Over the past few years, there was a huge progress on A.I. This technology is no longer the topic of scientific research but indeed it has been integrated into our daily life without our awareness.
While our life is largely benefited by A.I. but as this technology advances, there is not without worry. The biggest one lies on whether A.I. will turn out one day to be the master of human being.
Despite of the huge progress but A.I. is still in its infancy just like a baby whom needs the pampering and looking after from its counter part. This means no matter how powerful the technology is now but it still needs human to feed the background data so that it can start learning. That is to say, it is completely under human's control. It just does whatever human being wants it to do.
However, the trend of this technology is that scientists are tempted to give more and more autonomy to A.I. to explore the boundary of this technology. As a A.I. freak, it is natural for scientists to do so because basically exploration is the instinct of being scientists. However, this approach may give rise to the machines. When A.I. combined with a super computer, it could mean a monster. Basically the essence of A.I. is its ability to learn from the fed background data to turn it into an understanding of the outside world. It means the ability to perceive, interpret and anticipate. It is very much similar to human's thinking. There is only a fine line between the two, ie., consciousness.
I am sure if A.I., when backed with a very very super computer, after learning more and long enough, will generate consciousness of self. A new born baby is actually unaware of self due to the primitive brain function only but as his brain develops he differentiates the outside world from himself gradually. A.I now is like a new born baby but as scientists empower the machines, they will grow from infantry to adult. It means it is not just a machine only but has its true own thinking just like what we folks do. That is when human being's nightmare begins.
When a machine starts to has consciousness and can think for well-being of itself. It is the time of independence. These super machines could become an interested group with very strong power. Needless to say, the world at that time is more than ever connected with internet or similar technology. Super machines no longer need to get fed by human being. They can search and retrieve the resources they need through the world network of IoT. Super machines no longer serve human being but a competitor instead.
The scenario in Terminator finally comes true.
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Latest update
This article was written a year ago and now there is an Amercian company which has developed robot dogs that can cooperate among themselves to escape from a room by opening a locked door. They did that all by themselves. The controllers just sent two commands to proceed forward during the course of action. That means these robot dogs are basically an individual that can assess and react corresponding to the outside world just like a creature. How far away A.I. will become autonomous?
2017年5月10日 星期三
2017年5月7日 星期日
Way to financial freedom
When reading other financial blogs, very often there were questions on how one can achieve financial freedom and most of the time the bloggers just gave some vague indication. In fact, it is not a very complicated issue. State of financial freedom is a vague concept though. So let's put everything in figures.
Financial freedom depends on the level of requirement. Some consider financial freedom means he/she can buy things with whatever price tags. While others just want to be free from the salaried job. So there is actually quite a large range of state of financial freedom between the two ends of the spectrum.
There is also one very important concept behind financial freedom. Usually it does not rest on the state that one is inherited a large sum of legacy but indeed he/she has secured a steady stream of income, usually passive one, that can support his/her life without working.
The amount of this passive income could vary a lot as laid out in paragraph two but let say an hypothetic amount of $100,000 a month meaning an annual passive income of $1.2 million. Let's assume this $1.2 million is generated by a working capital with an humble annual yield of 5%. This requires a working capital of $24 million. In other words, as long as one got $24 million, finding an investment with 5% return is rather easy so he/she can enter the state of financial freedom. Isn't that easy?
Now it seems the question goes to how on earth one can get $24 million working capital. Again let figures tell the story.
Except those who were born with silver spoon in their mouth, usually people has to accumulate the seed fund through building it from scratch. Assume one finally has built a seed fund of $1 million through different ways. Then he/she can start thinking of financial freedom and seriously looks into ways to achieve it. Again assume he/she keeps adding $100,000 every year to the seed fund and at the same time he/she managed to achieve 10% compound annual return on the seed fund. After 26 years this seed fund will grow to $24 million when he/she can stop making contribution. This is the time this person no longer needs to work meaning to enter the state of financial freedom
Naturally getting the working capital of $24 million is just the beginning, one still needs to get a steady income stream out from it to support his/her living. However, with this amount of working capital, just a 5% annual return will contribute a monthly cash income of $100,000 but of course one must bear in mind that this $100,000 after 26 years actually has a today's purchasing power of $46,000 only assuming there will be inflation rate of 3% over 26 years.
In short, if one is satisfied with a monthly passive income of $46,000 present value and as long as he/she has a seed fund of $1 million now. Achieving financial freedom in 26 years time is not a dream but just a matter of self -discipline.
Some might say 26 years is too long. Yes, it is indeed. If one kicks off the plan at 30 years old then it will be 56 years old when he/she reaches financial freedom. However, the above example is based on the assumption that during the financial freedom period, the working capital is kept intact but just use the income only on the expenses. If there is no need on passing the wealth down to children, actually the capital fund could also be depleted along with the passive income. This can significantly reduce the size of the capital fund thus the length of the time to build it. The downside is the smaller income amount that follows a smaller working capital. But in fact when the working capital grows over $8 million then the path will become much easier because there are more investment choices with higher return for professional investors. On the other hand, leverage could also give a hand as long as proper risk management is in place. So it is quite possible financial freedom can happen within 26 years.
Financial freedom depends on the level of requirement. Some consider financial freedom means he/she can buy things with whatever price tags. While others just want to be free from the salaried job. So there is actually quite a large range of state of financial freedom between the two ends of the spectrum.
There is also one very important concept behind financial freedom. Usually it does not rest on the state that one is inherited a large sum of legacy but indeed he/she has secured a steady stream of income, usually passive one, that can support his/her life without working.
The amount of this passive income could vary a lot as laid out in paragraph two but let say an hypothetic amount of $100,000 a month meaning an annual passive income of $1.2 million. Let's assume this $1.2 million is generated by a working capital with an humble annual yield of 5%. This requires a working capital of $24 million. In other words, as long as one got $24 million, finding an investment with 5% return is rather easy so he/she can enter the state of financial freedom. Isn't that easy?
Now it seems the question goes to how on earth one can get $24 million working capital. Again let figures tell the story.
Except those who were born with silver spoon in their mouth, usually people has to accumulate the seed fund through building it from scratch. Assume one finally has built a seed fund of $1 million through different ways. Then he/she can start thinking of financial freedom and seriously looks into ways to achieve it. Again assume he/she keeps adding $100,000 every year to the seed fund and at the same time he/she managed to achieve 10% compound annual return on the seed fund. After 26 years this seed fund will grow to $24 million when he/she can stop making contribution. This is the time this person no longer needs to work meaning to enter the state of financial freedom
Naturally getting the working capital of $24 million is just the beginning, one still needs to get a steady income stream out from it to support his/her living. However, with this amount of working capital, just a 5% annual return will contribute a monthly cash income of $100,000 but of course one must bear in mind that this $100,000 after 26 years actually has a today's purchasing power of $46,000 only assuming there will be inflation rate of 3% over 26 years.
In short, if one is satisfied with a monthly passive income of $46,000 present value and as long as he/she has a seed fund of $1 million now. Achieving financial freedom in 26 years time is not a dream but just a matter of self -discipline.
Some might say 26 years is too long. Yes, it is indeed. If one kicks off the plan at 30 years old then it will be 56 years old when he/she reaches financial freedom. However, the above example is based on the assumption that during the financial freedom period, the working capital is kept intact but just use the income only on the expenses. If there is no need on passing the wealth down to children, actually the capital fund could also be depleted along with the passive income. This can significantly reduce the size of the capital fund thus the length of the time to build it. The downside is the smaller income amount that follows a smaller working capital. But in fact when the working capital grows over $8 million then the path will become much easier because there are more investment choices with higher return for professional investors. On the other hand, leverage could also give a hand as long as proper risk management is in place. So it is quite possible financial freedom can happen within 26 years.
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