The Local Maximum with Max Sklar

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 29 - Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Decentralization with @clydevanel of the New York State Assembly Aug 28, 2018

Show notes

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
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

Ep. 28 - Alex Jones, Jack Dorsey, and the Censorious Social Media Reporters Aug 21, 2018

Show notes

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 to come up with a new generation of platforms that will be better than the old.
We also talk about millennial and their avocado toast, rip on Long Island, explain the difference between New York City and Long Island, talking about organizational bias as a way of dealing with it, and my answers on a public interview keeping me up at night.
This is sure to be the most controversial Local Maximum to date. Check it out!
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

Ep. 27 - Big Algo, Fat Tails, and Converging Priors Aug 14, 2018

Show notes

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 over and giving way to the era of the big algorithm? The results of the Twitter Shadow Ban poll, QA bias, the Streisand effect and the Alex Jones banning
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

Ep. 26 - Chris Messina on Conversational Commerce, Relationship Design, and the Future of Brands Aug 07, 2018

Show notes

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

Ep. 25 - The Great Twitter Purge of 2018 Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

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 they fall victim promoting fashionable political trends and end up with censorship?
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

Ep. 24 - Enjoying the A.I. Summer with Christian Hubbs Jul 24, 2018

Show notes

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 you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localmaximum.substack.com

Ep. 23 - NLP in the Lands of Foursquare with Kris Concepcion Jul 17, 2018

Show notes

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, visit localmaximum.substack.com

Ep. 22 - Bayes Rulez, Death to P-Hacking! Jul 10, 2018

Show notes

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 belief.
And finally, are most of the scientific studies that you hear about wrong? Worry about p-hacking, and think like a Bayesian, and maybe we won't be misled as often; let’s begin to attempt to figure out how to make sense of it all.
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

Ep. 21 - Probability, Belief, and The Truth Jul 03, 2018

Show notes

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 in the Atlantic Ocean? Sometimes we have vague questions and make vague statements - should that be ok?
This episode is a little different, but I hope this is the beginning of a back-and-forth conversation with the Local Maximum listenership to try to get to the bottom of these deep issues.
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

Ep. 20 - Imperfect Bots, Marketplaces, and the AI Economy Jun 26, 2018

Show notes

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

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