Honshu and Okinawa

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I am back. I spent 10 days in Japan, 5 days for work on the main island of Honshu and 5 days of solo adventure in Okinawa. Travel is so invigorating dispite the uncomfortableness. Jetlag, anxiety, crowds, and other discomforts aside, it is mind-expanding and rewarding. Work went well. I flew a new airline (Skymark) from Tokyo to Naha. I am always wary of strange discount airlines and all the traps they set. However, I had a great expereince with "Sky". I was actually shocked. Super easy checkin at the airport, no extra fees even with extra luggage. The primary mission in Okinawa was to visit the Peace Park and the suicide cliffs of Okinawa. From what I understand, at the end of WW2 the inhabitants were encouraged to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans and get tortured and eaten. Besides other types of suicide, they jumped off the cliffs at the Southern end of the main island. If you have seen the original color footage taken at the time, I am sure you ...
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We can do better than meeting spec

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2018/04/we-can-do-better-than-meeting-spec.html

Well, that's over. Google AI now sounds indistinguishable from a human. And it'll only get more nuanced and more flexible.

It can read aloud better than you can.

Which means that anything that's ever been written can be perfectly read to you. Which means that anything a computer figures out or computes can be delivered to you with audio quality that meets spec.

That's what AI keeps doing... things we said were impossible.

Most of us shrugged when computers could drill holes or assemble machines with more accuracy and speed than a person can.

And we avoided the topic when we discovered that computers could read x-rays with great skill as well.

But now, it ought to make you shudder to discover that something as basic as speech is now better than the typical human's. Any speed, fully customized, in clear tones with great pronunciation.

Once it's done a little, it will quickly become commonplace.

And as we all know, when you do something that's commonplace, it's not worth that much.

The goal can't be quality, not for people anyway. It needs to be humanity. The rough edges of caring, of improv and of connection.

If all you can do is meet spec, better be sure you can do that faster and cheaper than an AI can.


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Honshu and Okinawa

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I am back. I spent 10 days in Japan, 5 days for work on the main island of Honshu and 5 days of solo adventure in Okinawa. Travel is so invigorating dispite the uncomfortableness. Jetlag, anxiety, crowds, and other discomforts aside, it is mind-expanding and rewarding. Work went well. I flew a new airline (Skymark) from Tokyo to Naha. I am always wary of strange discount airlines and all the traps they set. However, I had a great expereince with "Sky". I was actually shocked. Super easy checkin at the airport, no extra fees even with extra luggage. The primary mission in Okinawa was to visit the Peace Park and the suicide cliffs of Okinawa. From what I understand, at the end of WW2 the inhabitants were encouraged to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans and get tortured and eaten. Besides other types of suicide, they jumped off the cliffs at the Southern end of the main island. If you have seen the original color footage taken at the time, I am sure you ...
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