2. 600 million people use these LLMs.
3. Chinese companies support each other. They embed each other's solutions.
4. China unveiled an AI policy in 2017. It invested in policy making, chip manufacturing, and skill building, consistently from then. All 3 were being done.

Choose Your Expensive

 Human talent is expensive.

AI tokens are expensive.

Choose your expensive.

My sense is that it will be a balance of Human + AI that provides a decent RoI in the short term and makes ops sustainable in the medium-long term.

Idea for QComm Designers

 Dear QCommerce designers: Please consider adding the following delivery options:

1. Send in an hour or so.
2. Send anytime today.

There is a whole world of consumers out there that is not happy with the exploitation of workers. We would like to order from you, especially the things that are not available in stores, but cannot accept that people have to scramble because we could not do basic grocery planning.

We genuinely don't always need things in 10 minutes.