Alexander Chalkidis

Category: POLITICS

  • Rigged elections, Open AI, the NBA finals and the next Google CEO

    Rigged elections, Open AI, the NBA finals and the next Google CEO

    Just switched off the first Mavs-Celtics game. Since the iconic rivalry of the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers, NBA Finals ratings have never recovered.  Strangely enough however the lowest TV rated series was the most interesting to me.  It was 2020, the year of “the bubble”, an innovative solution the NBA found to continue working despite restrictions.

    And it won Joe Biden the elections.

    At a time when we were all stuck at home watching Netflix they managed to produce top level basketball and a potent political message at the same time.  Every match was a black lives matter match, a platform for players to talk about the importance of voting.  Personally I truly believe it made the difference by getting especially black voters determined enough to overcome all of Trump’s hurdles in order to vote against him and swing the election.  It wasn’t easy post Obama to keep their support, especially in the COVID mess of disinformation.

    Lebron James is a divisive figure in the world of basketball.  Billed from a very young age as “the next Michael Jordan” he is in fact much much more than Jordan can even imagine.  (Yes, I have written about him before, here is a good summary of a lot of things I admire in him.)  Mostly because this athlete had the courage to stand up against an acting President.  He alienated half his fans forever.  But he was right.  And he didn’t win that ring “for Cleveland” like the last one he got.  He won it for social justice, so he could have a platform to make change.

    LBJ is what I call “a benevolent dictator”.

    This is a term I have often used to describe Google too.  I laughed out loudly when reading magazine titles about how “open AI is challenging Google in artificial intelligence”.  Nobody is even close.  Google, much like LeBron James, is several steps ahead of everyone.  Google makes assists to everyone for as long as possible and only hammers specific baskets in if and when necessary.    LeBron this season at age 39 single handedly outscored the entire much hyped Clippers team in the fourth quarter to come back from a 19 point deficit.  Google can do the same any day of the week to Open AI.

    With much power, comes much responsibility.  Blowing out opponents simply makes nobody watch the game. LBJs history, much like Google’s is a constant string of everyone doubting them.  You rarely see a LeBron James team blowout opponents. I have oftened wondered why I am awake at 4am (Greek time) watching him play. I now know and it is addictive, he is very cunningly making sure the end result, what you bought a ticket for, is worth watching. It is the exact opposite of watching Giannis play. But even an aging LeBron can turn games around when he really needs to, he controls the narrative.  He knows when the league isn’t going to give him MVP, he knows when the league needs a different team to get a championship. He adapts the story, sure. But the end result is always worth watching if you know what you are looking for.

    Sundar Pichai, if you ever need help, who you gonna call?

    PS Lebron it’s time you switched to a Google Pixel.

  • Greece failed in the pandemic. And trains.

    Greece failed in the pandemic. And trains.

    As many wonder if anything will be done to avoid another tragic train collision in Greece I can already answer this with certainty: nothing at all will change. How do I know? Because many Greeks still think we did “great” in the COVID pandemic!

    Source – Worldometer – 9 March 2023 totals
    (but the ranking has been like that for a while)

    You can choose various metrics to measure how well a country did but deaths seems the most solid one to focus on. Over time there aren’t really many ways to count them like cases. Greece is the 14th worse country on the planet in terms of COVID related deaths. Quite an achievement. Above Italy, the Italy we all pitied at first, above Brazil, above the USA and UK who many made fun of at various stages of their response. Excess mortality, quite a clear figure to work with, does not lie. Greece failed. Big time.

    Source: Our world in Data

    Greece didn’t fail on a single instance. Sure, at first nobody knew what to do. Even Sweden (with much lower death rates than those in the chart above) made a mistake initially in how they handled elderly care homes, it was a brief upshot of deaths. But no, Greece systematically did worse than most countries. So many Greek politicians tried to blame other factors like the slightly higher average age of Greeks. But with no data to back their claims of course. And very similar countries like Portugal systematically faired much better.

    And then when we look at the vaccination graph, it is the inverse. Portugal was doing better almost all the time. That blimp in December where Greece had an upshot was the rare occasion when the government actually did try to do something to force health workers and the elderly to get vaccinated. But they didn’t insist of course, then they retracted and people kept dying in the long term.

    Others try to blame the Greek psyche, as if we are naturally problematic in following rules. But again the data is clear. Greeks are less rebellious than many other countries that did better in terms of deaths.

    There are many specific mistakes to point out, such as the changes to the health system which suddenly made the case fatality ratio much much worse for Greeks. Which they never fixed even though the entire planet could see from the data that something was very very wrong.

    The red line rises , then starts dropping, then in Greece – and only Greece – it shoots up again suddenly after the government had essentially crippled the health care system with irrational changes.

    From a governmental point of view it takes some skill to consistently make bad decisions. Even by chance we could assume they would occasionally get one right. But the data shows something quite different. The Greek government systematically did the wrong thing at the wrong time or the right thing at the wrong time.

    The Greek government was not only totally incompetent in terms of protecting its citizens’ health, it also wrecked businesses by shutting it down in ways and for long periods which were clearly not necessary. How do I know? Because we can compare European countries’ responses and again the Greeks did the wrong thing at the wrong time or the right thing way too late or way too early. It is as if most European countries were in sync and the Greeks simply refused to listen to everyone.

    And this is how I know with certaintly that nothing will be done about train safety. Because despite this proven total failure of the Greek government that let to thousands of deaths there isn’t even a committee (like in other countries) retrospectively allocating blame and making suggestions for the future.

    We can argue about minor or major methodological issues, specific Greek government responses or anything else you like. But the simple fact remains that this Greek government is responsible for a lot of deaths. You could call it simple incompetence. When matched with the fact that not a single retrospective correction has been made and all these deaths are not leading to a greater readiness for the next pandemic, I would call it murder.

  • One tennis player just made fools of all of us

    One tennis player just made fools of all of us

    Did Novak Djokovic really contract COVID? A simple antibody blood test would tell us. But it won’t happen. Because we failed on a global scale to curtail forgeries and tricks that render pandemic controls meaningless.

    How easy is it to get fake proof that you have COVID? In most countries it is the same cost as any other COVID test. The person or lab doing the test is willing to write “positive” as the result. After all nobody can retrospectively prove otherwise, it may have been a false positive.

    How easy is it to get fake COVID vaccination proof? Harder but also not impossible. After a long battle with Greek authorities, my partner just walked into a pharmacy in Berlin at the airport and got her American (genuine) vaccination paper converted to an official European certificate. 10 euro and 2 minutes in total. Could she have done it with fake papers? Hell yeah!

    The tennis player just made public what we have all suspected from the first days of the pandemic. There is no way to force people to do anything unless you live in a dictatorship or an incredibly cohesive society. The country I lived in during the pandemic is a prime example of massive hypocrisy. Through a variety of measures the Greek government crippled the economy, destroyed most small and medium size businesses and managed to also kill an amazing number of people. Here is a small comparison during the time AFTER we all received vaccinations.

    That’s right. Greece had more deaths compared to its population than similar countries. Or even countries we made fun of as inept. Since all European countries received the same number of vaccines, this was a clear test of governments and Greece obviously has one of the most useless in this respect.

    An excellent example is the SMS lockdown measure. For a long time Greeks had to (theoretically) send an SMS before leaving their house. There were categories of reasons to leave the house and (theoretically) after receiving an SMS reply you had to show this to any policeman that stopped you during the curfew. In practice everyone went pretty much wherever they wanted. That is to say us law abiding people sent SMS and followed the lockdown rules but anyone not wanting to follow the rules, pretty freely roamed the land. Some people got fake excuse papers, others didn’t bother knowing that there was no way the police could stop and check everyone. Many of us law abiding citizens also bent the rules when “necessary” to be honest. Essentially let’s admit it, there was no actual rule being enforced.

    This is pretty much what was happening globally. At every airport I visited during the pandemic the measures are laughable. In every line I waited to show my papers or flash some “proof” on my phone I couldn’t help but feel certain that a good percentage of the people in front of me have forged theirs. It is too easy to do and too difficult, if not impossible for the thousands of unqualified people suddenly thrust into being pandemic police to actually perform a proper check.

    I only once got denied entry and that was incorrectly! A junior gate agent from Turkish Airlines incorrectly denied me entry to the airplane because she didn’t realize that the antigen test I showed her was in local United States time. I don’t blame her. She was alone, trying to figure out the complex rules for each country and receiving conflicting information from her superiors who are also trying to make sense of ever changing rules and regulations from every embassy in the world.

    And therein lies the problem. A globalised world with insufficiently globalized information. Europeans managed to coordinate their vaccinations certificates eventually but it is by no means a safe, complete or conclusive system. Because we are dealing with medical data, anyone can throw a spanner in the works by claiming it is personal and sacred. Google and Apple built something amazing at the start of the pandemic but nobody wants to trust them. Politicians can’t deal with uncertainty but that is what science should always thrive towards.

    Novak Djokovic raised a middle finger to all the people in the world who have been trying to keep a lid on the pandemic. He also raised the rally cry for antivaxxers and antisocial elements who can now scream “the king has no clothes”.

    Unfortunately they are right.

  • How many people have cheated their way to the vaccine?

    How many people have cheated their way to the vaccine?

    The answer to this question is much more complicated than it seems. In fact despite its dreadful toll in human lives and economies, the pandemic is a wonderful opportunity to see societies, governments and well, all organized systems in our world, tested.

    Capitalism or globalization or whatever you want to call it was already in trouble before all of this. Demonized and blamed for all sorts of problems. But if it was all about money, rich people all over the world would just buy a vaccine, wouldn’t they? We all have a sneaking suspicion many of them have, but then what about…

    … the rule of law? Because sure, you could get your hands on a couple of doses but then how would you do the paperwork? I am pretty sure that in Greece thousands of people have been vaccinated much earlier than they had the right to. They jumped the line by using political connections even though they are 40 or 50 years old. This should be impossible because of…

    …transparency and digital accountability. It is after all a most valuable item, every dose of vaccine should be on a computer system and accounted for. But it isn’t. Nobody wants the bad press that would accompany news that 1000 doses expired unused due to a mistake and in very few countries do governments allow their citizens access to such data.

    Social cohesion has been tested in these conditions. You can bad mouth Sweden all you like about the way they handled the pandemic, but you have to admire them in this respect. Depending where you live you have a very different approach to what you consider “normal” in terms of somebody jumping the line to get vaccinated before you. In Greece we consider it almost normal but…

    …group country behavior was spectacular. The European Union flexed its muscles to protect its members. It seemed a wonderful move which would protect smaller countries. It backfired. Other, small countries in the region did better. But like with masks and PPE, the gloves came off when it mattered, global cooperation went out the window when it mattered. So efforts like the…

    …green passport are in great danger of proving to be a joke. If I live in a country where I can get vaccinated just because I know a politician or a journalist, of course they can also produce any fake document or assurance with any dates they like afterwards. It will only work within countries, for their own use, like they did in Israel.

    So I don’t know exactly how many Greeks cheated their way into getting the COVID-19 vaccination before me. I am pretty sure it is several thousand. But I am even more sure we will never find out. If you live in a country which inspires more certainty you are lucky.

    Hopefully this pandemic will teach us all the value of institutions we can trust.

  • The ring , the next President and the finest manager you have ever seen

    The ring , the next President and the finest manager you have ever seen

    It was just a Facebook ad for a ring. Contrary to doom and gloom tech naysayers, their algorithm is pretty bad. I very rarely even pay attention to Facebook ads. But this fitness monitoring ring had the endorsement of the NBA. That little familiar logo in combination with the indicator that it had hundreds of comments caught my eye. It was mainly Republicans expressing their hatred of the athletes that took a position against racism. I made the mistake of commenting and instantly received a lot of hate and ridicule. As a seasoned social media professional, for the good of my mental health, I just left it there and forgot about it.

    This morning I woke at 4am. I had gone to bed early, I don’t need much sleep anymore. And…LeBron James. Normally I would roll over and sleep some more but I started to watch the game. A lot of people find the first half of a basketball match boring since any result can be overturned at the end. They don’t know LBJ. He was probing the court like Curiosity, the Mars rover from NASA. The man is the Marco Polo of exploration, he tries every opponent, every combination of moves with his team mates. He has a mind map of every individual’s playing styles, strengths, weaknesses, mental states and a plan about how to help them develop in the direction he needs them to. At half time I didn’t even care about the score. Almost everyone had played well. And they didn’t even know that LeBron was the one pulling the strings.

    Most people are focused on short term results. Multinational behemoths suffer from this, quarter to quarter, keeping investors happy can ruin a company. It is pretty similar with elite athletes, millions of haters ready to demolish you at every turn. This is a sport which pioneered detailed data gathering, it was way ahead of the curve in terms of using all available information to improve. And LeBron is the Google of it all. He processes it and he uses it for good. Google may have dropped the slogan “do no evil” but LBJ lives by it. The Nuggets started increasing the pressure, chipping at the Lakers’ lead. LBJ continued to trust his teammates even though they were – as always – wasting many of his great assist passes, or not understanding how they need to move.

    And then comes the dreaded finale. Jamal Murray is possibly the all time greatest if you look at his stats during the playoff fourth quarters. The man turns into a monster scoring machine with a phenomenal percentage of his shots going in from anywhere he chooses. He kicked into gear and for those in the know it was obvious that the Nuggets would win.

    Except that LBJ was on the court.

    It was the gentle, almost loving way that he did it. If only political rivalries were so sweet and tender. He made a slight hand signal to Rajon Rondo to indicate that he would defend against Murray. And that was the end of that. The next 3-4 times the rising star attempted to score he was met with the defensive genius of LBJ. He missed them all. All those basketball experts who had previously understood that the Nuggets would win, instantly knew that they would now lose. One man turned the match around yet most people wouldn’t even notice. Because in an equally gentle way, he then stepped away.

    Especially in politics or business we are always asking our leaders to be forceful. We don’t like it when they are uncertain even when – as with the COVID pandemic – the simple fact is that nobody had conclusive evidence on which to act. In basketball it is easy to see how LeBron could just keep making a fool of Jamal Murray. That is what Michael Jordan would do. He would keep at it to make an impressive story for people to tell. About him. To become a legend simply by the fact that he personally did something extreme and impressive.

    Not LBJ. He left Caruzo to defend even if it cost them a couple of buckets. He continued to pass to others even though they missed a lot. He quietly sneaked off court before the end even to not make a big fuss about the win, to not make it about him, to go and talk to Anthony Davis who had struggled on many fronts. They started to walk towards the locker room completely and obviously exhausted but a journalist chased them. It is the rule that the top scorer of the winning team has to speak on camera right after the game. Davis couldn’t handle it, LeBron dragged himself out and put his after match towel around his neck.

    It is usually four questions. The last one is sometimes not about the game. Tonight it was about Breonna. That question is something that LeBron has earnt. He is the unofficial spokesperson for millions of Americans because he has matched athletic skill with political bravery. Michael Jordan may or may not have said that “Republicans buy sneakers too” to justify his lack of political action, but LeBron forcefully accepts the opposite role. If all those haters in the fitness ring cost him not getting as many championship rings as Jordan so be it. More so even than the great Mohamed Ali he is a symbol of an athlete using his position to change the world.

    And I cried.

    It was past 6am in Greece, I only had a short nap to take before waking the kids and all that, but here I was crying for what a tall black bearded and slightly balding man said about Breonna Taylor. In a highly polarized country getting ready to vote, what could he possibly say to millions of people like me around the world? After all hundreds of communication specialists are dissecting the same topics for presidential candidates and covering every possible angle, every slogan, every way to look at the problem and influence people, he had me, the interviewer and people around the world feeling his pain.

    It is not the championship ring that LeBron James is lacking. He is President material. If you are in any way involved in leading teams you would do well to study him on and off the court. While everyone talks the talk about uniting the country, leading their companies, or teaching this and that, he shows us how.

  • Greece using Covid19 to leapfrog ahead!

    Greece using Covid19 to leapfrog ahead!

    This is no conspiracy theory. The Greek government has convinced everybody that they are doing an admirable job handling the pandemic. Or to be honest, it was much easier than others. We have no economy. Sending everyone home when half the population isn’t working anyway (as civil servants) is no big decision. Taking an aggressive approach when your economy depends largely on tourism is also an easy choice. If we manage to salvage July and August on the Greek islands it will be a major victory. Even if we end up paying for it in terms of more deaths right after the tourist season. It is all about first impressions. Leaders of countries with actual working economies that actually produce something have a much harder job. Sure Trump and Boris Johnson are inept, but we should not disregard how much harder it is to make any decision when there are billions riding on it. All the Greek government has to do is wait for the handouts. During the crisis nobody discussed shared debt, now it is inevitable.

    Here in Greece it was easy to stop schools. We have a terrible educational system run by civil servants who do their best not to work or be evaluated. Not much difference if they close. In England it could cripple many companies when parents have to stay at home. Here it is easy for most people. Same with our enormous civil sector. Nobody misses the paper pushers when they are gone.

    Some years ago, when my kids still thought I knew the answer to everything, they asked me what I would do if I became prime minister. (Because it was so obvious that I was the wisest man in the world!) I didn’t have to think much, the answer was obvious: “I would force everyone to get on a single IT system for everything.” This would solve most of our woes, from the black economy, to corruption.

    And voila!

    We now have most of the population at home. Online most of the time. How will they return to work when this is all over? They won’t! Our Prime minister used to be minister of Interior. He had a thing about organizing the civil service better. Here is how he will do it: What we will do is ask them, under the pretense of health and safety, to work online. Civil servants in Greece have managed to avoid using computers. About two decades ago some minister tried to make it compulsory for them to use email. He failed. They still don’t. But they could now!

    These civil servants are all being paid full salaries and bonuses even though they are at home. So you could easily ask them to start signing in on a computerized system. Next step would be to get them to monitor some simple procedure, much as they would stamp approval on paper in their offices. Then more procedures on the same electronic platform. “Hey, we are paying you, it is dangerous to go back to the office, this is the only way!” It is not hard to imagine the entire civil service being restructured in less than a year like this. And the best part is that whoever can’t or won’t join the digital revolution will be self exiling themselves.

    I am optimistic I know. My kids tell me as much now that they are older. The most likely scenario is that this government, like all others before it, shows itself to be spineless and changes nothing. Or it gets loads of new cheap loans and spends it with friends and relatives, leaving our national health system as bad as it ever was. After all, the people that voted for this government will believe Greece did very well in the pandemic, based purely on the good results of this early period. When we have to actually do something real as a society and government , something like organizing a mass vaccination we will fail. Then they will blame antivaxxers or the other political parties.

    But hey, I tried. It’s not rocket science to improve Greece in terms of IT infrastructure. And this is the best opportunity we will ever get. Will look forward to upcoming DESI scores with interest.

  • My prime minister and your president are a similar type of idiot-genius marketers

    When Donald Trump became president I did a blog post about his similarities with the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras.  I was of course mainly impressed with their marketing capabilities.  The unorthodox way they gamed the political system to win.  Some time down the line, it gets even worse.  I am not sure if all populist leaders don’t have some secret forum where they exchange ideas.

    For starters they don’t have a left or right, conservative or socialist direction.  They don’t care.  Whatever sounds good, whatever tweets best.  Tariffs where a “socialist” thing, now it’s a Trump thing in an almost nationalistic way.  In no case is it felt necessary to research something.  He will head to meet the leader of North Korea unprepared.  He might even fall asleep during the meeting like Tsipras seems to do in major international leader meetings.    They both have a unique way of projecting their reality, their complete and utter stupidity, their short term, childish “truth” as if it is the actual truth.  It is like watching a two year old lie about the broken vase he is holding.

    Like a rather immature two year old they both change their minds erratically and avoid any specifics.  Forget a detailed memo explaining how a major change will happen, here are a couple of tweets I shot out last night.  Go figure.  They get swayed by whoever they last met or whatever they saw on television.  The gaping lack of basic understanding of how the world works poses absolutely no obstacle to them scheming on the grandest of levels.  Our prime minister even set up the Greek Space program recently.  Sure, it is probably just a way to line the pockets of his friends, but that is irrelevant to the fantasy world he is projecting.

    Trump and Tsipras hold on to simple ideas.  Really simple ideas.   Imports are bad.  Let’s kill them.  If it gets the crowd cheering they will just default to the simple “truth” in a world where nothing is simple.  And no matter how ridiculously obvious it is that these people are bowing to whatever their friends ask for, those simple “truths” keep being repeated until they drown out everyone else.  Tsipras is co ruling with a party full of people that believe that we are being sprayed from the air to influence our decision making.  Trump takes advice from Navarro.  To say these are far out extreme conspiracy theorists is an understatement.  The simple, obvious, appealing “truth” is all they care about and they somehow manage to persuade a lot of people that is the whole story.

    Their opponents are in disarray because by moving pseudo ideologically they have destroyed the structure of politics as everybody else knew it.  The ultimate market redefinition.  Like going into the hayday of a Pepsi-Coke war and getting everybody to stop drinking all together because liquids are unnatural and you can get all you need from cucumbers and watermelons.   Tsipras and Trump have a lot to teach us.   Get off your soap boxes and see how you can use their methodology in other markets.

    .

    Of course we need to get them out of politics as soon as possible.

     

  • The mythology of the Greek crisis

    If you have any Greek friends you have probably heard the yarns.  The terrible harsh measures imposed on Greece “for the banks”.  Global capitalism eating up it’s children like Saturn and not a Zeus in sight to fight back.  Even Alexis Tsipras, the communist trained youngster, couldn’t do a Hermes on them.  He talked the talk and then somersaulted into submission signing one after another Memorandum of Understanding.  The “sold off Greece”, “mortgaged our future” and many other horrible things.   According to most Greeks it was either “the Germans making money off us” or “the EU making an example of us”.  According to conspiracy theorists it is “the beginning of a global economic meltdown.”

    Let me help you with some facts.

    1. Greek business is, in general, crap.  “Crap” being a term I use in the strictest sense to denote lazy and unorganized.  Greece doesn’t really produce anything.  As a consultant I see a lot of companies “insides”.  Even those that appear to be healthy or export orientated are usually dependent on lazy government contracts one way or another.  There is no “private sector” really because even companies that don’t belong to the government, end up making most of their money directly or indirectly from the government.  Worse still, there is no major improvement.  If someone gave us a gazillion billions to pay off all our debt we would simply slide into debt immediately again.
    2. The myth about Greek civil servants still holds true.  Don’t look at official figures.  When the latest government of pseudo left incompetents took over, my father declared “well, they have no money to give away, so at least they can’t hire loads of new civil servants.”  Many people, usually like my father no longer well connected to developments, believe this.  The truth is that this government has continued with gusto in the age old Greek tradition of giving jobs for votes.  They just find new ways.  We have consultancy positions, committees and dozens of other ways to give money to have people dependent enough to vote for them again.  It is the PASOK know-how.  (A lot of PASOK went into the current government.)
    3. Greeks are still living the good life, they just complain more.  We have all taken a hit and it is true that some luxury items like expensive cars or international travel have been scaled back.  It is also true that people on the edge of poverty are worse off.  But the picture is not so clear.  Hospitals are worse off, lacking essentials very often, but most people find a way to get either private health care or some in between solution.  Doctors working in public hospitals abuse expensive machinery on the side for example.  Bus travel is virtually free as there are never ticket inspectors.  You hardly ever see anyone with a ticket anymore.  Most Greeks still own the house they live in and their summer house and possibly a flat or two in the city which they rent out or AirBnb on the side.  How many Germans have that?

    I have written before about the many signs that Greeks are still wealthier and lazier in economizing than most Europeans.  Things like the lack of used goods stores or the price of coffee. Greeks still top charts on rates of spending on personal care or plastic surgery.   Supermarkets recently started charging for plastic bags and there was an uproar.  Old habits die hard.  You still don’t see too many people with carrier bags.  We just take plastic bags from the vegetables section and use them!  The “average American” we all like to make fun of, has infinitely more financial literacy than a Greek.  We don’t spread risk, or count investments or move money, here is a conversation with your average Greek about debt.

    No, that sort of thing is for “stupid foreigners.” We just wait for the next Euro idiot to give us more money to share.

  • A horse designed by a European Committee

    I take offence to the expression ‘a camel is a horse designed by a committee’.  Camels are incredible animals, possibly ideally suited to the desert.   They have been instrumental in thriving civilizations and commercial breakthroughs which changed mankind forever.  A camel is in fact an animal no European committee could ever imagine.  Someone would argue it doesn’t look right, another would object to it’s saliva based on some european health guideline or other, for sure we would bicker for years about whether or not we can eat its meat; and with more than 100% certainty, the number of humps would become the bone of contention between heads of State for decades.   In total, we would probably spend millions of euro in meetings, public hearings, research and other pleasantries and end up with …a horse.

    An excellent recent example is that completely stupid button you have to “accept” when visiting websites.  It is of course completely useless.  A bit like making a sign reading “attention! If you get on this camel, a lot of people will see you because you will be higher up than before“.  A paper sign.  Which camel owners will have to put on the camel everytime a “new” rider comes along.

    Perhaps the best illustration of the futility of approaching technology is carrier neutrality.  To put it simply, this is the notion that Facebook has to “deal” with hate talk or sexism on its platform.  Or that it is Twitter’s “fault” that some people spread false rumours via tweets or bots.  In practical terms, this is like asking the telephone company to interfere if two or three of us start talking about building a bomb one day on our phones.  Completely and utterly ludicrous.  In fact, we could make telephone companies completely ban profanity on the telephone.  All calls could go through voice recognition systems and when a swear word was recognised it could cut off the line or send you a fine.

    There are two reasons we don’t do this and both are interesting.  The first is that despite spending billions on automatic translation research, Europe still lags far behind in terms of real time machine translation.  Things you can do for free on any Android phone, simply can’t be handled by any European infrastructure in technical terms to handle the task.  Much like no French company could serve videos as well as YouTube.  The second reason is of course that we could never all agree on what constitutes “profanity”.  A French man’s “merd” is not exactly the same as a British “oh, poo!” or even a German “scheisse!”

    In the same time Europeans would take to “initiate a working group to deliberate the need for a committee to address the issue”, Google staff would have solved it.  In fact they did.  Not for ethical reasons, but for commercial reasons, YouTube made video channels with profanity inelligible to take adverts.  Problem more or less solved.    Air BnB had a similar problem with users of their platform who refused tenants based on race or ethnicity.  This is no easy problem to solve.  It is virtually impossible to find a solution talking about it around a table.  Air BnB didn’t “initiate research”.  They tried, tested, improved and made it work.

    Essentially the problem is one of friction.  Technological networks operate on the premise that less friction is better.  You want your phone to serve instantly.  Search results at a the blink of an eye.  What Silicon Valley does when presented with a challenge is usually to actuall add friction.  That ludicrous european website button informing us about cookies is in essence an added step.  It is meant to ensure we all understand cookies.  Except it doesn’t.  Compare it to Facebook trying to teach us about privacy.  They constantly change the way messages pop up, the content of the messages, the way they try to make sure we are all on the same page concerning who sees what when we post on their platform.  Other platforms have online mini lessons about hate speech.  You start to post something and it pops up saying “hey!  Do you know that this word you are using is considered negative in some parts of the world?  Would you rather use one of the following suggestions:……”  They even give mini history lessons relating to words or uses of words to help make sure you say what you want in a way which will actually get the message across.

    Europe will never, ever catch up with Silicon Valley like this.  Artificial intelligence is not about installing a “kill” button.  I read through the blurb and it is a bit like bad French or Italian academic literature.  Too much theory and mostly outdated.  Impressive for headlines, useless in practice.  In this particular phase of technological development we need to be building infrastructure and platforms.   We need millions of experiments and we need to learn much faster.

    Sir Alec Issigonis, designer of the legendary Mini, is often credited with coining the expression about horses, camels and committees.  The question is whether today he would be enticed by a cushy university job, doing European research and enjoying European committees and funding, rather than building the iconic Mini car.  I think he would prefer to work for Google and just get things done.

  • Were Greeks always easy to sway?

    It is surprising that this trick worked.  Greeks have always been more intelligent than barbarians.  And Athenias even more so, they are the smartest of all Greeks.

    Yet Pisistratus the tyrant, got his position back with a very simple trick:  he found a pretty and quite tall girl from the peasants and dressed as if she were the godess Athena.  With full armor and other accessories the girl rode with him in a chariot.  And Pisistratus had heralds announce that Athena herself was bringing him back to power.

     

    (Herodotus – Histories, 1.60)