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Perspectives edition #27
I was thrilled to contribute to Thoughtworks Perspectives edition #27: Power squared: How human capabilities will supercharge AI’s business impact. There are a lot of great quotes from my colleagues Barton Friedland and Ossi Syd in the article, and here’s one from me: The ability to build or consume solutions isn’t necessarily going to be…
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Electrifying the world with AI Augmented decision-making
I wrote an article about optimising the design of EV charging networks. It’s a story of work done by a team at Thoughtworks, demonstrating the potential of AI augmented decision-making (including some cool optimisation techniques), in this rapidly evolving but durably important space. We were able to thread together these many [business problem, AI techniques,…
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A coding saga with Bard
Though but a footnote in the epic of coding with AI, I though it worth musing on my recent experience with Bard. Bard currently uses the LaMDA model, which is capable of generating code, but not optimised for it. The story might be different with Codey as protagonist (or is that antagonist?) I didn’t produce…
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Humour me – DRY vs WRY
Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) is a tenet of software engineering, but – humour me – let’s consider some reasons Why to Repeat Yourself (WRY). LEGO reuse lessons In 2021, I wrote a series of posts analysing LEGO® data about parts appearing in sets to understand what it might tell us about reuse of software components…
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Smarter Semantle Solvers
A little smarter, anyway. I didn’t expect to pick this up again, but when I occasionally run the first generation solvers online, I’m often equal parts amused and frustrated by rare words thrown up that delay the solution – from amethystine to zigging. The solvers used the first idea that worked; can we make some…
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I did it my way – hand-rolled navigation with open spatial data
Sure commercial maps app directions are great, but have you ever found the customisation options limited? What if you want to use bike paths and back streets when cycling, or avoid winding roads that might make backseat passengers car-sick on a road trip? The paved route OpenStreetMap and OpenRouteService do provide this type of functionality,…
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End-to-end simulation hello world!
I’ve talked to many people about how to maximise the utility of a simulator for business decision-making, rather than focussing on the fidelity of reproducing real phenomena. This generally means delivering a custom simulator project lean, in thin, vertical, end-to-end slices. This approach maximises putting learning into action and minimises risk carried forward. For practitioners,…
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22 rules of generative AI
Thinking about adopting, incorporating or building generative AI products? Here are some things to think about, depending on your role or roles. I assume you’re bringing your own product idea(s) based on an understanding of an opportunity or problems for customers. These rules therefore focus on the solution space. Solutions with generative AI typically involve…
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Reasoning About Machine Creativity
With the current interest in generative AI, I wanted to write a short post updating the framing I took in my older talk Reasoning About Machine Intuition (2017), which was intended for broad audiences to understand the impact and best application of AI solutions from multiple digital delivery perspectives. Bicycles and automobiles share some features…
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Summertime, and the puzzling is made easier
In between beach trips and bike rides, I whiled away more than a few summer hours on puzzles I found in the various AirBNBs we rented. Returning home, I rediscovered a sliding tile puzzle with a twist called Asteroid Escape, where embedded asteroids prevent certain tiles sliding past each other in certain configurations. With 60…