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Preparing for Superintelligence: Living the Values of Humanism Today
Albert Wenger – Aug 12, 2017
In my draft book World After Capital, I write that humans having knowledge is what makes us distinctly human and gives us great power (and hence great responsibility). I define knowledge in this context as science, philosophy, art, music, etc. [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Risk Aversion (Jensen’s Inequality Cont’d)
Albert Wenger – Aug 9, 2017
Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced Jensen’s Inequality. I mentioned briefly that it explains a lot of things and today we will look at the first one of these, which goes by the name of risk aversion. This is simply economists [...] Read more
The Fallacy of Biological Determinism
Albert Wenger – Aug 6, 2017
In my draft book World After Capital, I write about how digital technology has given us the possibility to leave the Industrial Age behind and enter the Knowledge Age. In an early chapter on Optimism, I argue against economic, historical [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Jensen’s Inequality
Albert Wenger – Aug 2, 2017
Last week in Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced functions of random variables as the third level in measuring uncertainty. Today I will introduce a beautiful result known as Jensen’s inequality. Let me start by stating the inequality: f[EV(X)] ≤ EV[f(X)] where [...] Read more
VPNs and Informational Freedom
Albert Wenger – Jul 31, 2017
In my draft book “World After Capital” I have a section on the need for increased “Informational Freedom.” There I write: As well as: Virtual Private Networks (or VPNs) are a way for citizens to circumvent these artificial restrictions imposed [...] Read more
Putting People First on Healthcare
Albert Wenger – Jul 28, 2017
There is lots wrong with the healthcare and health insurance system in the US. One can also have a rational debate of the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act and how we might proceed from here. What should [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Functions of Random Variables
Albert Wenger – Jul 26, 2017
Just as a reminder, we have been spending the last few weeks of Uncertainty Wednesday exploring different measures of uncertainty. We first looked at entropy which is a measure based only on the states of the probability distributions itself. We [...] Read more
Attention on Digital Monopolies
Albert Wenger – Jul 25, 2017
The dominant position of companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon is sure receiving a lot more attention these days. There is critical media coverage, including in traditionally pro business publications such as the Wall Street Journal “Can the Tech Giants [...] Read more
Homo Deus by Yuval Harari (Book Review)
Albert Wenger – Jul 21, 2017
I previously wrote a review of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, which I highly recommended, despite fundamentally disagreeing with one of its central arguments. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about Homo Deus. While the book asks incredibly important questions about the [...] Read more