I’m a fan of the Go-Giver books. Having already read two books in the series that I liked a lot, The Go-Giver and The Go-Giver Leader, it was an easy decision to put The Go-Giver Influencer on my reading list. Authors Bob Burg and John David Mann have a way of weaving important business and personal development concepts into stories that makes those concepts easy to digest and remember. It also makes it easier to see how the concepts can be applied to real-life situations.
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Privacy is a topic I take seriously, especially as it relates to the data we generate and share online. I’m sure that I come across as paranoid at times, if not all the time, with my refusal to engage in social media and my concerns over browser usage and the sites I frequent while online. Yes, maybe I can take it to the extreme, but the more I read about how companies, governments, and the powers that be use our data, I worry that I may not be taking it seriously enough.
It’s articles like this one that showed up in my feed from Smashing Magazine, Pushing Back Against Privacy Infringement on the Web, that raises online privacy warning flags for me. Our personal data is being used, sometimes for our benefit, sometimes against us, and always for the benefit and profit of the companies that collect, analyze and trade it.
The article is a short read and provides a good overview on the importance of privacy on the internet. But it was the mentions in the further reading that intrigued me. I wanted to go deeper into why privacy is important, which led me to reading Privacy Is Power: Why And How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data by Carissa Veliz.
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For some reason, we (meaning humans) have a tendency to anthropomorphize things, whether they are objects, animals, or phenomena around us. We assume that everything that we interact with in our environment rationalizes and thinks like us, that the things around us experience feelings and emotions the same way we do.
I do it with my dog quite often. I imagine him thinking about how much he likes to go for a walk, or how he wishes he could have steak for dinner every night. And while my dog does display some strangely human-like behaviors, it doesn’t change the fact that he is still a dog, an animal. A lot of what he does is instinctual or based on learned behavior as result of routine or training.
A similar problem arises with artificial intelligence. Because of how it responds to our questions, we have a tendency to attribute human qualities to it. We think that it wants to please us or be our friend. We assume it feels remorse when it doesn’t understand us because it responds with ‘”I’m sorry.” We’re amazed at how it knows the answers we’re looking for. While these things do feel oddly human, it doesn’t change the fact that we are dealing with a machine. The behaviors are based on the attributes programmed into it or learned from the data it’s fed. For both creators and users of AI, this is an important concept that must not be overlooked.
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In my first post about the rise of the machines and the emergence of artificial intelligence, I talked about the possibilities and opportunities. It embodies my general opinion that change isn’t something to resist. Resistance is futile, especially when it comes to technology. Instead, change is something to embrace. The earlier it is embraced, the better we, as a whole, can prepare for the opportunities and guard against the downsides.
While I am generally optimistic about artificial intelligence, I do have concerns. If we are going to reap the benefits that the technology has to offer, we need to acknowledge the risks and downsides. We must make sure that the provisions to protect against potentially bad outcomes are put in place. Given how fast technology advances, particularly AI, these provisions need to be created and enacted sooner rather than later.
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The hype around AI (artificial intelligence) is off the charts. People are not only talking about it but actively using AI-driven tools like ChatGPT. The big tech companies – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, NVidia, et al – are making huge investments in it.
In my lifetime, I’ve lived through what I would consider to be three major technology shifts – the transition to PCs, the emergence of the internet, and the shift to mobile phones or, more generally, mobile computing. With AI, it would appear that we are on the verge of the next major technology shift. In fact, one could convincingly argue that it’s already well underway.
While there are valid reasons to be concerned about the development of AI and calls to pause its development, there’s also plenty of opportunities, which is the focus of this post.
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In addition to reading a daily spiritual devotional, one of my other morning routines involves a daily reader that is more “secular” in nature. By secular, it means the reader contains inspirational notes around personal development, character, business, mindfulness, and/or leadership. Besides the inspirational notes, I’ll often use the reader as a jumping of point for my daily journaling exercise. Examples of daily readers I’ve used in the past are The Daily Stoic and The Mindfulness Journal.
Last year, my daily reader was written by renowned business leadership and management consultant John C. Maxwell and appropriately named The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You.
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Part of my daily morning routine involves devotionals and daily readers. Last year, one of those books was a little different. It was a weekly read.
The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors by Brad Feld and Dave Jilk is a collection of 52 essays on various entrepreneurial topics. The essays are grouped into five sections – Strategy, Culture, Free Spirits, Leadership, and Tactics. Each essay starts with a Nietzsche quote that is used as the starting point for that week’s topic. The majority of the essays also include a narrative by an entrepreneur that reinforces the message in the essay by way of personal experience.
Continue readingRead science fiction books, which I do a lot of, or watch science fiction movies, and the metaverse is the future. Ready Player One, both the book and the movie, certainly make it feel like it will be an incredible experience.
The way it’s portrayed in science fiction, the metaverse appears to be a foregone conclusion. The movies certainly make it look interesting and pretty cool. I get the attraction. It’s a digital playground where you get to be anything you want and do anything you want (for a price). As a software developer, the metaverse would be so much to fun to build. It would be a great project to be a part of.
Well, regardless of how cool it looks or how much fun it would be to build, if the metaverse is the future, then count me out. I don’t want to join it nor do I want to engage in it.
Continue readingI’ve previously made my opinions known regarding remote work, or as I like to call it, WFH (Work from Home). I didn’t envision wanting, or needing, to address the issue again, but a recent post that showed up in my blog feed caught my attention and caused me to revisit the topic. I just couldn’t help myself.
This may be a good time to get up, take a break, stretch your legs, refill your coffee, and settle in for my latest rant.
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After almost four years using the Pixel 3, I decided to pull the trigger and upgrade to the Pixel 6a. It was a tough decision. I’ve really liked the Pixel 3. It has been, by far, the best phone that I’ve ever owned. Unfortunately, it’s not scheduled to get any more Android updates, so I figured it was time to move on.
Here are my thoughts after one week with the Pixel 6a. Given how much I liked my Pixel 3, the new phone has some big shoes to fill.
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