☀️ Uber, reality, gene editing, AI at work: Azeem's Exponential View - issue #12

👥 Machine learning and advanced AI will free humans up for higher value synthesis and decision making tasks. Good read (ht @mrperrett)

🔮Deep learning and the nature of reality Really nice articulation of what we are learning about ourselves, linguistics, perception, and reality through deep learning and our efforts to teach computers. Worthwhile read

🐮What is CRISPR and how does it work? CRISPR is booming (as measured by research papers and patent applications) in a land grab for this novel, low-cost and precise gene-editing technique.

💫Why Elon Musk will change the world. Super long read which articulates how Musk’s bets on Tesla and electric my finally challenge the fossil-climate-change colossus of oil-driven transport. Long read, needs an edit but worth it

👍Kleiner Perkins, the VC firm which backed Amazon, Google, Netscape & Slack argues that design thinking than now matters more than Moore’s Law. Good, quick read (Separately, Google’s N-Gram viewer chronicles the rise of design relative to other subjects)

📊Is inequality inevitable? Review of Anthony Atkinson’s new book, specialist on inequality, emphasises the role of the wealthy in subtly exacerbating wealth accumulation & the place the state can play. Important given technocratic wealth generation of today.

🚘Uber is five years old. It is the single best example of an exponential organisation growing. Uber has grown the market for ‘taxis’ in San Francisco by actually disrupting car ownership and looks set to do the same across the world.
Uber reaches 1m drivers and 300 cities in 5 years. What now?

The uberification of everything. A nice framework from WPP.

Do we need regulators in the sharing economy? A one-sided argument that consumer reviews and feedback fulfill the functions of many consumer-protection regulators.

Uber may sweep away en entire economic model argues Evgeny Morovoz

Don’t forget this great assessment of the valuation of Uber by Jeremy Millar of Magister Advisers.

🍴"Medicine’s Gutenberg Moment“ discussion leaders Carina Namih, of HelixNano, and Azeem Azhar. Small dinner (12 people) to discuss what the syzygy of cheap gene technologies, AI and sensors mean for healthcare.
Tue 14 July in London. Limited places, RSVP if interested.

Using deep neural networks, hackers are exploring how far computers can be creative. Interesting, how does this help us question what we mean by creativity? Four examples.

Generating Obama’s political speeches using a recurrent-neural network. Really demonstrates that shallowness of the political platitude.

😮A recurrent neural network writes rap songs after being fed a diet of Emimem. Warning this is NSFW and very very explicit.

Why deep learning will change drug discovery? Deep-learning applied to extant, often patchy experimental data, may speed drug discovery by an order of magnitude. Google is a believer.

Using machine learn to design your product’s brand I used this to design the logo for this newsletter. Who says computers can’t do creativity? (Not strictly deep learning)

Creating and making in China: how to manufacture in Shenzhen, a beginners guide.

Manufacturing at the edge Exploring Shehnzehn’s hardware ecosystem where quirky hacking popups.

Exponential finance - how our children won’t know the difference between a bank teller and a chimney sweep.

The brain and the lymphatic system are connected, upending decades of our understanding of the immune systems. Strong implications for many immune and neurological conditions, such as Alzheimers.

Fascinating how Google and Amazon Web Services are fighting to get DNA startups onto their cloud computing platforms.

Hoohah! DARPA commissions autonomous robots than can kill people without human intervention. (Did they not watch Robocop or Terminator?)

Project Soli, a gorgeous new interface metaphor from Google.

Women weren’t always the ones wearing high heels. Why did men stop?

Democratising education via nano-degrees. Fascinating how poorly Stanford students performed in open-access curricula.

How to outsmart machines The provocative Umair Haque on how to live a meaningful life and outsmart every smarter dumb machines.

I will be in Berlin this week. Let me know if you are there. Email me on azeem@azhar.co.uk if you’d like to meet there or in London.