Cassie Kozyrkov

is a unique human being in the world of AI. A "recovering statistician", she wonders who decides that something should be measured, worth applying statistics to, that something matters. That applies to the mundane (for example, computing p values with arbitrarily defined hypotheses-where do hypotheses come from?) to the existential (who has the power to define trust, intelligence or safety).

One of her fellow South Africans claims that empathy is the main weakness of Western civilization. I would venture to say that she disagrees.