I won’t dwell on it, but it will remain in my consciousness and influence how I deal with that person in the future. Sadly, in business, some are not very honest. This specimen falls in that category. I know I have been upfront and honest and haven’t screwed anyone out of money, and If I’ve made a mistake, I’ve done everything possible to correct it.

On to other matters.

I’ve been asked to train a group about using generative AI in the workplace. I’m putting together a short training course to achieve that goal. I have a tendency to dive deep into subjects like this, so I’m trying to scale back the scope to concentrate on the essentials so the participants can learn a few basic elements and then go on to use them successfully in their office environments. I’m ensuring to include a module on risks and shortcomings, but on the whole, the short course will be useful and interesting and worth the day’s investment.

I’m both optimistic about the utility of generative AI in certain settings and with the right guard rails but quite pessimistic about our capacity to properly safeguard against dishonest and downright dangerous use. I suspect we’ll even invent a category of terrorism based on the use of this technology.

This week I was asked for an interview to talk about cybersecurity in the broader context of the Caribbean and an incident that has shut down local government services for over a month now. It’s the second time in as many weeks that I have been on television. The first time I was petrified, but this time I was much more comfortable. I’d love to do this more often if the opportunity arises.

I need to start the writing up process for my paper that will be included in Vatel’s CIRVATH, which should be published towards the end of the year, should it be accepted. I’m looking forward to providing a research paper that is thought-provoking and useful to all that are in the hotel / travel & tourism sector. It requires a little consistency on my part, but I’m sure with a little effort, I’ll get it done.

A week ago or so, I applied to join another training course targeted at the economy of innovation but was not selected. I’m not too upset, but I do think I would have been a great candidate.

My cybersecurity newsletter didn’t go out. I got distracted, but I’d hope to do something about it this week. It needs a little editing and a little massage to get it into a state that I’d be happy publishing. My kryptonite is that I spend a lot of time reading, and there is virtually no end to the amount I find interesting. At some point, I need to start producing too. Soon come.

How could I finish this post without mentioning Apple’s big day?

Apple’s developer conference, WWDC, took place this week. The keynote presentation was on Monday, and we discovered their new augmented reality headset. Although to be fair to Apple, they didn’t use the terms virtual reality or augmented reality as far as I can remember. They positioned the device as a ‘spatial computer’. Essentially the replacement of your Mac / iPad or perhaps iPhone.

The hardware is really impressive, and clearly, Apple has thought deeply about it. For the moment, aside from an immersive laptop screen extension, I fail to see the killer app or the use case that shows me ‘why’ I need this.

Reading

My paper and book reading continues. I’ve mostly concentrated on finishing the penultimate book in the Foundation series that I managed to do last night.

I’ll be starting a couple of other “serious” books soon too.

Notably, I’ve just bought and downloaded a historical account of the transatlantic slave trade and Chattel slavery called “A world transformed: Slavery in the Americas and the origins of global power” by James Calvin.

I’ve also lined up “Get rich or lie trying” by Symeon Brown.

Of note

I recorded a new podcast episode with my friend Jean-François. I really enjoy these conversations, and I’d love to continue doing them. When you’re confronted with questions, you have to think quickly about your answers, which I really enjoy.

Much like last week, the week started on a bank holiday. I know there are a lot of them in May in France. However, unlike in other countries, the bank holiday days are fixed to the calendar day of the month. That means in practice, if the bank holiday falls on a weekend, the day off is taken on that day, and it is not moved to the following Monday like in the U.K.

To take advantage, we had friends over for lunch, and for their son to catch up with ours, they’re best friends. They’re both budding professional sports players, albeit in different sports, and they have been separated for a year whilst my son’s friend has been studying and training abroad. Next year it’ll be the same for my son, so it is important to celebrate and enjoy these moments together.

The UNCTAD training continued, and I finally finished the last module and passed the course with an average of over 80%. That is not bad for someone new to the subject. Admittedly, it’s not in my daily wheelhouse, but I found the information useful, and it has rounded my view on international trade.

I haven’t worked as much on the research paper I had been asked to write, but I plan to catch up this week. The priority was the UNCTAD training as it had a hard deadline, which was vital for me to mobilise the energy to complete the task. However, I spent much time reading academic papers on AI, ChatGPT and other LLMs in the HR industry and general productivity use in businesses. There’s already a lot of material out there. Some with questionable conclusions and others with outright listicle-like compositions. Still, they help gauge the feeling out there.

This was done, again, to a deadline, as I have been asked to teach a couple of training courses on the use, background, and usefulness of LLMs in business. I’ll be training a couple of small groups this month, and I’m looking forward to giving the participants a good overview and some food for thought.

I’ve virtually completed the writing for a newsletter post on cybersecurity. I haven’t finished it, and it’ll need a bit of trimming and editing, as well as some new topic injection, but I think I’ll be able to do it this week. I miss writing for the newsletter and getting that buzz out of writing something a little longer than brief paragraphs to satiate a personal need. So, fingers crossed, I’ll get around to it, despite having a fairly busy week ahead.

My exercise has continued, and I’ll be off for a run after I finish writing this evening. I felt much better on the last run and can already see a difference in my heart rate and how I feel while running. At least I don’t feel like I’m about to die immediately like I did at the start.

Reading

I’m still reading Foundation’s Edge and enjoying it, and there’s only one book I haven’t read in the series after this, Foundation and Earth. Unfortunately, due to some stupidity on my part, I read the two books that followed Foundation and Earth already, reading them out of step. Oh well. At least I read them.

The other books I mentioned last week are all still on the go, and I’ll be making inroads, no doubt, during the week.

I’ve also read academic papers on sports injuries, training and flexibility. I’m trying to get as much scientific evidence as possible to see how I can help my son progress. Rather than leave things to chance, professional sports require evidence and experience. I can bring some of that research to the table and hopefully contribute to building a better athlete than just leaving it to develop without guidance.

Of note

Next week will see Apple’s introduction of a totally new platform if the rumours are to be believed. Essentially, Monday is the keynote presentation of their Worldwide Developers Conference or WWDC. At 13h ET, they’re live-streaming the keynote and will talk about the new things slated to be available over the coming year or so. This year’s talk is about an xR product that leapfrogs all the VR/AR devices introduced previously to a resounding ‘meh’ from the public.

Apple rarely invents new things. Instead, it tends to look at what’s come before it and do it properly, answering the question of what problem this is solving. Up until tomorrow, all of these products have been the very definition of solutions looking for a problem.

I can’t quite see the problem that needs fixing with strapping a computer and a couple of screens to one’s face, but I’m staying open-minded for now.

That said, I think this is going to tank initially. I think it is too early —the world still isn’t ready for Glassholes— and I think it is a rushed product without need.

Time will tell if I am right or not.

On to next week.

5 June 2023 — French West Indies

I’m trying to kickstart this mini-project to help me document and reflect on my life. So apologies from the outset if this is not interesting or even boring for you. In reality, it is more for me and complementary to a personal journal that is, for obvious reasons, private. So why put this out in public? I guess it’s like trying to have a personal coach or supervisor forcing me to write more.

You see, I like to write. If I’m honest, I think writing is one of those things in my life that I’ve always wanted to do but never had the self-belief that I could. From an early age, I had it kicked out of me during school, exacerbated by my inability to focus enough in class. I struggled at school despite having the intellect to do well, but I didn’t have the skill set to get on at school with classmates or the faculty. I got through it but by the skin of my teeth. So this is an attempt to force me to document my week(s) in broad strokes—nothing too detailed or personal. My objective is for it to serve two purposes, 1) to have a document to look back on, giving me an overview of what I was up to, and 2) to force me to develop consistency to finish my crap.

If there is one Achilles Heel that I have to contend with, I have to have superhuman perseverance to complete anything that is not immediate or simple and fast to do. It’s not that I’m incapable of finishing things. However, the mental effort required to complete the mundane stuff is so hard that it fatigues me quickly. That is, if I can muster up the necessary effort to start what I need to do!

So I’ve started, and I intend to continue, despite it being utter rubbish at this stage. Hopefully, I can motivate myself enough until it becomes something better and something I look forward to doing.

I’ll spare a long introduction in the future, but I needed to put it down and get it out there. So please indulge/forgive me.

My week

Last week started on a Bank Holiday, much like today is, coincidentally. In the French West Indies, abolition of slavery day is a bank holiday. A day in which people reflect on the legacy of Chattel slavery. In Martinique, that day is the 22nd of May. The decree to ‘end’ slavery was signed on the 27th of April 1848. However, it took time for official documents to reach the Caribbean and be enacted on the islands. I’ll most likely reflect upon this subject again as I have a particular interest.

Moving on, I continued the UNCTAD training course I signed up for —a short course on international merchandise trade statistics. I’ve been doing it for a couple of weeks and find it quite interesting. Learning about how countries gather information on trade and merchandise flows is much more complex than I had imagined. It’s not directly related to my work, but it’s a field of interest that adds to what I’m learning and researching. It is a subject that is of importance in the Caribbean, hence why I’m taking the time to delve into it.

My 15-year-old son is a world-class athlete in the making. This puts a lot of stress on his body, and we had to visit a dermatologist doctor to burn off a particularly nasty verruca on his foot. It’s getting better but might need more treatment. It got me thinking about all the effort and hardship sports players at the top of their game must go through. In silence. In pain. In desperation. Alone. Spare a thought for that player you chastised for screwing up and try to imagine how hard it has been for them to get to where they are and to maintain that level. I suspect most people have absolutely no idea how difficult it is.

The rest of the week was spent reading and researching for two projects I’m working on. One is a paper for the business school academic journal that will be published this year. It’s ostensibly about web3 (whatever that is?), and I’d like to publish it. I’d love to make it a regular thing too. Getting back to the purpose of this blog, the constant uphill battle to concentrate and motivate myself to write is partly why I’m publishing this.

The other project is a labour of love that I believe can make a difference in the Caribbean in a small but important way. Our idea (as I’m partnering with someone else) is to publish research-grade papers to those who need or want them but may not be able to pay for them or have the necessary access to them. I think the difficulty is more about the motivation to do the work without having the financial resources to write without having a salary. Would transforming the project into an academic-type non-profit project seeking a grant be better than bootstrapping something that will inevitably be difficult to sell? Analysis paralysis, I suppose. But that’s how my brain works.

I’ve also tried to get back to regular exercise and started a zero to 5k running program. I feel a little better having exercised. It’ll likely take longer than the program timeline, but I hope to stay on track as best as possible. The trick is finding a way to corner me enough to provoke the desire to exercise. For example, this Saturday, I took advantage of my son’s training session to run/walk for 30 minutes. It’s not a lot, but it is a start, and I can see the benefit in heart rate and recovery, even after only 3 or 4 sessions over the last few weeks.

Again consistency.

If there is a word that defines my life, it is consistency. I am trying to be more consistent. I hope this contributes.

Reading

I’ve just finished Jean-Louis Gassée’s self-published Grateful Geek. I particularly enjoyed the book and read it in short time. Much like the Monday Notes he puts out regularly. If you’re a fan of tech, I’d recommend the book.

I’m continuing to read the Foundation series, something I’m a little ashamed to admit I didn’t read a long time ago. I’m not quite sure why, but I couldn’t get into it the first time I picked it up. I’m thoroughly enjoying it this time around, however.

I recently finished Player One by Douglas Coupland. One of my favourite authors. It didn’t disappoint.

I’ve started several other books:

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff
• Viral Justice - Ruha Benjamin
• The Alignment Problem - Brian Christian
• The New Politics of Numbers - Open access. I’ve nearly finished this one.

Of note

Roland Garros has started, and I’ll no doubt be watching some great matches over the coming weeks.

I hope to repeat this next week.

29 May 2023 — French West Indies

There’s a number which is called Dunbar’s Number. It’s around 150 or so.

It’s a significant number in that it seems to indicate that, as humans, we are incapable of having a meaningful discussion and keeping personal links with other humans if we have to do that for a group larger than this number.

Think about how many friends you have, no not Instagram acquaintances, real friends? Now think about how many of them you can keep in touch with in a meaningful way. It’s probably much less than Robin Dunbar’s suggestion.

I’ve started to see discussions about having a much more sociable social network, prompted by not just Elmo’s destruction of Twitter but the abject fatigue surrounding the use of social media that sucks you dry and intentionally disconnects you emotionally from a human being on another smartphone. Connecting more people was supposed to bring us together. Instead, it has succeeded in doing the exact opposite. For example, suggestions discuss limiting follows and followers to around 300 people or so and making them mutually agreed upon.

I don’t know the solution, and I don’t think it is Mastodon in its current guise. Still, I think it is a good starting point for people, organisations, institutions and even governments to see how they can build more community rather than more division.

Community centres and youth clubs were everywhere before. They weren’t perfect, nor do I expect Social Media to be. But I think there’s an opportunity to build something more localised and connected simultaneously. And that is what I think the value of something like Mastodon may inspire.

5 January 2023 — French West Indies

From Wired:

Unless you’ve been hiding, in a coma, or purposefully ignoring Social Media, you will have seen the explosion of the use of GPT-3 through a website called ChatGPT.

The above is a transcription of what transpired when the model was used for interactions of a health-related matter.

Quite extreme and clearly nothing a human would do —sociopaths notwithstanding.

Please read the article to get the context. It’s not that long and is quite informative about some of the risks of Large Language Models (LLMs).

3 January 2023 — French West Indies