The Local Maximum with Max Sklar

Assembly Member Clyde Vanel and I talk about new technology that affect the State of New York and the world! - The rise of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies - The possibility of blockchain technology being used to maintain state government records like birth, death, and voting registration. - Automation and Jobs - Entrepreneurship; the opportunities in the new economy - 3d printing and the Rubik's Cube...

Twitter's Jack Dorsey is being pressured by a bunch of social media reporters from CNN to silence voices like Alex Jones; and all of the big socials are caving in fast. It's time to unmask the seemingly reasonable justifications for these bans for what they are - censorship. I add to the voices calling for a freer flow of information, and I call for entrepreneurs, engineers, and product designers...

Today we dive into the current Bayesian flame wars on Twitter. Do Bayesian priors converge? As Nassim Taleb (@nntaleb) points out, not necessarily until a fat tail or power law distribution. We'll talk about what that means, and the wonders worked by Bayes rule even under some seemingly preposterous priors. Also - the military wants to do machine learning with less data. Is the era of big data ove...

Chris Messina and I go over a recent article of his on the evolution of conversational commerce and bots, and how to steer the industry towards better products. Relationship Design, Augmented Reality, and Natural Language. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localmaximum.substack.com

I may be on vacaction, but I still snuck in some time to put together a show! Decided to go solo this week and focus on Twitter's purging of bots and trolls. There is wide agreement that they need to do something to fix their platform, but there is not wide agreement on what exactly the problem is and what should be fixed. Can they focus on the experience and wellbeing of their enduser, or will th...

Artificially Intelligent Host Christian Hubbs talks to Max about what he's learning in the field of AI through his work. Industries and use cases for AI. When are self driving cars coming? And - what's the end game for humans and machines. We also talk about Christian's interest in reinforcement learning, and how that's being used to have computers play games like go. This is a public episode. If...

Kris Conception talks about Natural Language Processing, Natural Language Understanding, and machine translation. We then go into how we build the taste ontology at Foursquare to supercharge the best city guide in the world, and how it connects concepts through languages and cultures. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes...

So the overall theme of the show today is applying what we learned last time. Bayesian Probability is good. P-Value hacking - is where we get into trouble. Death to P-hacking! We start by following up on my monologue from last week about Beliefs and Probability. This leads us into an article about the Reverend Thomas Bayes himself, and how his ideas transformed our thinking on probability and beli...

I explore the nature of probability, and my approach to thinking about facts and belief. I talk about problem solving a lot; here I go into the fundamentals and work to justify how I think about it. What problem does probability solve? Should we always think in terms of probability? What's the difference between an artificial language (code, math) and natural language? How many water molecules are...

Aaron and Max have a stream-of-consciousness discussion where we look at some recent discussions on the tech web: Fred Ehrsam on Blockchain AI Marketplaces, and Chris Messina on the effect of AI agents on the economy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localmaximum.substack.com

Daniel Kronovet and Max discuss the world of information theory. We go into how it was invented by Claude Shannon at Bell Labs, the meaning of information and entropy, and the difference between measurement and processing. Catch references to a Jim Carrey movie and the Belmont stakes! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes...

An article about MIT research claims that they've built a psychopathic AI. We think the article is a little off base, and try to determine what's actually going on. We cover related examples, of Microsofts Twitter Bot learning from the worst people, and a cool Google Image Program that sees animals everywhere. I also check in with Christian Hubbs, host of Artifically Intelligent, about his podcast...

Run Your Mouth Podcaster and Stand-Up Comic Rob Bernstein joins me on the Local Maximum to talk about Comedy, Podcasting, Facebook, AI, Big Data, and of course MS Paint. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localmaximum.substack.com

Today's concept is underfitting vs. overfitting. Someone who underfits doesn't adapt quickly enough to new data. But if you think that's bad, an overfitter will read TOO MUCH into new data and come up with wild ideas. How do you balance between them and what are some examples? We also talk about Warren Buffet's Recent statements on Bitcoin as Rat Poison Squared, and the response from Union Square...

Sarah Spagnolo tells us how we turn data insights into news stories. Does marijuana legalization affect bar-going? What's it like to go on TV? I also have to weight in on #teamyanny and #teamlaurel. Plus an update on the news stories we're tracking on Google and Facebook. How far along is Google's conversational AI demo? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscr...

A Washington Post OpEd believes that advances in AI will lead to a new centrally-planned economy. Google's Bots call unsuspecting businesses to save you time - but what are the implications? Bill Gates and Warren Buffet go sour on Bitcoin. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localmaximum.substack.com

I talk to Mariya Yao about AI and Machine Learning as applied to a variety of business problems and across industries. We cover: - What are some of the misconceptions around AI? - If I have an AI product, how can I talk about it to business leaders? How do I sell it externally? How does it become a business? - Where are various industries on this? - And what are some of the pre-requisites for AI;...

Aren’t you getting tired of using an internet that’s built to waste YOUR time - I know I am! Product Manager Marissa Chacko and I discuss the promise and perils of these bots and push notifications. We worked on Foursquare's bot Marsbot together, and produced it to help the user first. What are some ways we can focus on building apps that help users, and what are some of the bad habits that have g...

Engineer and Podcaster Max Sklar shares his story about building software from his time at Yale to the Foursquare Innovation Lab. He’ll cover: What he has learned about working on vast location databases, building large-scale machine learning algorithms, and designing chatbots and apps that people actually want to use. Different ways to approach career and on working in teams His thoughts about wh...

Aaron comes back on the program to discuss the Mark Zuckerberg testimony before congress, particularly the part pertaining to moderation and censorship. In the last episode, I described the current approach that companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have towards this problem and why it might be flawed. Today, we see this theory play out in the Facebook CEO's answers. We discuss the case of...

Today I answer the question of how I would handle moderation for Facebook and Twitter - and I break down the problems that they're facing and why. Don't hold your breath expecting them to try out my proposal! I also discuss Lindy's Law, which is a helpful rule of thumb in technological and social forecasting. As popularized by @nntaleb, it's another tool in your toolkit for understanding the world...

Today I post-game my discussion with Dennis Crowley. I share his goal of wanting people to execute on their ideas, but what are the common blockers? I talk to Aaron about how it broke his code, and the AI couldn't do it on it's own but only with my help - all because my brain was influenced by the power of suggestion. Plus - answer to a listener question about Marsbot! This is a public episode. If...

Today I talk to famed Foursquare Founder Dennis Crowley. His approach to being a tech entrepreneur has inspired us all! Just listen. We talk about his approach to trying out new ideas, and also the current landscape for consumer technology and where we may be headed. Finally, we talk about Foursquare's recent foray into bots and beyond. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this w...

The big news right now is around an analytics company that used a dataset from Facebook - gotten by the company under false pretenses - to help the Trump campaign in 2016. Everyone is SHOCKED - but this kind of data mining was glorified and extolled as a social good when it was used for Obama in 2012. The comparison of the coverage is stark. How are we going to get out of this? What exactly is the...

It seems like yesterday when we had to get used to Bitcoin, and now new currencies are cropping up all the time - including the crypto-juggernaut Ethereum. To help us keep up and understand what's going on, I have Ethereum developer Christian Lundkvist from ConsenSys on the show. We talk about why Ethereum is separate from Bitcoin, and what the world-changing applications of these cryptocurrencies...