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Learning isn’t Free
AI Agents are often characterized as smart workers who learn and improve with practice. This can be true, but it isn’t automatic, and the “learning” doesn’t happen in the way I see a lot of people assume it does. Let’s start with what makes an AI Agent: 🌍An understanding of the world (Large Language Model)…
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Porcupine Leadership
The mighty lion is often held up as a standard for leaders to follow. He is the master of his domain, and his roar cements his power. Leaders need to be strong. The male lion sits and guards his territory while the lionesses go off and do the work of hunting for everyone. Although, I’m…
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Hallucination isn’t a thing; it’s just what we call a thing.
Lemme explain. There is no feature or any different behavior when GenAI “hallucinates”. GenAI is always using probability to predict the next token to output. We just choose to call it a hallucination when it does something we don’t want. Why is this distinction important? I heard a training explaining hallucination as I did above,…
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Why GenAI Systems are Biased
There are two categories of AI systems: Symbolic AI and Deep Learning. Symbolic AI requires the builders to define the rules it will apply. If you are trying to understand language, you would need to add grammatical rules. Deep Learning, on the other hand, starts with no rules and creates rules that match the patterns…
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The Lonely Struggle of Parenting in the Digital Age
Protecting my kids from digital harms and protecting their personal data often makes me feel like an isolated eccentric. Even before kids, I followed how the attention economy profited off of adults in ways that damaged mental health. In the quest for never-ending growth and profit, children are exposed to the same addictive harms that…
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This might be as good as it gets for genAI
“The AI you use today is going to be the worst AI you ever use” is a phrase commonly shared by AI educators. This makes sense from a technical development perspective. Even if the scaling laws don’t hold, surely, we will find other ways to improve current genAI systems. While that is likely true, it…
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Does social media need more than attention?
For transformers and recommendation algorithms, it is all about attention. Social media platforms want to capture as much of your attention as possible in order to show you ads and collect metadata about you. LinkedIn recently notified users that it would utilize their content to train AI models unless they opt out. I’m curious if…
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A Wakeup Call for Tech Workers
Tech companies, and frankly, most of the knowledge work industry, have jumped at the opportunity to replace human workers with AI. This possibility was so enticing that they didn’t bother to wait to see if the technology’s promises were real. They may have shown their hand too soon. I believe that we are fortunate that…
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Reading Recap: October 2025
🚀More Everything Forever by Adam Becker Get to know the cast of characters shaping our modern world. Their sci-fi inspired dreams of colonizing space take priority over sustainability and taking care of people in need today. Becker is the man for the job as he can hold his own with the technical details to dispute…
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Recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day
I grew up knowing today’s holiday as Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus received a pretty positive review throughout most of my early education. I am grateful that my kids are now learning the reality of his impact. Change is hard, and we are right to protect our traditions and values. When I first heard today’s holiday…