Kyle Piira

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  • Taxis still fall short

    I was recently in Miami, and like most trips I take in the U.S., my default plan for getting around was Uber or Lyft. I almost never take taxis anymore. It’s been many years since I last relied on one. But this time, I made an exception. I had just gotten off a cruise ship…

  • Challenges in Defining True General Intelligence for AI

    I’ve been thinking about the concept of artificial general intelligence and, more broadly, what we even mean by general intelligence. There are many proposed tests meant to benchmark AI against this supposed gold standard, but I think there’s a fundamental problem with how these tests are framed. If we treat modern humans as the baseline…

  • Chicago should follow Seattle’s lead in re-connecting to it’s waterfront

    I spent the past weekend in Chicago, and really enjoyed it. I rode the L all over the city and made good use of the CTA buses, which honestly impressed me in their coverage. The trains mostly radiate outward from the Loop, so they’re not always ideal for cross-town travel, but the buses fill in…

  • I had to take an Uber to cross the street in Charlotte

    I was recently heading out to dinner with my girlfriend at a restaurant in one of Charlotte’s suburbs. Before I left, I checked the transit options and noticed there was an express bus that went straight from Uptown, near my apartment, to a stop only about half a mile from the restaurant. Perfect. The timing…

  • Rethinking Fault: Are City Planners to Blame for Car Crashes?

    We like to think of car crashes as the fault of individual drivers. Someone was distracted, drunk, careless, or reckless. But I don’t think that’s the full story. I think the real blame belongs to the people who designed the cities that make driving the only option in the first place. City planners and traffic…

  • Death by Poor Urban Planning

    Every time we hear about a tragic car crash, the story is usually framed around individual blame. Someone made a mistake, someone wasn’t paying attention, or someone was reckless. But beneath these headlines lies a harder truth. Our urban design itself creates the conditions for these deaths. Poor urban planning is not just an inconvenience…

  • NIMBY

  • Priced into the market

  • Perceived Life Percentage: Insights into Time Passing and Aging

    Have you ever noticed how, as you grow older, the years seem to pass by more quickly? Many people share this experience, and it’s not just your imagination. This phenomenon can be explained by several psychological and neurological factors, with one particularly interesting explanation known as the Proportional Theory. Understanding the Proportional Theory The Proportional…

  • The relationship between college enrollment and tuition

    I spent my evening determining a reasonable expected growth rate for future college tuition. The graph below displays the correlation between college attendance rates and tuition. While I’m not concluding causation from the data, it seems plausible that increased enrollment rates have led to higher tuition costs. With enrollment now peaking at around 100% and…