2019-02-03 (or: “True Colours”)

This past one was a pretty draining week, but a good one. We had visitors over — and I took a week off from my day job to attend a full-week workshop. The workshop was great, and the visitors were too — no complaining really, as I said it was a good week, but both L. and I ended up pretty tired due to all the obligations, (at times) stress and socialization. We are like this regardless of how much we like the company or the activities we do usually, so I’m glad the second half of this Sunday we had free.

I thought about an idea for a short story having to do with machine learning: in the future (10 years from now? 20? Does it matter?) AI models run the world (for governments and/or companies). Most of what humans do is data gathering for improving the models; labelling data for the computers, who “want” to improve the quality of their predictions and decisions; essentially investigating empty cells in the datasets that computers run learning algorithms on. Like, for example, figuring out what is the true colour of a certain fruit in sub-saharan Africa (the example coming from an introductory video in ML that I was just watching, where they mention a toy model that classifies fruit based on its colour). I could probably call the story “True Colours” if I were to actually write it. It’s also a Cindy Lauper song, which I guess is fine.