Articles tagged with courtroom

1. LLMs and intelligence analysis: tools not oracles

   Richard Heuer in the classic “Psychology of Intelligence Analysis” made these points:

   • Human minds are poorly “wired” to deal with uncertainty.
   • Simply learning about our biases doesn’t in fact improve outcomes.
   • Instead, we need tools and techniques for structuring information, challenging assumptions and exploring alternative interpretations.

   Therefore, he said, we should encourage products that “clearly delineate assumptions, chains of inference and specify degree and source of uncertainty.”

   This is a problem for AI tech! An LLM is a big ball of assumptions and uncertainty. Naive use of LLM tech will only degrade our analyses.

   If you hoped that the AI would replace human analysts by slurping up OSINT at scale and spitting out actionable analyses on demand, I’m sorry but that won’t work. We must think of AI technology as providing “tools, not oracles”.

   Instead, we can take advantage of the incredible (and rapidly improving) LLM technology to build tools. The actionable insights will always come from human analysis. The AI tools can supercharge our ability to open our minds, help us to explore possibilities and structure our knowledge to provide guide ropes for creativity.

2. The new acqui-hire

   Satya Nadella is a fearsome operator.

   	VCs	Mus	Sat	dilemmas
   Satya Nadella
   Acquire Inflection	⨉	✓	⨉	VCs T wrt Sat Mus P wrt Sat
   Hire Mustafa Suleyman to head a new division at Microsoft.	-	✓	✓c	Mus t wrt Sat
   Mustafa Suleyman
   Bring most of Inflection's 70 staff with him.	⨉	✓	✓	VCs P wrt Mus Sat T wrt Mus

   Satya Nadella 's adoption is conditional (promise) on Mustafa Suleyman bringing most of Inflection's 70 staff with him.

   Tuesday’s hiring was “basically an acquisition of Inflection without having to go through regulatory approval”, wrote Tony Wang, managing partner at venture capital firm 500 Global.

   Steven Weber, a professor and expert on technology and intellectual property at the University of California, Berkeley, noted the deal was similar to the offer Microsoft made to OpenAI employees after chief executive Sam Altman was temporarily sacked last year.

   Microsoft and Inflection have stressed that the agreement is not an acquisition and that Inflection remains an independent company. FT

3. Anatomy of a Fall

   Over the weekend, I saw the movie Anatomy of a Fall. It was fascinating to get a look at the French justice system. Common Law justice systems seem to be highly overrepresented in film. I'm not sure whether this is because the British and Americans have a particular liking for courtroom drama, or I'm just not watching the right foreign movies.

   The question at the heart of the movie was, did Sandra kill her husband? You might think this is the model:

   	Sandra
   Sandra
   Kill Samuel	?

   However, this isn't quite right, as the Option "Kill Samuel" doesn't refer to a future possibility. Rather, the drama in the film revolves around whether Sandra will be convicted for murder:

   	Sandra	Prosecutor	dilemmas
   Court
   Convict Sandra	⨉	✓	Sandra, Prosecutor

   The Court's position is of course unstated. This means that Sandra (and by extension her Defence) and the Prosector both have persuasion dilemmas with respect to the Court. They are compelled to persuade the Court to take their position.

   Much of the drama in the film comes from how powerless Sandra is to influence events. She provides compelling testimony, but so does the Prosecutor. In the end, it comes down to her son Daniel's testimony, and whether he will take her side.

   	Sandra	Prosecutor	Daniel	dilemmas
   Court
   Convict Sandra	⨉	✓	-	Sandra, Prosecutor
   Daniel
   Testify against Sandra	⨉	✓	-	Sandra, Prosecutor

   This gives Sandra and the Prosecutor persuasion dilemmas with respect to Daniel. Sandra in particular is compelled to persuade him to reject the idea of testifying against her. This is fraught, as if Daniel takes his Mother's side, then it means accepting the idea that his father took his own life. For much of the film, Daniel is clearly undecided as to whether he believes his Mother (represented by the -). The film's climax comes when Daniel makes his decision over this option. Although the film does not take a side, ultimately it seems that Daniel persuades himself of his Mother's innocence.

   Actually, when we lack an element to judge something, and the lack is unbearable, all we can do is decide. You see? To overcome doubt, sometimes we have to… decide to sway one way rather than the other. Since you need to believe one thing but have two choices, you must choose.

   	Sandra	Prosecutor	Daniel	dilemmas
   Court
   Convict Sandra	⨉	✓	⨉	Sandra, Prosecutor, Daniel
   Daniel
   Testify against Sandra	⨉	✓	⨉	Sandra, Prosecutor