Noise Between Stations

Month: March 2023

  • Why Machine Learning Scares Us

    So it turns out that the flavor of AI that is finally reaching the mainstream is the large language model. And we’re uncomfortable with it not only for the obvious reasons that there’s a machine acting eerily like a human, but also because we can’t explain precisely how it’s doing what it’s doing. And in that sense it’s like our own brains, and by extension so much about our universe. We’ve developed staggeringly complex science and simultaneously can’t explain how we think or where the universe came from or even make general relativity and quantum mechanics play nice together. This general situation has been unsettling for a long time, so we invented gods to explain the universe. But the gods didn’t make AI.

    Dall-e created image
    An image created for me by DALL-E

  • Passwords Are Now Outdated

    There’s a lot to be said about how to secure our online information while providing a good experience; hasn’t anyone written this book yet? In any case, I think a good, uncommon, guideline would be:

    Do not use human memory

    To remember and recall takes work, and I’d rather not expend my precious attention and cognition on computers. And, human memory is fallible. Most passwords break this guideline, but we now have biometrics and password managers to provide security without relying on memory and it’s time our security practices catch up to the technology.

    Two-factor authentication, similarly, feels like a lazy, flawed approach which requires too much human work.