Nostr notes by Christopher Mims

Help a journalist out? I'm looking to talk to researchers, ...

2025-07-03T19:08:50Z

Help a journalist out? I'm looking to talk to researchers, engineers, students or entrepreneurs who are considering leaving the U.S. because they lost funding or are worried about visas or anything like that. I'm at mimsical.94 on Signal

Tesla has the highest rate of fatal accidents among all car ...

2024-11-21T14:47:41Z

Tesla has the highest rate of fatal accidents among all car brands, report shows

* Fatal accidents per billion miles driven by all vehicles was 2.8 -- Teslas had a rate of 5.6

* Unclear why the disconnect with high vehicle safety ratings, but issue could be autopilot

https://sherwood.news/business/tesla-has-the-highest-rate-of-fatal-accidents-among-all-car-brands-report/

really heartening to see that everyone who was so confident ...

2024-11-07T15:40:29Z

really heartening to see that everyone who was so confident Harris would win is absolutely sure they know why she lost

I know everyone’s focused on the presidential election, but it ...

2024-11-05T12:31:44Z

I know everyone’s focused on the presidential election, but it is a big deal that 10 states have ballot measures to either protect or restore the right to an abortion:

1. Arizona
2. Colorado
3. Florida
4. Maryland
5. Missouri
6. Montana
7. Nebraska
8. Nevada
9. New York
10. South Dakota

Putting these measures on the ballot has had huge effects on elections in the recent past!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/states-abortion-laws-ballot-2024/

Or, as computer scientist Timothy B. Lee put it: “I think it ...

2024-11-02T16:27:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…qaar
_________________________

Or, as computer scientist Timothy B. Lee put it:

“I think it might be true that to get to a completely autonomous vehicle, where it never needs remote assistance, you might need something close to human level intelligence,” says Lee. “I do not think that’s a case for optimism for Tesla, because if you look at the companies that are trying to build [that], it seems to me they’re still pretty far from it.”

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-robotaxi-end-to-end-ai-plan-1827e2bd

/fin

The only reason Musk claims to be close to achieving totally ...

2024-11-02T16:25:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…ws3a
_________________________

The only reason Musk claims to be close to achieving totally unsupervised self driving (aside from motivations I can't ascribe to him because I can't see inside his head) appears to be that his understanding of the state of the art of current AI -- and its limitations -- is wildly divergent from what actual engineers know to be the case.

4/🧵

Tesla's engineers are aware of this issue, and are trying to ...

2024-11-02T16:21:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…lums
_________________________

Tesla's engineers are aware of this issue, and are trying to gather data from safety drivers participating in "Project Rodeo." There's no other way to say this: The project shows that Tesla's engineers seem to have realized that training their AI through imitation learning will never be sufficient on its own.

In other words, Tesla is actually far *behind* Waymo and even Zoox.

3/🧵

Let's start with the premise that all the millions of hours ...

2024-11-02T16:18:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…37dt
_________________________

Let's start with the premise that all the millions of hours of video Tesla has gathered from its vehicles driving about has any real value to training a self-driving system.

Those best positioned to know say it has almost no value at all.

The reasons why are complex, but well known among self driving AI researchers.

2/🧵

Here's the thing about Tesla, the source of much of ...

2024-11-02T16:11:42Z

Here's the thing about Tesla, the source of much of Musk's wealth (for now) -- he's bet the entire company on something that's very unlikely to work.

And even if it does, eventually, then certainly not on the timetable he's promised.

Or even, for that matter, any timetable that might justify the company's current valuation.

This week's deep dive on the false promise of Musk's self-driving tech:

1/🧵

(gift link)

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-robotaxi-end-to-end-ai-plan-1827e2bd?st=2gjhEo&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

everything after November 5 feels like the far side of an event ...

2024-10-28T17:33:38Z

everything after November 5 feels like the far side of an event horizon, a space and time I can’t possibly imagine

Buttons are back, baby!! This piece has been 15 years in the ...

2024-09-30T16:07:42Z

Buttons are back, baby!!

This piece has been 15 years in the making, more or less.

15 years of watching designers and engineers cram touchscreens and capacitive buttons down our throats, only to be outflanked by a new generation of thinkers who recognize that true luxury is the considered weight of a dial, the reassuring click of a physical key.

(gift link)

https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/touch-screens-are-over-even-apple-is-bringing-back-buttons-86fb9ea8?st=XPWkwV&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Longshoremen could strike all over the U.S., which could have big ...

2024-09-27T13:22:36Z

Longshoremen could strike all over the U.S., which could have big ripple effects on the economy. (It always depends on the number of ports and the length of the strike.)

For anyone wanting to understand why longshoremen have *so much power* -- more power, I would argue, than any other workforce in the entire U.S.A., this is my obligatory bat signal:

I wrote a whole book on this, the most recent and definitive one on the topic. If you need an expert, reach out.

https://www.amazon.com/Arriving-Today-Factory-Everything-Changed/dp/006298795X

U.S. citizens are far more likely to commit pretty much every ...

2024-09-19T16:50:52Z

U.S. citizens are far more likely to commit pretty much every type of crime than either legal or undocumented immigrants

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014704117

Redditors have found it, the worst cybertruck wrap ...

2024-09-01T15:24:03Z

Redditors have found it, the worst cybertruck wrap

https://www.reddit.com/r/CyberStuck/comments/1f5un8h/i_wish_hulk_would_smash_this/

most desirable workplace benefits, by decade: 1990s - free food ...

2024-08-30T14:43:10Z

most desirable workplace benefits, by decade:

1990s - free food
2000s - nap pods
2010s - remote work
2020s - on-site therapist

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/in-office-therapy-benefit-synchrony-financial-83ab814e

An early finding from research for a future piece: A neurologist ...

2024-08-28T17:37:40Z

An early finding from research for a future piece: A neurologist and neuropsychologist I interviewed pointed out to me that the essence of mindfulness is to sit with one's thoughts and not pass judgment.

But social media is often a slot machine designed to induce the compulsion to comment and pass judgment on *everything*, and is in this way precisely the opposite of what millennia of wisdom has revealed is one key to a good life.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Is Now the Worst Buyout for Banks ...

2024-08-20T12:19:46Z

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Is Now the Worst Buyout for Banks Since the Financial Crisis

Loans of around $13 billion have remained ‘hung’ for nearly two years, weighing on banks’ balance sheets

* The resulting write-downs have hobbled the banks’ loan books

* "Twitter isn’t only the biggest hung deal by dollar amount since the 2008 financial crisis but one of the biggest of all time"

(gift link)

https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-is-now-the-worst-buyout-for-banks-since-the-financial-crisis-3f4272cb?st=c98dc9gatf4xozt&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I'm a reporter looking to interview freelancers who have seen ...

2024-06-14T16:55:20Z

I'm a reporter looking to interview freelancers who have seen demand for their work go down -- or shift -- in the wake of ChatGPT and all the AI image generators.

This is for a story about how freelancers, specifically, have seen demand for their labor change as use of AI has spread.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

AI is in a massive bubble & a ton of startups will fail, a ...

2024-06-01T17:37:57Z

AI is in a massive bubble & a ton of startups will fail, a lot of the value of big tech companies is going to be destroyed, and this level of revenue for NVIDIA is not sustainable.

There, I said it

Also I said it at length in this week’s column:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-ai-revolution-is-already-losing-steam-a93478b1