Sticky Posts

  • On the Psychology of Architecture and the Architecture of Psychology
    [Sticky] About the role ‘convictions’ play in human intelligence, starting from the practical situations ‘advisors’ — such as IT advisors — find themselves in. Advisors need (a) to know what they are talking about and (b) be able to convince others. For architects, the first part is called ‘architecture’ and the second part could be called ‘the psychology of architecture’. Our intelligence — and that of our audience — is mostly ‘mental automation’, which makes us humans fast and energy efficient, but only ‘quick and dirty’. And like all automation: change is hard.

Latest Posts

  • AI-generated podcast AI-slopcast
    We introduce a new term: “AI-slopcast”. This is a podcast that is created by Generative AI and — surprise! — is AI-slop. The victim: one of my own posts.
  • AI has invented a new language, and added sex to a dull office context
    It turns out that AI has created a whole new language. Humans do not speak it, and they may even mistake it for talk about sex. But luckily Generative AI is able to translate it to something humans can understand (and where the sex doesn’t show up).
  • Generative AI ‘reasoning models’ don’t reason, even if it seems they do
    ‘Reasoning models’ such as GPT4-o3 have become a well known member of the Generative AI family. But look inside and while they add a certain depth, at the same time they add nothing at all. Not ‘reasoning’ anyway. Just another ‘level of indirection’ when approximating. Sometimes powerful. Always costly.
  • Let’s call GPT and Friends: ‘Wide AI’ (and not ‘AGI’)
    GPT-3o has done very well on the ARC-AGI-PUB benchmark. Sam Altman has also claimed OpenAI is confident that it can build Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). But that may be based on confusions around ‘learning’. On the difference between narrow, general and (introducing) ‘wide’ AI.
  • Google’s ‘Willow’ quantum computer: impressive science and misleading marketing
    Google has announced ‘Willow’, a quantum computer that can calculate so fast it would take a supercomputer 10 septillion (a 10 with 25 zeros) years to do the same. But while the science is real and cool, the message is misleading. An explainer for non-physicists.
  • Hello Human Intelligence, meet Complexity Crunch
    [Sticky] Link to the YouTube video of the ‘fundamentals’ part of my 2024 talks on insights into the digital revolution. About how the IT revolution provides reliable performance, but the price paid is less agility (IT is brittle and thus ever more It becomes ever more difficult to change). About how we humans react/have reacted to this and why ‘Complexity Crunch’ and not a ‘Singularity Point’ is coming. Also contains links to related posts on the site for those that rather read than watch..
  • Mastering ArchiMate 3.2 has been released (PDF version)
    Mastering ArchiMate 3.2 has been released. Finally. This post contains release information, and a link to the book’s page where you can order the free excerpt (with the entire language description as well as a short BPMN primer) or the entire book (both PDF).
  • Can we break through the inertia that plagues IT-change?
    You’re on the Titanic. The engineers are shouting: “The bulkheads are too low! The rudder is too small! There aren’t enough life boats!”. The sailors mumble: “It has been cold, there will be many more icebergs than usual and further south”. The owners are pressing the captain: “You should be in New York in six days, we desperately need a record!”. And the captain thinks: “I have execution power. I can break through. I will be successful.” and orders: “Northerly course and full steam ahead!”.  Move fast and break things…

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