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Category Archives: Knowledge Management

Every self-help book ever, boiled down to 11 simple rules

Mashable: “The first self-described self-help book was published in 1859. The author’s name, improbably, was Samuel Smiles; the title, even more improbably, was Self-Help(opens in a new tab). A distillation of lessons from the lives of famous people who had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, it sold millions of copies and was a mainstay in Victorian households. Every generation since had its runaway bestseller, such as How to Live on 24 Hours a Day(opens in a new tab) (1908), Think and Grow Rich(opens in a new tab) (1937), or Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff(opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)(1997). By now, the $11 billion self-help industry(opens in a new tab) is most definitely not small stuff. Yet when you strip it down, there’s very little new information. After all, we were consuming self-help for centuries before Smiles, just under different names. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius gave tweet-sized advice in Meditations(opens in a new tab); so did Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanack(opens in a new tab). Even self-help parody isn’t new. Shakespeare did it with Polonius’ “to thine own self be true” speech in Hamlet: basically a bullet-point list from a blowhard. The 21st century has seen a measure of self-awareness about our self-help addiction. There’s the wave of sweary self-help bestsellers I wrote about, such as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck(opens in a new tab). They hover somewhere between parody and dressing up the same advice as their forebears in earthier language. More recently, there’s a trend you might call meta-self-help: books in which people write about their experiences following self-help books, such as Help Me!(opens in a new tab) (2018) and How to Be Fine(opens in a new tab) (2020), based on the similar self-help podcast By the Book(opens in a new tab). But hey, if it’s all pretty much the same stuff — and it is — why stop at distilling it into a single book? Why not condense the repeated lessons of an entire genre into one article? That’s what I’ve attempted here, after reading dozens of history’s biggest bestsellers so you don’t have to. Here is the essence of the advice I’ve seen delivered again and again…”

AI Initiatives from Biden Administration

Via Tech Policy Press: “A little more than a week ago, the White House released its national research and development strategy for artificial intelligence. The document joins the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, a phalanx of AI initiatives from the Biden administration, including: The White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights;… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 3, 2023

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 3, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex… Continue Reading

Regulating AI

Gizmodo: “What Would AI Regulation Look Like? How could Congress corral artificial intelligence? Erect guardrails, ensure accountability, and address monopolistic power. A new federal agency to regulate AI sounds helpful but could become unduly influenced by the tech industry. Instead, Congress can legislate accountability. Instead of licensing companies to release advanced AI technologies, the government… Continue Reading

It’s the End of Computer Programming as We Know It. (And I Feel Fine.)

The New York Times Opinion, Farhad Manjoo: “…A.I. tools based on large language models — like OpenAI Codex, from the company that brought you ChatGPT, or AlphaCode, from Google’s DeepMind division — have already begun to change the way many professional coders do their jobs. At the moment, these tools work mainly as assistants —… Continue Reading

What Number Comes Next? Ask the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences

The New York Times [free link] “This year the “mathematical equivalent to the FBI’s voluminous fingerprint files” enters its 50th year, with 362,765 entries (and counting)…This year the OEIS, which has been praised as “the master index to mathematics” and “a mathematical equivalent to the FBI’s voluminous fingerprint files,” celebrates its 50th anniversary. The original… Continue Reading

Top EU Tech Regulator – Twitter to Face Stress Test This Month

WSJ [free link to article]: “European Union regulators plan to subject Twitter to a stress test to determine how well it complies with Europe’s new digital-content law, a top EU tech regulator said, ramping up the bloc’s preparations for enforcing the West’s most far-reaching digital-content law. A team of roughly five to 10 digital specialists… Continue Reading

Rule-Of-Law Judge? That’s Code for Ideologically Conservative Judging

Kimble, Joseph, Rule-Of-Law Judge? That’s Code for Ideologically Conservative Judging (February 15, 2023). Michigan Lawyers Weekly, February 15 2023, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4436620 “Judges often proclaim—typically during a political campaign—that they are a “rule-of-law judge.” This commentary calls that description “a clichéd truism.” Beyond that, though, what’s wrong with the description? First, it’s hopelessly simplistic.… Continue Reading

When do your employees need to disclose their use of ChatGPT?

HR Brew: “…As ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies provide a helping hand to employees, HR teams are grappling with policies regarding its use, including disclosure. Some companies have banned or restricted employees from the tech. Others are embracing the possibilities the tech can offer to employee productivity and see it as a tool to… Continue Reading