The Local Maximum with Max Sklar

Max talks about Ethereum's move to proof of stake and what tradeoffs it brings to the crypto markets. He also discusses Google's plan to upgrade maps at their IO conference, and their new product Bard in relation to chatGPT. 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

Max talks to Homebrew creator Max Howell about open source software, package managers, and his new project tea.xyz . 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

Max and Aaron discuss and provide commentary for their 2002 high school film, The Dictator of Easton. 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

Aaron talks to Max about his move to Connecticut. They review Columbia University's data science day. A touch of Twitter news and a tweet we thought was interesting on rationality. Probability Distribution of the Week: Multivariate Gaussian Distribution (or Normal Distribution) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...

Today's discussion is all about Quantum Physics and Quantum Computing as Max talks to Ian who has a PhD in Physics and is actually a practitioner when it comes to quantum computing. localmaxradio.com/274 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

Max grumbles about the corporate and dry nature of MLConf and the talks from top companies, even as the world of AI and ML explodes in controversy, breakthroughs and new applications. - Should AI research be Paused for 6 months? - Are "X for Good" talks always evil? - Are engineers afraid to share any perspective slightly outside the mainstream? This is a public episode. If you would like to discu...

Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones dive into a new book called "How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms" with Max. We learn that we can reach back into data history and find stories that experienced scientists and engineers are will find surprising at present. Chris Wiggins is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the Chief Data...

Max interview's Adam Kane of ASML about the industrial processes which make hardware innovation possible. They cover extreme UV lithography, the law of accelerating returns, and implications for software engineers. www.localmaxradio.com/271 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

Todays news update starts on the lighter side with an article from the New York Times that seeks to denigrate podcasters by branding them as the "podcast bro". Then we get into the release of GPT4 just months after chatGPT shook the world of AI and tech, and the bank runs at Silicon Valley Bank and elsewhere. Probability distribution of the week: Exponential Distribution localmaxradio.com/270 This...

Today's guest is Susan Conover, cofounder and CEO of Piction Health, which brings Image Recognition AI technology to the practice of dermatology. This Boston-based company has started to launch their product throughout New England. Susan talks to Max about how the technology could be used to help patience more effectively, and the challenges of bringing change to healthcare and being an entreprene...

Max discovers Pascal's Mugging, the counterpoint to Pascal's Wager. He speculates about the category of errors (and sometimes scams) made by doomsayers in every field including most recently general artificial intellgence. Probability Distribution of the Week: Gamma Distribution This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visi...

Could the crisis in modern science be a result of fallacious probabilistic thinking? Mathematical researcher and writer Aubrey Clayton joins the Local Maximum to discuss his book Bernoulli’s Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localmaximum.substack.co...

We are joined by Software Engineer, Data Scientist, and Author Joel Grus for a discussion that ranges from the latest NLP techniques to thoughts on how to think about complexity costs. 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

Max talks about the multi-armed bandit - an important concept in the Data Science world. The news of the day is Microsoft's plan to integrate generative text (from open AI) into it's Bing search engine, and whether Google can turn around from negative news stories and compete with this. Probability Distribution of the Week: Dirichlet Distribution localmaxradio.com/265 This is a public episode. If...

Max talks to Adam Kovacevich, the Founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress in DC, to talk about several issues that have caught to attention of policymakers. We discuss the concerns of the rise of Tik Tok as a potential arm of the Chinese government, and whether similar concerns about domestic services are warranted. Chamber of Progress: https://progresschamber.org/ This is a public episode. If you...

Aaron talks to Max about his new pamphlet entitled "Relative Probability on Finite Outcome Spaces". arXiv Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.14555 Probability Distribution of the Week: The Normal Distribution 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

Max describes category theory as a branch of mathematics, and asks whether it will become more important in the age of AI. We then discuss the issues of the day: - looks at John Stossel's Video on how governments responded to Covid, and where their decisions stand three years later - Google's Recent Moves in Response to ChatGPT as well as layoffs Probability Distribution of the Week: Beta Distribu...

As Generative AI has captured the imagination, Max thinks about it from many different angles. How does it actually work under the hood? What does it mean for media creators, investors, and job seekers? And what does it mean for humans and their comparative advantage with respect to this new technology? All the big questions of our time! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this...

Max and Aaron start off the New Year with a predictions show for the short, medium, and long term outlook for technical advances. Today's episode focuses on generative AI and self driving cars. Probability Distribution of the Week: Continuous Uniform Distribution This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localmaximum.s...

Max looks back at the previous New Year's episode, and was surprised by how right he was on the changes we saw in our channels of information online this year. He reviews the news of the year, particularly the innovations in AI that have come to the forefront, and comments on Clay Shirky's Twitter rant. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acces...

Max interviews SportsVisio CEO Jason Syversen about how artificial intelligence can be applied to sports video, including automated highlights, scoring, and refereeing. Jason also shares details about his startup's innovative product for basketball. 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

Gene Epstein, founder of the Soho Forum monthly debate series, comes on The Local Maximum to discuss and critique Max's recent debate performance on Democracy vs Monarchy. - Also: Max's 9 Things I learned from the Debate, Gene's debate with Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times. localmaxradio.com/257 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acces...

Max talks about the breakage in both the crypto industry and the social media landscape in 2022, and the long term ways of thinking about it. Probability Distribution of the Week: Non-Homogeneous Poisson localmaxradio.com/256 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

Max and Aaron discuss the launch of the chatGPT product demo taking the internet by storm and the potential applications of this technology. The title of this episode doesn't make sense 100% - but it was generated by chatGPT when asked for an amusing title. Probability distribution of the week: Poisson Distribution This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers...

Max talks about the developments surrounding Amazon's Alexa, where it's been revealed that layoffs are coming and the initiative has been costing an eye-popping 10 Billion per year. Max believes there is a future for these devices, and discusses where that might be. Max also adds some details that he missed from the discussion on hurricane Sandy, and his experience in a Tesla self-driving car. Thi...