The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 22 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
AI Will Exponentially Exceed Human Intelligence in Hours in New Domains
“Now imagine that computer is unleashed not in the domain of chess, but in other domains. It'll totally recreate everything we know and then go beyond it in hours. So the scary thing with AI is this, that it will become exponentially smarter than we are in minu…”
Robinson: Palo Alto Has the Highest Teenage Suicide Rate in the US
“Of all the cities in the United States, the one with the highest teenage suicide rate is Palo Alto, which is tax central, right?”
Robinson: Parental Birthplace Eliminated Racial Differences in Test Score Gains
“If your father was born in another country, and your mother was born in the United States, that student improved the same regardless of race. Race dropped out as a factor.”
Adam Robinson: Quantum Computing Will Crack Any Encryption in Minutes
“Anything that's encrypted with quantum computing, you'll be able to crack that, whatever the encryption is, in, I don't know, seconds or minutes.”
Robinson: Metal traders haven't miscalled interest rate direction this century
“In fact, in the last 18 years, this century, Metal traders haven't been wrong once about the direction of interest rates, either to the upside or the downside.”
Robinson: 80% of NYC Grade-School Test Score Variance Comes From Socioeconomics
“80% of the variation in, in, in fifth grade math and reading scores was attributable to the socioeconomics of the school, not the teachers.”
Teachers Grade Identical Essays a Quarter-Point Higher With Female Names
“The number one positive factor on on your, on the essay was a female name at the top of the paper. It was worth an extra quarter of a grade. A equals four point O, B equals three point O, C equals three point O. It was worth a quarter of a grade. It was worth …”
Robinson: Stephen Hawking Estimated a 95% Chance AI Destroys Humanity
“Stephen Hawking,
Gave mankind a one in 20 shot of surviving AI.
A one in 20 shot.
And you can do the math, that means a 19 and 20 shot, we don't survive.
AI.
That's how serious it is.”
Robinson: AlphaZero surpassed all human chess knowledge within four hours
“And in four hours, that program leapfrogged all existing human knowledge of the game, and has a chess rating of, hard to estimate, like, 36, 3700, compared with 3300.”
Adam Robinson: George Soros Senses Market Trouble Through Back Pain
“George Soros famously said that when his back is acting up, That he knows something is wrong in markets.”
Robinson: JPMorgan outperforming other banks is a slightly bearish market signal
“JP Morgan's outperforming does tell you something about those who want to look it up. It does tell you something. Sorry, it's slightly bearish, not hugely so. And when it's underperforming, it's slightly good.”
Robinson: AlphaZero defeated top chess engine without losing a single game
“This pro, this computer program played a match against the reigning software, right, 3300. It beat it 72 to 28 in a 100 game match with no losses.”
Robinson: Top mathematicians cannot understand computer-generated proofs
“Right now, there are mathematical proofs done by computers that human beings can't understand. The best mathematicians in the world don't understand those proofs, and all they can say is, we can't find a mistake in it. It's probably right, but we're not real s…”
Robinson: Doctors cannot follow IBM Watson's diagnostic reasoning
“So even now, the computer Watson, IBM's Watson, can come up with a medical diagnosis, the challenge of which is to explain the diagnosis to the doctor, because the doctor can't follow the reasoning of the neural net, and all the thing.”
Robinson: US Tech Giants Own User Data Unlike European Frameworks
“In the United States, You don't own your data. Google does, or Facebook. It's their corporate data. But in Europe, the individual owns his or her data.”
Robinson: Fischer played the same openings for 16 years before switching in the World Championship
“Fisher set up The Russians for, let me just figure this out, 10 to 20, for 1617 years, played exactly the same moves, so everyone knew exactly what he was going to do, and in the world championship, only, he did something different.”
Robinson: Medieval court jesters were institutionalized truth-tellers, not entertainers
“In in the Middle Ages, there was an institution designed by kings to provide feedback, and it was called the court jester, and the function of the court jester was not to amuse the king. The function of the court jester was far more serious than that. The cour…”
Robinson: Stuyvesant High School Average SAT Is Higher Than Harvard's
“To put this in perspective, Stuyvesant's average SAT is higher than Harvard's.”
Robinson: Spent two weeks watching Bobby Fischer prepare for Spassky match
“Yeah, I got a chance to spend time with him at the, there used to be a resort called Grossingers in the Catskills. If you saw the movie Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze back in the day, it was where they, Muhammad Ali had trained, I guess he was, I don't know…”
Robinson: Bobby Fischer progressed from good player to world elite between ages 12 and 15
“Fisher learned the game of chess at the age of six. And by the time he was 11, sorry, by the time he was 12, he was a good twelve-year-old chess player. Not a great twelve-year-old chess player. He was a good twelve-year-old player. That's six years later, rig…”
Robinson: Slovic Study Proves Extra Information Increases Overconfidence Without Improving Accuracy
“Their accuracy was still only 17% with 40 pieces of information, but their confidence almost doubled to 31%. It went from 19% to 31%. So they are now almost twice as confident as they ought to be, which is to say they're overconfident. So all the extra informa…”