1/3 The Wittgenstein's ruler 📏 concept on circular ⭕validation connects neatly to the risks of LLM hallucinations. 

2/3 The Wittgenstein's ruler: “Unless you have confidence in the ruler’s reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using the table to measure the ruler.”

3/3 The model output cannot itself prove the model's competence, just as an imperfect ruler cannot be verified by using it to measure something.

Wittgenstein's Ruler cum LLM Hallucinations.

1/3 There is about one point mutation for every 100 million base pairs in humans. (Caveat: mutation rate varies [i])

While some mutations are harmful in biological organism, others might provide beneficial traits that help species survive.
[i] [https://elifesciences.org/articles/24284] 

2/3 DNA 🧬 repair systems work relentlessly to correct these mistakes. 

Yet, if they were 100% efficient, beneficial mutations wouldn't occur, hindering adaptive evolution.

3/3 Similarly, in technological 🚀 and scientific🔬enterprise, mistakes are not always setbacks. 

Unexpected results can be a path to breakthroughs. 

Sir Alexander Fleming’s popular discovery is a case in point.

Error could mean progress.

Create systems that are antifragile.

Error could mean Progress

1/n First entry on The Epsilon, my new #machinelearning blog:  ML for dummies.

A 🧵...

2/n My favorite definition of ML is Tom Mitchell's:

"A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P, if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E."

An example:

3/n The goal is to approximate a function. More formally:

4/n As you might have guessed, there are different types of task T, which would be handled differently.

Take the Parkinson's disease example above; it is called a classification problem, expressed in its simplest form: binary classification. A or B. Disease or Healthy.

5/n The goal is to train a model and make a prediction on unlabeled voice measurement data.

Once a prediction is made, we want to capture if we are doing well. For a binary classification problem, we can approach it this way:

6/n The expression above defines a cost function that takes two arguments: label and model output. The function returns 1 if label equals model output and returns 0 if label does not equal model output. We tabulate our results, and we have the model's accuracy.

7/n There are many more things to say even in a  super short machine learning primer piece: model underfitting/overfitting, inductive bias in ML models, etc

See more in my blog in the next thread:

8/n [https://theepsilon.substack.com/p/machine-learning-primer?sd=pf]

Machine Learning for Dummies

1. I am glad to announce The Mary Babatola Bifarin (MBB) microgrant awardees (and projects) for the second cohort.

Teaching Literacy to IDPs, Solar Cookers, and Sickle Cell Warriors. A🧵

2.  The UN states concerning the state of Internally Displace People (IDPs) in Nigeria [i] that Boko Haram, non-state actors have pushed some 3million Nigerians out of their homes, especially in parts of Northern Nigeria.

[i] [https://www.unhcr.org/ng/idps]

3. For many, going to school in their communities was no easy task [ii]. Becoming an IDP wouldn’t make such task any easier.

Patricia Uma's 'Read a Book Nigeria Initiative' @RABNIEducation works to provide literacy education to kids in IDPs

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibok_schoolgirls_kidnapping

4. MBB microgrant will fund Patricia’s effort to digitize their iLearn Literacy Toolkits, which will help to scale their work within the IDPs, allowing them to reach more children.

Here is a scene from one their pilot projects.

[https://youtu.be/-Ick5WwSNOM]


5. Almost 70% of Nigerian households still cook with solid biomass [iii]. As such, while sad, it isn’t surprising that an estimated annual death of 95,300 is linked to harmful smoke from firewood in the country [iv].

[iii] https://ng.boell.org/en/clean-cooking-energy
[iv] https://leadership.ng/world-environment-day-harmful-smoke-from-firewood-remains-risk-to-nigerian-women/

6. So, Solar cookers must be a welcome development.

Bamidele Idowu and Ademola Agunbiade @ayanfendaraare, Materials Science & Engineering students in Nigeria proposed building a solar cooker.

MBB grant is supporting them with funds to design and fabricate a prototype.

7. Sickle cell disease [v] is a hereditary group of blood disorders that causes it's victim pain, anemia, bout of infection, et cetera.

The prevalence in Nigeria is estimated in this paper [vi] from @TheLancetHaem

[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease
[vi] https://www.thelancet.com/article/S2352-3026(21)00216-7/fulltext

8. Ayeni Idowu and Olatunbosun Mobolaji, via @AISC_foundation serve the underserved communities in Ekiti State with health education on SCD, free testing, and some care.

The grant is supporting their efforts for free genotype testing in more underserved communities.


9. To read more about these stories see here

[https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/mbb-grantees-cohort-2]

10. Finally I will like to thank, @RichSoltar and @DoubleEph for supporting the funds for awardees / Reviewers: @Bifarin @ObioraOke @RichSoltar @kunmiie / @Alayonimiii for web updates [https://www.mbbgrant.com/]


MBB Grantees: Cohort 2

The recent advances of #AI in the manner of #chatGPT etc, have brought to the fore, if anything, the future of work, humanity. I have registered some of my thoughts with friends, and I figured writing them down would be a good exercise. Over at the blog

[https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-ai]

We are Little Giants

CS Lewis gives us a hand: “…There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on man’s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger.”

#chatGPT receipt: [https://research.checkpoint.com/2023/opwnai-cybercriminals-starting-to-use-chatgpt/]

Long Live the Capitalist?

Cries over cheap #labor are not foreign to us, and in certain cases, rightfully so. But what are we to do as power continues to shift from labor to capital via robotics, AI.

Class struggle will intensify

Hollywood fooled us

The picture painted on many minds is that blue-collar jobs will be obliterated first by AI or the stereotype of evil robots by #Hollywood.

Now we have a candidate technology that has the potential to cause mass job loss among highly educated workers. Irony.

The progress that scares.

Perhaps #AI is not the new electricity. We see unprecedented speed & scale of adoption dissimilar to electricity.

The speed is scary. Now we can generate music from text. [https://google-research.github.io/seanet/musiclm/examples/]

Loss of value.

How many people own an iPhone and can't stop staring at it every morning, even when those machines are an almost literal miracle?

Anything that a generative AI can produce in secs is going to lose its perceptive value very soon and fast

Dostoevskian Take

Perhaps we are moving in circles. After all, psychologists have told us about hedonic adaptations.

Even if we are moving in circles, at least we take solace in that productivity is a powerful antidote to violence (but not when such productivity exclude humans)

More on my substack
[https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-ai]

Thoughts on AI

1. If I could read only five books in 2022, here is what I would read.

(The books I found most useful in 2022 - a [🧵])

2. I came across @ThomasSowell work during the pandemic and was v. impressed [https://www.tsowell.com/writings.html]

I decided I would be reading 2 Sowell books/year. So, I started with 'Intellectuals and Race' and 'Basic Economics.'

'Discrimination and disparities' is my favorite this year.

3. The book's thesis in 1 sentence:

There are discriminations, and there are disparities; and the two things need not be the same – disparities shouldn’t automatically imply discrimination without justification (i.e., justification other than citing the disparity itself).

4. At the No. 2 spot is Lifespan by @davidasinclair. He explored the #biology of aging, arguing for the information theory of aging (via epigenetic instability).

He argued quite convincingly that #aging is a #disease, and as such, we ought to be thinking about how to 'treat' it.

5. In addition, he wrote about what you can do now to live longer, the #innovation that is coming soon that will inevitably allow humans to live longer, +  cellular reprogramming, senolytics, etc.

To get your feet wet you can read my essay, 'Why We Age' [https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/why-we-age]

6. Next up, Build by @tfadell

He writes about: How to manage teams, What you should work on, How to make decisions, building profitable businesses, How to spot great ideas, and many more.

If you are considering reading it, see my review here: [https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/book-review-build]

7. At No. 4, Modern Computer Vision with PyTorch by @AV_Kishore et al.

A while back, I got my hands on some nice, hard-to-get image data, and I wanted to 'play', this book allowed me to play. #artificialintelligence

See my bite-sized review here: [https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/book-review-modern-computer-vision]

8. No. 5: The Art and Science of Frugal Innovation.

While being quite tedious to read at times, this book educated me thoroughly on the philosophy that ought to undergird #innovation in world's poorest places.

I wrote an essay about the subject here: [https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/frugal-innovation]

9. Furthermore, the philosophy of frugal innovation inspired me to launch a microgrant grant program currently open for applications, more here:

https://twitter.com/BifarinTheFifth/status/1601749106233262080?s=20&t=rr4MgGMN8qT6348-ux4Ohg

10. Enjoyed reading this 🧵? subscribe to my newsletter: [https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/]

Favorite 2022 Books

1/ Nice (infographic) essay about how migration has shaped the world cup. via @voxdotcom 
 
At the inaugural World Cup, 5% of the players were foreign-born. For #FIFAWorldCupQatar2022, 16.5% of players were born overseas, an all-time high.

[https://www.vox.com/c/world/2022/12/8/23471181/how-migration-has-shaped-the-world-cup] 

2/ For the African teams, 42% (almost half) of all the players are foreign-born. 

Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Argentina, and Brazil have no foreign-born players. 

There are 38 French-born players outside the French team this year.

Number of foreign-born players in each team👇🏿 

3/“African players were often called up to play for their colonizer in the WC before their countries’ independence, since FIFA didn’t recognize their homelands. Today, the trend is reversed the former colonies increasingly find French-born players with ancestral ties to Africa.” 

4/ +
The US has fielded the most foreign-born players in the history of the world cup 

5/ “Brazil, the team with the most championships, has never had a single foreign-born player in its history.”

This was one of the most surprising things I learned from reading the essay. 

[https://www.vox.com/c/world/2022/12/8/23471181/how-migration-has-shaped-the-world-cup] 

Migration & The World Cup

1. I am launching a microgrant program focused on frugal innovation for young Nigerians. Apply to receive some funding to support your innovative ideas. a [🧵]

2. During my Ph.D. training here in the US, I used an instrument that cost a few million dollars, called the NMR.

Back home (in Nigeria), putting the price tag aside, i.e., even if a lab can afford it, good luck getting the electricity to power the instrument.


3. During my undergrad (in microbiology), we hardly had access to microscopes – there were many more students than there were available working microscopes.

As a result, many of us couldn’t even operate one successfully.


4. Growing up, I have seen a kid die of malaria due to very poor healthcare system - wild story. All of these are the consequences of poverty (downstream of poor leadership).

And talking about poverty, 133 million people are living in poverty in Nigeria alone.

5. 133 million people, friends, is at least the entire population of the United Kingdom, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Hungary, and Switzerland put together.

Folks living without basic amenities like stable electricity, healthcare, etc

6. Any well-meaning person would want the rapid development of developing countries. But in the meantime, what is to be done? One of the auspicious options is frugal innovation.

Where resources are scarce, use must be prudent. More here: [https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/frugal-innovation]


7. Frugal innovation is the art of doing more with less and for many more people.

Take the example of the 'paperfuge', a human-powered centrifuge made of just paper, costs 20 cents, and it can separate plasma from blood and isolate malaria parasites. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-016-0009]


8. Something as simple as a plastic bag can also do magic – randomized control trials showed that placing preterm infants in a plastic bag at birth compared with standard thermoregulation care reduced hypothermia.
Paper:[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2780243]

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YzhaDmHS1M]

9. Solar Grandmothers program: an initiative that provides solar power to rural households using grandmothers as solar engineers. Empower grandmothers, while also providing clean energy to rural communities. How to beat that for being frugal?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpYLYpVvRw0]

10. At the risk of repeating myself, frugal innovation is the art of doing more with less and for many more people. And with the various examples I mentioned, if anything, one is left captivated and inspired.

See more examples here on my substack [https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/examples-of-frugal-innovation]

11. This is why I decided that next MBB microgrant program will be open for applications on frugal innovation for young Nigerians. The application is open now, and for a short period.

[https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/p/apply-for-mbb-grant-batch-2]

12. For more information on this micro grant program in general, previous winners, see this thread:

https://twitter.com/BifarinTheFifth/status/1600255811959169025?s=20&t=htl_-xQwA4uwNH3BhYFpvA

Frugal Innovation✖️ MBB Grant Batch 2.

1. Last year, I launched a personal grantmaking program (more of an experiment) to encourage innovative thinking and assist young people in #Nigeria. 🇳🇬  

(Some of) The data is out.  A [🧵]

2. Growing up in a country that has very little regard for education comes with its consequences. 

For example, here is a picture of a lecture hall from my undergrad college.  Any sane person would think this is a ‘crusade’ or a music concert. 

3. Many things can be worse than students packed in lecture halls with no place to sit, but I will not digress. 

Working on interesting, potentially impactful science or tech projects for many can be a pipe dream. 

This is one of the reasons for starting the microgrant project. 

4. I should also add that programs like @tylercowen’s EV and @nayafia Helium grants also inspired me to start the microgrant program.

5. The first edition of the MBB grant ended with a number of winners. 

Ibrahim Gbadegesin @Engrgit, an AI engineer, proposed an app (@CheckOja) to digitize prices in remote, local markets across Africa. 

6. Another grantee is  Olusola Ogundepo, a clinical nurse who works in Southwestern Nigeria. She proposed a pilot sociology/clinical study for cancer patients in remote places.

A cancer diagnosis is challenging enough, now imagine that in a very poor country. Wild stuff.

7. I should chip in quickly that MBB grant [http://mbbgrant.com] applications open in a few days. The theme will be frugal innovation.

In the meantime, here is a documentary film about the previous grant winners.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-nMyPv87Qg]

8. For updates, subscribe to my substack here. 

[https://bifarinthefifth.substack.com/]

My Microgrant Program

1/6. DALL·E 2 is an #AI algorithm from @OpenAI  that generates images just from natural language (text). #dalle2 

I played with it recently. A [🧵]