Jul

13

The Turing Test, originally introduced by British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," is a proposal for evaluating whether a machine can exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human.

This is more relevant today than ever. Applied to the market some moves appear very machine like. Other moves not so much. A large proportion if trades now are computer generated. Maekt making must all be computer managed. Humans still can game the machines as their rules are fixed.

Peter Ringel writes:

The Turing Test is fuzzy. Useful, but not precise. The underlying question is: Is AI conscious? My answer is: NO! but it is a freakishly good imposter.

It is also domain specific. In my opinion, in the general domain, AI broke the Turing Test in 2024. Humans can't distinguish anymore responses from robots to humans in the general domain. In specific domains it is different. The low to mid level is broken, the mid to high is not. OTOH, recently we had news that open AI proofed some longstanding Math hypothesis (I lack the knowledge to judge). And we all know about Google's AlphaFold. Both domain specific. High End.

Market making was algo based before AI. I indeed, try to game this with my human discretion. (At least in the sort-term part of my trading. It is not relevant for longer TF.) AI definitely facilitates research. This makes markets more efficient and faster efficient. I think we are seeing this currently.

Creativity is not broken. I hope, as of now.

Oliver Joseph writes:

A conversation that I find endlessly fascinating. In my opinion the current technology stack with regards to LLMs and machine learning tools in general is an absolute game changer. The barriers of entry associated with software seem to have been lowered significantly, however to use another tech analogy the "last mile" still remains elusive. By that I mean that the LLM really needs help to get certain complex problems over the finish line. That said, what we are dealing with is essentially a cliche generator. Humans tend to anthropomorphize, and personally I have found myself pondering the meaning of consciousness as I use the latest generation of LLM's ( I don't think we are dealing with consciousness here). Rich Suttons essay "The Bitter Lesson" from 2019 concludes with the idea that we want "AI agents that can discover like we can not which contain what we have discovered" arguing that by using experts to build in their knowledge it makes it harder to even see how the discovering process happens in the first place. He emphasizes a focus on what he calls scaleable general purpose methods primarily search and learning. It is interesting to me as I work with locally run models to see what output the <| think |> control token actually generates. I have one of those old IBM notepads that says think on it, however I must say I am prodded to think myself as I see this machine chugging through the art of thinking clearly with such mechanical precision (now we're in Dobelli of the beast). In conclusion I agree with the above sentiment that creativity is not broken but rather like where T.S. Eliot was wrestling with the concept of historical sense in his art; we now find ourselves with a large portion of human knowledge existing simultaneously in one place frozen in time, embalmed and pacified. It is up to us to be creative and let the tool inform our creative throughput.

On another tangent when I produce and or record music my workflow (and output) is changed by the tools I use. Ableton on a Macbook with VSTs gives me a different feeling and results than using an Atari 1040st and an Akai S950. I get the same feeling as I use LLM's for certain tasks.

Zubin Al Genubi adds:

I find AI helpful but AI doesn't quite get the joke. Kind of like a super-smart nerdy guy.

Nils Poertner comments:

From a spec point of view, there are tremendous opportunities where human creativity is always finding something which LLMs not seeing…as they have built mirrors in a mirror rooms and confusing this room with reality (but reality remains mysterious, indescribable and so on…and fuzzy logic or jain logic is already a slight improvement to our "either-or" logic that is so prevalent in our times).

Peter Ringel responds:

Yes, the tools we use define culture. Music culture, trading culture - binned per generation. AI is a tool (as of now).

If I close my eyes, I still can hear the metronome signal of Cubase through a crappy 1040 sound speaker ( or was it the monitor ?): "meeeep, mup mup mup" for a four to the floor. Cubase and similar tools made it easy to create a typical track structure. Probably long and repetitive. This defined the 90 and 2000 pop music. Before that - with some overlap - Sound-tracker. The UK in the 90 is unthinkable without it. Way more interesting. Then Fruity loops and similar. More questionable structure. Then Ableton. It freed the structure again, the creativity. I don't know, what the kids prefer now.

Nils Poertner responds:

Yes, very good. Real speculators are incredibly good in finding opportunities in mkts (and not just go with the latest fashion and think that's it). For older specs it will be "how to keep and possibly improve health" and for younger ones, I suppose it is how to turn their frustration/ anger into creativity and learn the game.

Oliver Joseph writes:

I love that Peter. Yes, Cubase was and is a fantastic tool precisely because of its constraints.

LLM’s being another cool new tool it is worthwhile to make an attempt to understand its uses and constraints. As a very simple thought experiment I asked three different models de jour to generate a random number between 0 and 500. I ran 500 iterations of the prompt per model. The “think” tokens generated reasoning from the models that stated basically “I’ll just pick a number that sounds random”. The “think” token of course being obscured from the end user. Going through such gesticulations is completely unnecessary other than I think that conceptually it's important to understand that here we ask for an output (the random number) and what we actually get is a number within the bounds of the below graph. Importantly we run the risk of thinking it's what we actually asked for. Surprise! It's not. Everyone on the spec list knows the right tool for the above job is a HRNG or TRNG or who knows what all else; lava lamps and wristwatches.

To my mind it is one of those inexplicably beautiful facts of history that Wall Street was thus named for a wall that separated traders and speculators from livestock. In the car business we have a large vocabulary derived mostly from farming and the cattle business. One thing that we would commonly do is go out and “put hands on” our “stock” go physically touch and look at the car. Statements are a representation of inventory I am supposed to have and obviously they have their use.

In summary as has been the case for the last 6000 years of recorded human history the farmer has asked the farmhand “where is the cow?” and the farmhand sometimes just said “over by the watering hole.” even though he actually had no clue. We equate the representation of the thing and the thing in and of itself at our peril. As speculators we should endeavor to identify the places in our experience where an incorrect representation is believed in more so than the thing in and of itself. I believe it pays to every now and again to hop the liminal.

Jun

12

Dwarkesh Goes Inside Jane Street's Latest AI Data Center (video)

Twenty years ago, our "cluster" was just 6 Dells stacked on the floor of our office. Today, come tour our new Texas datacenter: 4,032 GPUs, liquid cooled.

Asindu Drileba writes:

Their hiring is surprisingly very meritocratic, if you can solve any of their monthly puzzles, they will unconditionally grant you an interview & likely a job offer.

For the current offer: Jane Street: Puzzles

And an archive of previous puzzles (with solutions).

Oliver Joseph comments:

For those who are computer science oriented their podcast signals and threads is lots of fun I recommend it. In particular they interview Daniel Pontecorvo on their facilities in general. Some of the solutions they have come up are very interesting and reminded me of some solutions we used in the music world. For example they use a raised platform to run air, data and electricity to workstations on casters so they can move workstations often. This is how we would rig up outdoor tours. Racks and amps on casters and modular raised stages were safer and faster to set up.

Of course I always enjoy time in server rooms. While I’ve never had the pleasure of working on one quite like the one you have linked. “Started with six dells on the floor” It’s a great lesson never despise small beginnings.

May

14

The Chair has emphasized the value of studying and understanding deception endlessly, I believe.

Now, if I wish to focus and devote my energies to be thoroughly studious about it, I urge my requests below are not misunderstood as a lazy desire, but an earnest and keen wish to be methodical about it.

What would the Spec-list citizens recommend as the ideal list of:
a) Movies to watch,
b) Books to read.

One thing that hit me suddenly some weeks ago is that nature devised deception as a tool to economize the struggle for propagation of this world and its entities into the future. Without deception a Tiger would run endlessly, perhaps consuming more calories in capturing its prey, than it would get in eating the prey, as one example.

What are the other utilities the matured, experienced minds on this competent list and other curious minds as me feel that deception provides?

Another layer of study that makes me curious is, when our own mind as defined by Edward De Bono, as a self organizing pattern seeking system is the personal deception machinery that takes us into deviant behaviour from data, stats on the table and rigorous study then how does the autonomous deception inflicted by our mind engage with the deceptions inflicted upon this world by the high and mighty? Are the mighty studying how the hoi pollois is living in self deceiving modes and then playing it?

What more rigorous questions will the list members be happy to throw at someone who is now hungry to study deception, in depth? Please provide your questions too for me to compile into a list of questions to ponder over, gather information and insights on.

William Huggins writes:

it would seem the heart of the matter is one's ability to "hack" the target's heuristics. concealment/distraction plays an important role in this. the obvious benefit of deception being a misallocation (from the allocator's pov) of energy that can be exploited by the deceptive.

Nils Poertner comments:

What traders do in their free time and are already good at is of interest to me. (eg. someone reading crime novels, can find patterns here, another one practises Judo, finds patterns of deception there, and then you can go from there. Work with what you have already)

Big Al offers:

An interesting story with possibly multiple levels of deception:

Rosenhan Experiment

The Rosenhan experiment or Thud experiment was a disputed study regarding the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. For the experiment, participants submitted themselves for evaluation at various psychiatric institutions and feigned hallucinations in order to be accepted, but acted normally from then onward. Each was diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and given antipsychotic medication. The study was arranged by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 with the title On Being Sane In Insane Places.

Asindu Drileba adds:

When it comes to movies, my favorite movie to do with deception is The Conversation (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola. As for books, on my "yet to read" list I have The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova. You see, "conman" comes from the phrase "confidence man".

I have studied several scammers like SBF, Madoff, Enron executives. What I have noticed is that deception never looks like "deception" it often looks like opportunity. The "confidence man" entrapped their victims by having "good visuals", dressing well & moving amongst those in high circles.

SBF was branded as a type of prodigy, Madoff was the chairman of Nasdaq, Enron guys where The Smartest Guys In The Room (you should watch this one, just for the fantastic music playlist), Jeffrey Epstein displayed the all patterns. Take away? Beware of bombastic talk, especially one that boosts your confidence in an investment.

Rich Bubb writes:

Not exactly a movie-to-watch, a former co-worker recommended I watch "Lie To Me" series. I'd be interested to see if anyone has trained and AI system to visually detect micro-expressions. The thought is that if somebody/-ies is the 'prey', maybe AI could detect deceptive interactions better than me. I have tried to teach myself to recognize micro-expressions. It's nice to know when I'm being lied to.

Oliver Joseph writes:

I'm a big fan of Joe Navarro's work. "What Every Body is Saying" is classic. There is a certain amount of gamesmanship in deception and its detection which he elegantly describes. Of course there are certain "strong signs" like pupil dilation that are impossible for normal human beings to conceal. Sussing out the meaning and separating the signal from the noise is part of the game, a problem everyone on the spec list is used to dealing with I'm sure. I myself as a former car dealer am quite unfamiliar with deception and its detection and so eagerly await further recommendations.

Mar

22

The moment specs apply their approach (test ideas, challenge group beliefs, count, be curious etc etc) to other disciplines - eg medicine, botanics, anything really.

One can easily see that one has learned "cliche-thinking" in university/school. And that most normies never leave that cliche thinking. That is fine with me. Gell-Mann effect is real as well. Good to keep it tight and focus on markets though.

Oliver Joseph writes:

To challenge established thinking in any human endeavor whether hard or soft sciences will in my mind invariably produce push back, most of the time. While perhaps a bit hyped right now the K-means algorithm offers in my mind an interesting way to conceptualize group think. In a simplified market context x1= Bull x2= Bear K=2 Bull vs Bear When a local minimum is reached for a cluster often time depending on the data set it makes sense and is workable however there are times where you must reinitialize based on your understanding of the dataset and the results your getting. If we are driving towards a conclusion in a field of endeavor we will reach a local minimum for a variety of reasons. Sometimes what works just works of course conversely sometimes we will converge to a local minimum that does not match our understanding of the dataset. Until we converge we don’t know. Darwin's theory of natural selection represents one such conceptual reinitialization in my mind (with the unfortunate delay in the theories convergence due to many years spent looking at barnacles). There is profound wisdom in the comment by George Soros “buy the lie”. An understanding that the prevailing conclusion is wrong but due to various frictions that exist in the conclusion generator the music will keep playing. Of course until the risks involved in staying with the group's conclusion exceed those of breaking off from convention. The higher the stakes the more pushback from the conventional crowd. Or perhaps Gustave Le Bon:

For it must not be supposed that merely because the justness of an idea has been proved it can be productive of effective action even on cultivated minds. This fact may be quickly appreciated by noting how slight is the influence of the clearest demonstration on the majority of men.

I often ask myself, what barnacles am I staring at?

Mar

15

Keith Jarrett – The Köln Concert [Full Album 1975]

Keith Jarrett - quite an unusual artist, music almost from another planet. He believed ppl who like music often listen to it in the car But ppl who understand - don't!

Big Al adds:

Famous story:

The Köln Concert

TLDR: They got the wrong piano and it had many flaws. Jarrett was exhausted when he arrived and at first refused to play that piano, but the 18-year-old girl who was the organizer convinced him to go ahead. He was forced to improvise within the constraints of the crappy instrument. The recording of the concert went on to become one of the best selling jazz albums of all time and consistently makes "best albums ever" lists.

Adam Grimes writes:

Keith Jarrett is on my top 3 list of living pianists. (Which might be surprising when you find who the others are.)

I've always respected his technique, melodic sense, but more than anything his sense of time is literally impeccable. Also worth noting that he suffered a stroke and the world has lost this voice. A few links off the beaten path. (I'd encourage you to listen to the Blue Note recordings and also of course the famous Köln concert.) But here are two you might not encounter.

I think this will go on record as one of the greatest artistic utterances mankid ever produced. (If posterity cares, that is):

Keith Jarrett Solo Concert

and, melodic sense, and time… wow:

Keith Jarrett - Old Man River (Live from Antibes) - Transcription

Nils Poertner responds:

Terrific, Adam. Whether Musician or Speculator: We got an "Intuitive Mind" which has something vital to say. But it can't come to our "Thinking Mind" as the latter is constantly chatting…this music reminds me / relaxes me.

Oliver Joseph comments:

Keith Jarrett is a great artist and a huge inspiration. A wonderful counterpoint to the above story of the busted baby Bösendorfer at the Köln concert is the album Staircase. Jarrett had gone to record a track at Davout Studio in Paris and really liked the Piano and stuck around and recorded the album with the extra studio time they had. In particular the track Staircase part 3 is just amazing to me. It is a very beautiful and simple piece.

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