On the Edge #26
Talking to VCs and raising capital for startups is always challenging, and with our team’s location, we’re looking to find a better way. Eventually, we’ll either find that way or not, but it seems silly to have these types of problems in 2023. So here’s an opportunity for another startup to solve the problem of talents from US-sanctioned countries.
Portfolio sharing was released last week for beta users, and it will be available to all this week:
We started more research on model universality and advanced time series analysis in financial markets. I hope we bring back good news in a couple of months. link and link. (You can join the research if you’re interested. Please leave a comment on this post.)
Controversies around Bing AI (link) are negligible in the long run. Just imagine how powerful it can be for consultancy firms.
2023 is getting started for making videos with AI. link
I took a look at some of my speculations a year ago, Feb 19th, 2022 (OtE #15) :
I predict DeepMind will revolutionize biology and its branches in coming years.
and
I'm seeing OpenAI are on a path where they're doing ground-breaking work. Still, I don't think it's toward AGI but rather specific business ideas, which is not bad.
In July, we saw the entire known protein structures predicted by DeepMind link, and in late November, we saw ChatGPT. So for the coming months in 2023, I think the most probable advancements will be more scalable models based on data-set scaling vs. parameter scaling (order of magnitude larger than Chinchilla) and a large multimodal reinforcement learning model from DeepMind (an order of magnitude larger than Gato.)
George Soros' Theory of Reflexivity link: In Eveince, we only use the price data in our modeling, and there’s a strong line of criticism that we’re missing fundamental parameters. We don’t neglect fundamental data and consider it an alternative source of information; many quant firms also analyze fundamentals. But the Theory of Reflexivity, by George Soros, models the other way and states that fundamental data feeds from price data.
Even if a home is temporary, it can be beautiful.
Ever since our revolution in Iran, I’ve started reading more about the patterns and dynamics of discrimination against women through time and in different countries (mainly Turkey and Indonesia). We discussed some samples from ancient Egypt and the scientific community in OtE #18 and OtE #23. Here I wanted to bring another example to your attention.
This is a picture of Marie Curie in 1904, in her lab, with Henri Becquerel (left) and Pierre Curie, her husband (right). This picture is after winning her first Nobel prize in physics. The Nobel committee initially intended only to nominate Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel. Still, a member and advocate for women scientists, Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler, told Pierre about the committee decision, and after his complaint, Marie's name was added to the nomination.
This is an illustration in a magazine (by André Castaigne) that recreates the same photo for an article about the discovery. What do you think about this illustration compared to the original photo in the lab?
Let’s look at another magazine illustration. This is another photo same year, Marie Curie in her lab with her husband:
But when a local newspaper reports the discovery, they recreate the photo like this:
And when it reaches Vanity Fair, Dec 22nd, 1904, it turns into this:
There’s an obvious intention behind these changes between photos and illustrations.
The public at that time was not ready to see a woman in front of a major scientific discovery. When Marie Curie won the second Nobel prize in 1911 in chemistry, her contributions became clearer for everyone. Today, we don’t hear Henri Becquerel and Pierre Curie. For us, the story is like this now:
These small (or big) changes in reporting a discovery come from narrow-mindedness. These are the type of issues we’re solving in our society, Iran. It’s not only hijab. It’s a mindset that ultimately is rooted in a false belief that women, by nature, cannot have a meaningful impact on their society. For example, by Iranian law, a woman can never become the country's leader.
Small tribute to Woman, Life, Freedom
First time I saw Woman, Life, Freedom, I put it in my bio. I love to continue promoting every impact women make and give it extra points, hoping we will remove this false bias together. I learn a lot from people and feel so lucky to live these days, witness it all and being a part of it.
What we, in Eveince, do for life is to put some heart into the most heartless field: financial markets. As an entrepreneur, I might fail, but it doesn’t stop me from starting because, like we need experts, we also need explorers to create something.
And in On the Edge, I always share music because I feel free when I listen to music—freedom from extremes, harsh things, and tensions. I see Woman, Life, Freedom, I read Love, Love, Love.
Playlists
(exploring jazz, I listened more to Charlie Parker on Youtube, here’s Spotify profile)