Applying the principles of behaviorism to interpersonal relationships in the workplace — What follows is the description of an experimental training curriculum aimed at improving interpersonal effectiveness, which my team took part in a few years ago with extremely good results. …

Reinforcement Learning is dead, long live Reinforcement Learning! — When I tell people in tech circles that I work on machine learning for robotics, it’s not uncommon for their immediate reaction to be ‘oh, reinforcement learning …’ I used to not think twice about that characterization. After all, a large fraction of the successes we’ve seen in the past…

Which discoveries will come after human exceptionalism next? — Science seems forever bent on crushing our collective ego. The long, winding road going from mankind picturing itself as the central character at the heart of a purpose-built Universe, all the way to today’s understanding that we’re but a clump of stardust in a cold, anonymous corner of an indifferent…

Humor, dialog, affordances, and the path to grounded intelligence — Bob: ‘There is no algorithm for humor’ Robot: ‘Hold my beer…’ Seven years ago, I set out to build an AI to win the New Yorker caption contest. I didn’t get very far back then, and the challenge is still up for grabs. Former contest organizer Bob Mankoff believes that…

Let’s Disagree to Agree to Disagree — The environment I work in is wonderfully broad in its cultural diversity. My colleagues hail from every corner of the planet (flat-earthers rejoice …), and the richness of these life experiences is a delight to witness on a day-to-day basis. The leadership challenge buried deep in that wealth of diversity…

Falling down the Internet chess rabbit hole — ‘Dad, you’re an addict!!’ It began as a classic Covid story: binging Netflix, watching the Queen’s Gambit, and before I knew it, I had three distinct chess apps on my phone, was studying obscure gambits, and lurking on /r/AnarchyChess shaking my head at a missed en passant. …

I glimpsed fascism and reacted how you probably would — I am crawling in a muddy ditch on my elbows and knees. A trickle of sewage runs between my legs. The stench is nauseating. I am holding on to the filthy shoes of the person ahead of me, trying not to accidentally get hit in the face. If I let…

From the “I’d watch that movie” dept. — “Status?” “It was a Big One, Madam Mayor. Damage reports are trickling in.” “Anything big?” “Fallen trees, broken glass mostly.” “Good, keep me — ” “Except…” “Except what?” “The Millenium Tower, Ma’am. It’s tilting.” “Hardly news.” “Tower-of-Pisa kind of tilting.” “Hell. There may be hundreds in there. …

Problems guaranteed not to lose their spice. — The world of Machine Learning no longer feels as greenfield as it used to. Tinkering with optimizers, hyper-parameters, and architectures doesn’t have the same pioneering feel it had a decade ago, and picking a problem space to focus on can be daunting. With ML making another huge leap forward thanks…