Zag To The Zig #18 :: Platform Design, AI-ethics nonsense & more
Thanks for all the feedback on my article about Alignment last week. It even got featured in the excellent newsletter Exponential View. #proud
In the Reading Room
Less is More. My gut feeling always felt this was a useful approach, but French newspaper Le Monde has some numbers on it. Since they cut their output (amount of articles) by 25% in 2 years, their readership has gone up. Quality.
In the Office
Turns out the perks of the modern office (think pingpong tables) are over rated. People just want to a window.
In the Tech Basement
Meet the Xenobot, tiny living organic robots that are created from heart cells and can heal themselves.
In the Economy room
The Human Capital Economy is something that intrigues me. And this article dives deep into some future opportunities of Tokenising Humans. By the way, you’re still eligible to claim 666 GRR coins. One day you can use them to get discounts on content or anything other value we can explore.
In the room with a (Global) view
Lots of content (reports and recorded talks) coming out of the World Economic Forum last week. Normally, I’m not too bothered (too much bland stuff), but at least the themes this year are interesting. On the to-do list.
In the Tool Shed
My Alignment article triggered Renzo D’Andrea to remind me of this toolbox for Platform Design, which looks like a fitting starting point to make companies take action.
In the Ethics Room
Two intriguing angles on the friction between tech/code and ethics or human values. First, Tom Chatfield wrote about how There is no thing as Ethical AI.
The challenge, in other words, is primarily political and social, not technological.
And Vitalik Buterin, inventor of the Ethereum blockchain, wrote down his in-depth thoughts on the challenges of designing (automated) incentive schemes without discriminating. He calls it Credible Neutrality. (Note: if you don’t have much blockchain knowledge, just skip those bits).
🏁 End note: 1 thing I’ll be doing this week
A few years ago I helped set up the post-graduate Digital Business. This week the 8th edition starts and it’s nice to see that they still ask me back to give the kick-off session.