I received an invitation, as below.

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Hi everyone! This Thursday 4-5pm, we have Elliott Thornley, a visiting Research Fellow from Oxford University, speaking on the topic of “Can incomplete preferences keep artificial agents shutdownable?”

In this event, Elliot will explain the shutdown problem: the problem of ensuring that advanced artificial agents never resist shutdown. Elliot will then propose a solution: we train agents to have incomplete preferences. He will suggest a method for training such agents using reinforcement learning, and present experimental evidence in favour of the method. He will explain how work on the shutdown problem fits into a larger project called ‘constructive decision theory’: using ideas from decision theory to design and train artificial agents.

I have received gratefully. I am a nobody in the vast complicated tundra that is the marketplace of paintings. And yet I have been blessed. Let me recount some concrete details.

Special thanks to Alyson for your warm hospitality at Cuturi Gallery.

I. 8th of November, 2019

I was at Art Porters Gallery, where a photographer-artist named Lavender Chang was giving a talk. Then, Monsieur Guillaume offered a pair of tickets, free of charge, to a music recital, named “ Voices of Bernard Sabatier”.

(Bernard Sabatier is a luthier, a maker of string instruments, such as the violin and viola. His viola is unconventionally shaped, and hence is met with resistance in music academies. However the luthier believes that his own instruments make performances easier for younger musicians.)

I accepted this splendid offer, inviting a younger friend along.

The venue for this recital was a studio in the magnificent Esplanade Theatres. If I remember correctly, one of the featured compositions was Schubert's.

II. 9th of November, 2023.

Someone from Gnani Arts Gallery sent me an email, inviting me to Affordable Art Fair, for “a private viewing of new and spectacular work curated by us for this season.”

I happily accepted the complimentary ticket. The venue was Formula One Pit Building.

I got curious about how church bells work.

Thanks to my friends at a nearby cathedral, I managed to see this massive musical instrument, which can ring out a melody, over a great geographic distance.

I have put my excellent sketching skills to incredible use, as below.

Try to suppress your sense of admiration for my masterpiece.

Self-deprecating humour aside, I think of a sombre poem by John Donne (from the 16th Century.)

My friend, Jane, is over 80 years old. I first met her in 2018 and I have learnt some valuable lessons from her.

1. Don't stop learning new things. Surround yourself with people who encourage your learning adventures. Jane often bakes cakes for me to enjoy, whenever I visit her at her house. One day, she told me, “ I tried a new recipe for my cakes today, because I know you wouldn't mind. Let me know how the cake turned out. I expect you to be honest!” I was happy to be her “guinea pig”.

How would you like to die? Or, how would I like to die?

At the age of thirty-five, I like to think I am in possession of as pain-free a body as I could ever hope to have, in my brief mortal life. It is only downhill from here. Diabetes, high blood pressure, toe amputations, brittle bones that crack painfully with every accidental stumble – my elders have illustrated painfully the realities of the latter decades of fragile human flesh.

Not to mention what everyone has been whispering since Covid: this is the End-times.

Like it or not, my days are numbered. It has been so since the day my mother pushed this hunk of flesh out of her birth canal.

There is an urgency to live wisely – and not just knowledgeably. Knowledge is about facts, whereas wisdom is about knowing the difference between what matters in life, and what does not.

I have encountered a number of prompts from a certain John Izzo, (PhD). Let me attempt them, as inexperienced as I am, (as I ponder the vast yet beautiful wilderness of this star-strewn cosmic galaxy.)

Pretend you are at a dinner party, and everyone is sitting in a circle. The host invites each person to take just a few minutes to describe the life she has lived. If you were at the party and you wanted people to know as much about your life as possible in those few minutes, what would you say? Describe the life you have lived thus far.

I gave everything up to follow what God told me to do.

what I have learnt after a decade in the Food & Beverage Industry

I have worked as a bartender – more specifically, a bar-back, a manual labourer who assists the bar captain with washing glassware.

I have worked as a barista, making coffee with expensive machines, at both slow-paced and fast-paced outlets.

I have worked as a cook, preparing dishes according to a specified recipe (I must have cooked tens of plates, if not hundreds of plates, throughout my cooking career.)