The narrative will be straightforward: If we can watch you at every moment of every day, we can keep you safe. Only criminals have something to hide.

And in the future, I believe this promise of safety can be approximately kept.

As a software engineer familiar with state of the art face recognition and computer vision technology, I don’t think this task will even be particularly difficult, at least relative to many of humanity’s other achievements. Ten more years of improving the technology and the investment in the physical infrastructure to scale. That’s all it will take. Let’s say 20–30…

I was traveling during Thanksgiving, and the airport was crowded. My flight was delayed an hour or so, and nearly all the seats in the terminal were taken and many people were standing.

On June 29, 2007 Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone. Just over a decade ago. If you want to choose another reference release date for when early designs of modern cellphones were released feel free, it influences the argument little.

We all know that people are addicted to their cellphones, even the big companies have released apps to help limit time spent on the phone. …

This is not a post in which one desires to be right. But one must attempt to break complex subjects down into first principles if there is to be any hope for clear thinking and wise strategy.

First Principles:

• Time is long
• Technological growth is exponential
• Our data rate is limited
• Our mind’s have limited physical space to exist in
• Biological systems are fragile
• Life is not easily defined

Let’s discuss each in turn.

Time is long

As you read this, you are at the tip of 3.8 billion years of biological evolution. The homo-sapien is a species estimated to be approximately 100,000 years old…

Persuasion. Whether it be the stage, boardroom, or bedroom, an ability to move the thoughts and feelings of others is a skill that can not only change one’s immediate world, but the world at large.

In it’s purest form, persuasion is an attempt at the convergence of ideas. A capitalist may try to persuade an acquaintance that increasing taxation is the sure path towards a nation’s decline. A parent may try to persuade a child about the health benefits of eating broccoli.

Persuasion can be strategic. A politician may try to persuade his constituency that he believes strongly in increasing…

Complex systems are all around us. Financial markets, climate patterns, ecosystems, traffic, social behavior, social media, and human minds are just a few examples of complex systems.

In this essay we will discuss how difficult it can be to find patterns in a world of ever increasing complexity.

Let’s start with the word complex. Complex is a relative word; something that may be complex to one person is not necessarily complex to another. A Rubik’s cube may seem hopelessly complicated to a newcomer but simple to the well acquainted. …

To start, a definition of culture: “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a group.”

The ancient Babylonians, the Nordic Vikings, the 13th century Christians, the Mongol hordes, the Florentines of the Renaissance, and the modern day following of Kim Kardashian are all examples of groups of people united by culture. Groups of people think, speak, and act in the world in learned ways from other people, thus allowing individuals to cohesively live together and work towards common goals.

The homo sapien is a social species. Much of our intelligence evolved due to 1) groups of…

Update: For a deeper analysis see: First Principles: The Inevitable Rise of AI

The threat of AI to the human species has entered mainstream discussions lately due to recent advancements in machine learning algorithms. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Sundar Pichai are just a few of the tech leaders that have added their viewpoints to the discussion.

So let’s set the record straight.

Of course AI is a threat to the human species.

This is not opinion, this is fact. The real question is:

How much of a threat will it be with respect to future time?

Threat levels

If…

First, what is a Data Design?

A data design is the set of schemas that define data in a database. In a relational database, this would include table and column names and column types. In a document store this would include the schema that defines a document’s keys and values (depending on whether you are forcing conformance to schemas or not). A graph database may use subject/predicate language or some other variation. In this article we will talk in terms of tables and columns, but document stores and graph databases follow the same ideas.

Data designs include primitive definitions such as a User table having a…