Some years I see how long I can feasibly say Happy New Year to people. My record is March. But this year 2023 already feels like months and months ago.
It’s the first Acts Not Facts update of the year! Weekly is too frequent. But I’ll write notes periodically and there’s a lot to cover today.
Countdown to Kickstarter
My AI clock is now named Poem/1 and - BIG NEWS - Kickstarter gave the green light to the campaign yesterday. So now I’m getting the last few things lined up before hitting that Launch button.
More news over at the AI clock newsletter. tl;dr,
I’ll do a reveal on the industrial design next week
The Kickstarter campaign will launch probably the week after…
…but I want to align it with some press. So if you’re a journalist please get in touch.
Oh I missed this media first time around: Bloomberg interviewed Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO, and used my clock as the first example. Watch Inside OpenAI by Bloomberg Originals (YouTube, at 3m7s).
GOV.UK is working with AI to improve the interactions people have with government
That client I haven’t been able to name? It’s GOV.UK, the part of UK gov that looks after digital information and services.
They started experimenting with AI really early, and built and tested a chat UI for the 700,000 pages of information that they look after. The GOV.UK Chat research findings have now been published. It’s been amazing to watch. There are some unique challenges.
Personally I’ve been helping out with “what next”… how should GOV.UK systematically explore AI to build capability and open the imagination, and what is the strategic “why” here? Well, eventually to help transform how people interact with government, sure, but there are stepping stones to be chosen.
The new AI Team is announced here by Chris Bellamy, Director of GOV.UK. I’ve been bringing a perspective of design pathfinding, one that I first talked about with the BMJ back in May and then wrote up here in more detail(Dec 2023).
Plus some heavy advocacy for thinking through making, alongside the research…
More to say about all of that another time I’m sure. It’s a privilege working with this smart and motivated team.
Building at PartyKit
My mainline client continues to be PartyKit, where I invent in order to stretch and explore their new platform for the realtime, multiplayer internet.
Just before the holidays PartyKit shipped AI integrations, and I wrote a long piece on the blog:
The tl;dr is that search got really good suddenly and really easy to build because of AI.
For instance, this is the search experience I recently made for my side project website Braggoscope.
It’s a straightforward, show-the-code account of one of the fundamental techniques in building with AI. One reader review: Was reading the Vector DB blog and honestly I think one of the most approachable blogs I’ve seen on the topic + demo – so I’m pleased with that.
I really enjoyed writing it.
What I find hardest to communicate to people who work with technology, before they use AI, is how much they need to reset their assumptions about how hard things are. e.g. a great search engine is so easy now.
The best way to demystify is to go line-by-line. Code isn’t scary.
And there’s no magic here. An embedding model is just a function call, a vector database is just a function call, broadcasting messages to a multiplayer room is a function call, keeping multiplayer state is a function call. All realtime, all scalable, there’s nothing to it.
Acts Not Facts in 2024
I haven’t sat down and made a year plan for Acts Not Facts, this oh-so-nascent product invention femto-studio of mine. Here’s my off the cuff prompt completion on the matter…
I would say that I’m roughly where I wanted to be, a year in. As the big Venn on the ANF website says, I’m focused on AI, group experiences, and embodiment. At the end of 2023 I’ve built up a decent portfolio that demonstrates precisely that. Good!
Which means the next step is to pick up a team project. Ideally something that involves invention, AI, interactions, and hardware where I get to hire a tiny dream team to deliver.
Lmk if there’s a project we should talk about.
p.s. I have that SF/Bay Area trip coming up w/c 5 Feb. My schedule’s filling up. I’d love to squeeze in a couple more chats.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social media. Here’s the link. Thanks, —Matt.
‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
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Happy new year!
Some years I see how long I can feasibly say Happy New Year to people. My record is March. But this year 2023 already feels like months and months ago.
It’s the first Acts Not Facts update of the year! Weekly is too frequent. But I’ll write notes periodically and there’s a lot to cover today.
Countdown to Kickstarter
My AI clock is now named Poem/1 and - BIG NEWS - Kickstarter gave the green light to the campaign yesterday. So now I’m getting the last few things lined up before hitting that Launch button.
More news over at the AI clock newsletter. tl;dr,
Oh I missed this media first time around: Bloomberg interviewed Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO, and used my clock as the first example. Watch Inside OpenAI by Bloomberg Originals (YouTube, at 3m7s).
GOV.UK is working with AI to improve the interactions people have with government
That client I haven’t been able to name? It’s GOV.UK, the part of UK gov that looks after digital information and services.
They started experimenting with AI really early, and built and tested a chat UI for the 700,000 pages of information that they look after. The GOV.UK Chat research findings have now been published. It’s been amazing to watch. There are some unique challenges.
Personally I’ve been helping out with “what next”… how should GOV.UK systematically explore AI to build capability and open the imagination, and what is the strategic “why” here? Well, eventually to help transform how people interact with government, sure, but there are stepping stones to be chosen.
The new AI Team is announced here by Chris Bellamy, Director of GOV.UK. I’ve been bringing a perspective of design pathfinding, one that I first talked about with the BMJ back in May and then wrote up here in more detail (Dec 2023).
Plus some heavy advocacy for thinking through making, alongside the research…
More to say about all of that another time I’m sure. It’s a privilege working with this smart and motivated team.
Building at PartyKit
My mainline client continues to be PartyKit, where I invent in order to stretch and explore their new platform for the realtime, multiplayer internet.
Just before the holidays PartyKit shipped AI integrations, and I wrote a long piece on the blog:
It’s a straightforward, show-the-code account of one of the fundamental techniques in building with AI. One reader review: – so I’m pleased with that.
I really enjoyed writing it.
What I find hardest to communicate to people who work with technology, before they use AI, is how much they need to reset their assumptions about how hard things are. e.g. a great search engine is so easy now.
The best way to demystify is to go line-by-line. Code isn’t scary.
And there’s no magic here. An embedding model is just a function call, a vector database is just a function call, broadcasting messages to a multiplayer room is a function call, keeping multiplayer state is a function call. All realtime, all scalable, there’s nothing to it.
Acts Not Facts in 2024
I haven’t sat down and made a year plan for Acts Not Facts, this oh-so-nascent product invention femto-studio of mine. Here’s my off the cuff prompt completion on the matter…
I would say that I’m roughly where I wanted to be, a year in. As the big Venn on the ANF website says, I’m focused on AI, group experiences, and embodiment. At the end of 2023 I’ve built up a decent portfolio that demonstrates precisely that. Good!
Which means the next step is to pick up a team project. Ideally something that involves invention, AI, interactions, and hardware where I get to hire a tiny dream team to deliver.
Lmk if there’s a project we should talk about.
p.s. I have that SF/Bay Area trip coming up w/c 5 Feb. My schedule’s filling up. I’d love to squeeze in a couple more chats.