I think I’m a socially anxious extrovert. This sounds like an oxymoron, but I don’t think it is. I love being around other people and get a lot of my energy from social interaction, but I also easily get anxious in social situations where I’m not entirely comfortable.
Read MoreI’ve been feeling some dissatisfaction lately around not always being clear what I’m trying to achieve in the work I’m doing, so I want to explore that a bit.
In the last few years I’ve been struck by how individualistic much of academic research culture is. In my experience, it is pretty rare to find groups working together towards clearly articulated long-term research goals, even in parts of academia that are much more interdisciplinary and collaborative than most.
I love writing, but I don’t really write anymore. In some sense I write most days, but I don’t really write in my own voice, don’t really write with any feeling.
Read MoreIt’s not totally clear what the ideal background or relevant ‘expertise’ for AI policy is. One thing I’ve been thinking about is how useful it is for people working in AI policy to have technical experience/understanding in machine learning, or computer science more generally.
Read MoreIt’s generally acknowledged that there’s a distinction between “short-term” (or “near-term”) and “long-term” AI policy issues. But these distinctions actually tend to conflate (at least) three things.
Read MoreThis is a slightly edited transcript from a talk I gave last year at Prowler.io’s “Decision Summit”
Read MoreI’ve always assumed there’s a tradeoff between sensitivity and resilience: both have benefits, but each comes at the cost of the other. But I've been thinking recently that maybe this is an unnecessary dichotomy. I don’t think it’s easy, but it may be possible to be both highly sensitive and highly resilient.
Read MoreThis is the postscript/"final reflections" section from my PhD thesis. I tried to write it so that it would stand fairly well on its own as a high-level summary of the issues I discuss in more detail in the thesis itself.
Read MoreI've heard a lot of people talk about Richard Hamming's advice on how to do valuable research, but I only just got around to properly reading the transcript of his talk "You and Your Research." Here's a few things he talks about I found particularly interesting.
Read MoreI’ve begun to appreciate that sometimes vagueness has value. If we want everything we write, read, and say to be clear and concise, we’re going to be limited in what we write, read and talk about.
Read MoreThere’s one distinction between different methods we might use to try and improve decisions, and another distinction between different kinds of decisions we might target for improvement:
Read MoreI suspect that a lot of people think about their careers in this narrative sense - what step makes sense next, given what I’ve done so far? I’ve certainly been noticing this kind of thinking in myself. I’m a bit worried about this, because I’m not sure “telling a good story” necessarily tracks that what I care about - having a career that I enjoy and that has an impact in the world.
Read MorePeople sometimes talk about “improving decision making” as a way to improve the world. think that there’s promise here, and I’d like more people to be focusing on this. But I also think that this project is also often stated in a way that’s too broad and vague to be tractable.
Read MoreI really like this speech by C.S. Lewis. It’s about the tendency to form “Inner Rings” - informal groups and hierarchies, impossible to pin down precisely, but which exist everywhere - in all schools, organisations, and societies.
Read MoreSome aphorisms that I like, from Vectors by James Richardson.
Read MoreHere are three books that really stood out for me last year.
Read MoreWhen I go for a long run, often I find the latter parts much easier than the beginning. I feel like what I've already done is enough, that I could stop right now and still feel I'd done a decent run. I think this tendency is pervasive in other areas of my life too.
Read MoreSometimes the most useful ‘advice’ someone else can give you isn’t advice at all - it’s asking you the right question. But of course, it’s not only other people who can ask you questions - you can also question yourself!
Read More