Cindi Howson

GenAI can be great for business and humanity but it has its risks - are we doing enough to safeguard? Hear from @GaryMarcus on #TheDataChief podcast.

Claude Code is not AGI, but it is the single biggest advance in AI since the LLM. But the thing is, Claude Code is NOT a pure LLM. And it’s not pure deep learning. Not even close. And that changes everything. The source code leak proves it. Tucked away at its center is a 3,167 line kernel called print.ts. print.ts is a pattern matching. And pattern matching is supposed to be the *strength* of LLMs. But Anthropic figured out that if you really need to get your patterns right, you can’t trust a pure LLM. They are too probabilistic. And too erratic. Instead, the way Anthropic built that kernel is straight out of classical symbolic AI. For example, it is in large part a big IF-THEN conditional, with 486 branch points and 12 levels of nesting — all inside a deterministic, symbolic loop that the real godfathers of AI, people like John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky and Herb Simon, would have instantly recognized.* Putting things differently, Anthropic, when push came to shove, went exactly where I long said the field needed to go (and where @geoffreyhinton said we didn’t need to go): to Neurosymbolic AI. That’s right, the biggest advance since the LLM was neurosymbolic. AlphaFold, AlphaEvolve, AlphaProof, and AlphaGeometry are all neurosymbolic, too; so is Code Interpreter; when you are calling code, you are asking symbolic AI do an important part of the work. Claude Code isn’t better because of scaling. It’s better because Anthropic accepted the importance of using classical AI techniques alongside neural networks — precisely marriage I have long advocated. It’s *massive* vindication for me (go see my 2019 debate with Bengio for context, or to my 2001 book, The Algebraic Mind), but it still ain’t perfect, or even close. What we really need to do to get trustworthy AI rather than the current unpredictable “jagged” mess, is to go in the knowledge-, reasoning-, and world-model driven direction I laid out in 2020, in an article called the Next Decade in AI, in which neurosymbolic AI is just the *starting point* in a longer journey.* Read that article if you want to know what else we need to do next. The first part has already come to pass. In time, other three will, too. Meanwhile, the implications for the allocation of capital are pretty massive: smartly adding in bits of symbolic AI can do a lot more than scaling alone, and even Anthropic as now discovered (though they won’t say) scaling is no longer the essence of innovation. The paradigm has changed. — *Claude Code is plainly neurosymbolic but the code part is a mess; as Ernie Davis and I argued in Rebooting AI in 2019, we also need major advances in software engineering. But that’s a story for another day.

One small thing I can do in support of AI ethics. Claude has been my default LLM for months anyway. The events of the last 2 days just seals the deal.

This was a historic week for AI policy. President Trump gave his first major speech on AI, the White House released its AI Action Plan, and President Trump signed three important executive orders. If you missed it, here is a recap of the major themes and actions. 🧵

What it takes to be a data-driven CEO x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

The Data-Driven CEO x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

The Data Chief Live: CDAOs in Career Transition x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Thrilled to see this validation! Thank you to our customers and partners!

A key takeaway from @RobinSutara, Field CDO at @databricks, on #TheDataChief: True equity requires more than just rewarding merit. 💪 She spoke to the reality that initial disadvantages can create insurmountable obstacles. This should prompt us to reflect on what actions we can take to build a more just and equitable tech industry. 👂 For deeper insights, listen to this episode of The Data Chief podcast (hosted by @BIScorecard): t.co/excfizdF2g #podcast #Podcasters

Want to build a more inclusive data team? 👥 Listen to The Data Chief podcast (Hosted by @BIScorecard) featuring Roisin McCarthy, Founder of @Women_In_Data, and learn how to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and respected. Roisin shares her insights on the importance of diversity and inclusion in data and AI, and offers practical advice on how to build a more inclusive team. 🎧 Tune in now and start creating a more equitable and innovative data environment! bit.ly/3Xsq5v0 #thedatachief

@ArmandDoma @jocelynrache And reminder : the US government systems are absolutely archaic. Tech debt costs us a lot. It’s why they also couldn’t keep up with unemployment checks during the pandemic.

@jocelynrache bad data! it’s an old and messy database

holy shit is this true?

Just back from #AWSreInvent - only in Vegas - some fun highlights with @SnowflakeDB & @thoughtspot & @datadoghq

"There's no better time to be in this analytics industry, because we are going through a profound change. AI is the new BI and ThoughtSpot is leading the way, because we were meant for this moment." Read more from diginomica bit.ly/3YW8ADj forwrd.it/r/60ui/eyJlbCI…

gr8 validation ! forwrd.it/r/5ugG/eyJlbCI…

@DonaldTreeHive Only 5 days in but yes love working with him already!

Super stoked to have Ketan joining us! forwrd.it/r/5oZT/eyJlbCI…

Love @DHenschen point of going from Data Renaissance to Data Enlightenment ! @thoughtspot at NYC

Live at @BigData_LDN w @thoughtspot team and 20k data friends!

Congratulations @StonyBrookFB on a solid win! Still a football mama, although now cheering for coach and team vs player and team!

A blast debating all things data and AI from affordable drugs, to player analytics, & training youth on AI w @mcuban @markcubanai on The Data Chief podcast. Tune in here: tinyurl.com/2pz6rtjv