Background Knowledge – R&A IT Strategy & Architecture

It is life, Jim. But not as we know it.

Posted by gctwnlon July 7, 2022in AI, All Posts, Brittle Logic, Off Topic3 Comments

Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, has claimed the LaMDA language neural net chatbot is sentient, is alive. Nonsense on stilts, according to one critic. A musing about the meaning of 'life'. And abortion. And doubt. And the point Lemoine has but doesn't make.

Scanning for vulnerabilities — using an #ArchiMate diagram about scanning for log4j

Posted by gctwnlon March 27, 2022March 28, 2022in ArchiMate, Background Knowledge, Using ArchiMate1 Comment

A short story about the log4shell vulnerability in log4j that hit the computing world last December with an explanation of the problem and why scanning for it was so hard. With an ArchiMate diagram to illustrate.

Does Google’s ‘Quantum Supremacy’ mean ‘QM Computing has arrived’? Not so fast.

Posted by gctwnlon September 2, 2021September 14, 2021in All Posts, Background Knowledge, QM Computing2 Comments

Follow-up to the earlier explanatory and critical post on Quantum Computing which addresses Google's 'quantum supremacy' achievement.

AI is a Myth, says AI-researcher and engineer Erik Larson

Posted by gctwnlon August 21, 2021August 22, 2021in AI, Background Knowledge3 Comments

Last April, the book The Myth of Artificial Intelligence was published by Harvard University Press. The author is Erik J. Larson, a computer scientist and tech entrepreneur who is active in the field, especially in natural language processing. After reading…

The many lies about reducing complexity part 2: Cloud

Posted by gctwnlon January 10, 2021August 17, 2021in Background Knowledge, Enterprise Architecture16 Comments

That standard image that explains the difference between on-premises, IAAS, PAAS, and SAAS in the cloud? You know what, it is hugely misleading. Here is the real deal.

Chatbots: een plaag voor de mensheid

Posted by gctwnlon September 9, 2020February 25, 2021in AI, Background Knowledge1 Comment

Chatbots. Ze zijn overal tegenwoordig. En ze zijn vaak frustrerend slecht, niet meer dan een te nemen horde op weg naar een mens. Waarom zijn ze zo slecht? Misschien omdat de kern techniek van 30 jaar geleden is?

Chatbots: a scourge of humankind

Posted by gctwnlon September 9, 2020September 30, 2020in AI, Background Knowledge5 Comments

Chatbots. They're everywhere these days. They're also frustratingly poor, often just a hurdle to take to get to a human agent. Why are they so poor? Maybe because the core is technology from 30 years ago?

To be and not to be — is that the answer?

Posted by gctwnlon March 13, 2019July 14, 2022in Background Knowledge, Best Of 8, QM Computing, QM Computing 110 Comments

If you believe much of the reporting done on quantum computing, it is around the corner. We look at how quantum computing works and how realistic it is that it will be available any time soon. With a small appendix on the continuum hypothesis.

Something is (still) rotten in the kingdom of artificial intelligence

Posted by gctwnlon April 4, 2018April 11, 2022in AI, AI 1, Background Knowledge, Best Of 7, Information Revolution20 Comments

Nobody can deny that artificial intelligence (or machine learning, deep learning, or cognitive computing) is booming these days. And — as before, as this is in fact the second (or third, depending on how you count) round for AI —…