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Jan 16

To the book lovers out there, what better way to start the year with some great reads?

by ccue

The books I read during the holiday, transported me to new places, and new experiences. The Worlds I See had been on my to-read list for ages, and I finally checked it off. It’s a memoir, an immigrant story, a personal journey, and an AI journey all wrapped into one. It doesn’t get better than this. The other books were serendipitous finds, with The Little Books offering delightful reads for everyone.

The worlds I see 
By Dr. Fei-Fei Li

If you search “Godmother of AI”, Google search results will list “Dr. Fei-Fei Li” at the top.

Dr.Fei-Fei Li is a through-and-through trailblazer. In the tech world, Dr. Fei-Fei Li has chased after Data, when algorithms and complex logic have been the unparalleled kings and queens in the computer kingdom. The resulting ImageNet has contributed to AlexNet and Neural Network. In the world where technology is the hype, Dr. Fei-Fei Li established the human-centered AI institute (HAI) in Stanford. 

Her research and accomplishments are numerous. Her resilience, her commitment, her passion and her value stands out more in this world where the rich and the powerful get it all.  It is touching to read about how she achieves, while caring deeply for her family, her parents, her spouse and her children, her students and the people around.

Her personal journey from China to America, New Jersey to Palo Alto will inspire you.  The world will be better, if more of us see it through her lens. 

Please add this to your to-read list. 

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish secrets to happy living
By Meik Wiking

I love these little books. The first chapter of light, about candles and lamps, is almost a bore. That is the whole point that many found all the normal things around us become a bore. 

If you can pass through the first chapter of very normal things around us, you will be rewarded with a real sense of Hyggeligt.  If you get through the last page, you don’t need to be in Denmark to discover the secrets of Happy Living.

The whole point of Hygge (contentment, comfort, coziness, and so much more) is about making the most of what we have in abundance : the everyday.

I love this little book. I am deeply grateful to the author Meik Wiking, CEOof Happiness Research Institute, Copenhagen.  The world will be a better place if more people see and enjoy the common things around them.

Hippie
By Paulo Coelho

I love his book “The Alchemist”.  This is an autobiography of the author, travelling with a newly known Dutch woman from Amsterdam to Kathmandu. It has a bit of everything in life, the spectrum of people (real characters) they met and their experiences, the personal discoveries as they journeyed together from Amsterdam to Kathmandu. Just like many things in life, when we are seeing it as it is, there is some weirdness that cannot be comprehended or making sense of it.  That weirdness stays with me long after reading the book.

The Little Book of Skin Care: Korean beauty secrets for Healthy, Glowing Skin
By Charlotte Cho

This book transforms how I think of the skin care routine from a chore to really enjoying it.  It has real good tips if you want to have a dewy look.  I recommend the book to readers of all ages.

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Sep 13

Finding Her Voice Through Artificial Intelligence

by ccue

Since last year, my day job has been about Artificial Intelligence (AI), more specifically Generative AI. I believe AI is a real deal not just for its utilities but also for its many game changing potential on human needs. I spend time sharing tips and encourage more to use the technology for their benefits. I spend a decent amount of time in an effort to democratize AI. 

The most beautiful AI interaction turns out to be in a situation when I least expect it to be.

Soon reaching its 100 years old, International Toastmaster Club has over 200,000 members in more than 14000 clubs in more than 140 countries.Toastmaster is all about communication excellence, and for 100 years and counting, Toastmasters have been expressing themselves better, practicing, and evaluating in a fun club environment, shining all around the world. Once a distinguished Toastmaster club president, I stay as an active Toastmasters, making speeches occasionally. 

A few months ago, I could not be more surprised to find a new member with speech disability joining the club. Let’s call her Lady M. Lady M makes unrecognizable squeaks, her hand movements are sporadic, her facial expressions are different, her muscle movements are obviously compromised. That constantly reminds me of the limitation and likely hardship she encounters. Her presence brings that tiny discomfort that no-one really wants to show.

Over time, Lady M has proven to be an enthusiastic member. She is very brave. She wants so much to participate, including the table topics where one gets a short prompt to deliver a one to two minute impromptu speech response. Technology has come to her aid. She can type up her thoughts in group chats instead of speaking. Yet, her chats are hard to comprehend, the sentences are grammatically incomplete, and we cannot make sense of the words. Needless to say, most, in the club, have felt uneasy because of our limitations to interpret meaningfully what she has shared.  We have been candid to share that we do not understand. She is not deterred and has kept participating to my utmost admiration. 

Something happened in one recent meeting. In that meeting, I hosted the table topics. I called out a few club guests, gave them prompts, for them to deliver an impromptu speech.  I was about to conclude, when I got a glimpse, on the zoom window, that lady M was waving vigorously to get attention and to participate. I ended up posting the prompt in group chat for her to post a response. The reply was equally incomprehensible. AI has come to our aid this time. The president came up with the idea to use AI.  Rather than reading out the group chat of Lady M word by word, the president copied and pasted to the AI ChatGPT, and asked AI to help us to comprehend.  Afterwards he read out the AI-enhanced impromptu response.  How well has AI interpreted lady M? Judging by the reaction of lady M, it came across that, AI has read her mind better than any human toastmasters attending at the time. I have not seen lady M happier. That expression of feeling heard and feeling understood made a beautiful face.

Maybe we are bound by our learned grammar, words and languages. AI has gifted us this ability to better understand each other without that boundaries.  

A week after, at the Club, lady M was there again. This time, she shared that her father just passed away. In times of life’s most difficult moments, we hope her participation with the help of technology has brought her comfort and courage. We found her voice through Artificial Intelligence. 

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Dec 10

Transitions: “the” vs “one of the”

by ccue

Particularly in technology, “the” new kid on the block is to be admired and loved. We like knowing about the new kid so do the media like reporting them for the audience. OpenAI is arguably “the” technology story of this year. The recent ousting and reinstating of its CEO Sam Altman in OpenAI has added to the storyline. Just before Thanksgiving, there came a failed coup in the boardroom. We are fortunate to live in these modern days where no-one dies in the process in a coup. Being THE new kid, there has been more forgiveness and relatively few punish the company as a result of the coup. 

We unconsciously ask for more from the other players such as Google or Amazon or many others “once-the”. These other players now belong to the “one of the” club. Last week Google announced its latest, if not its greatest, multimodal AI: Gemini. Surprisingly, the magical six-minute demo  “Hands on with Demo : interacting with multi-modal AI” has attracted quite a bit of criticism. It was a concern that the demo is not a real-time demo of how the actual multimodal AI product behaves (yet). Rather tweaks here and there to help the narration and to show what is possible with the technology. When was the last marketing demo not piecing things together to make a more impressive narrative? 

Transition happens when one changes from “the” to “one of the”, or from “one of the” to “the”.  

I particularly worry about potential transitions of the US being “the” superpower to the possibility of “one of the”. Will there be more “wars” to resist “the” to “one of the”?

I particularly feel these transitions as the years go by : transition from being “the” most important person to the children to “one of the”; transition from “the” youngest in a group to “one of the”; transition from “one of the” oldest to “the” oldest in a group.

Mastering these transitions makes life good. Mastering these transitions among the geopolitics make the world more peaceful.  

In this book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, the characters need to face with many many transitions.

Set in the backdrop of the computer game industry from the 90s, the novel weaves in the novel of three co-founders creatively designing, coding and producing computer games. Not only do they creatively produce unique games for the gamers, they find themselves needing to creatively live through the different lowlights, and highlights along the way. There is always a new life after the “game over ”, as long as you keep playing.

You’ll enjoy the read of this beautiful story about growing up, love and friendship, whether you play or create computer games.

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