Category: Uncategorized

  • Mind-reading and imagination in robots

    We’re seeing some amazing robot demos these days. Combine the latest language AI and robot hardware and we should have our Robo Collaborators any minute now! What could possibly go wrong? A collaborative humanoid robot is the kind of robot you know from sci-fi movies. They communicate with people naturally and need minimal input to…

  • AI & Strategy #2: Autonomous strategy design and the limits of LLMs

    In this second post in the series on AI and strategy I want to explore how state-of-the-art AI systems, namely Large Language Models (LLMs), can be helpful in strategy design, and in so doing create some awareness of their limitations and pitfalls. As a tool to have this discussion I’ll propose a framework to talk…

  • How to test-drive an AGI: linguistic indicators of conceptual capabilities

    Let’s say we find ourselves presented, at some point in the not-too-distant future, with an AI that claims to be able to communicate with us in a useful way about making some kind of a plan. Before engaging in a consequential way with this AI, we would reasonably like to have a good degree of…

  • AI in strategy design: redefining tactics and strategy

    This post is the first in a series about AI in strategy design. We’ll start by laying some foundations. Specifically, I want to talk about a particular bugbear of mine: the difference between tactics and strategy as commonly understood. I’ll argue for what I think are more useful definitions, only in part because I’m pedantic…

  • AI could save the world – should it really be regulated by the people who don’t care?

    The beginning of November has been marked by the occasion of an international AI Safety Summit, intended as the beginning of "urgent talks on the risks and opportunities posed by rapid advances in frontier AI". Based on reports emerging from the event, the tone was a mixture of collective enthusiasm for containment and nation-specific posturing.…

  • Riposte to the 23

    In late October 2023, a number of well-known figures co-authored a short note on Managing AI Risks in an Era of Rapid Progress. This serves as the latest instalment in what has become something of a genre: thoughtful messages from thoughtful people communicating concern about what might go wrong with artificial intelligence. This sentence, found…