A thousand years ago it was unthinkable we could circumnavigate the globe.
We don’t understand quantum mechanics and we don’t understand gravity. There’s no reason to assume that we won’t find ways to travel the universe, e.g. by manipulating space time. We just don’t know what we don’t know.
If you had to bet based on past achievements, humanity will find a way. Our job is to push the limits as much as we can and build a foundation for future generations.
I think there’s something to be said for keeping up in the LLM space even if you don’t think it’s the path to AGI.
Skills may transfer to other research areas, lessons may be learnt, closing the feedback loop with usage provides more data and opportunities for learning. It also creates a culture where bullshit isn’t possible, as the thing has to actually work. Academic research often ends up serving no one but the researchers, because there is little or no incentive to produce real knowledge.
How do you know Mark isn’t smart? He’s built a hugely successful business. I don’t like his business, I think it has been disastrous for humanity, but that doesn’t make him stupid.
Would AGI actually be better than just giving all these dollars to various rote and boring sciences?
Bioscience is the next real revolution IMO. Figuring out our bodies as systems and how to program them will lead to a change bigger than information technology.
But what we need for that is not AGI. Bioscience suffers from a total lack of data. We only mapped the human genome a couple decades ago, and that's overselling it. We are currently in the process of slowly mapping out many proteins and receptors and interactions in the body.
We finally have the tooling to do that. We finally have the understanding to do that. What is limiting us right now is mostly the amount of graduate students being paid to laboriously analyze those proteins and what they interact with and other data points.
Once we have enough of that data, we can approach big ideas and other extremely beneficial models.
Right now we are in the calm before the storm. We are mid-1800s physics, just collecting the data necessary to discover and quantify models of electromagnetic energy and fields, the modeling of which is what directly lead to the information and then computer revolution. Most advancements of the 20th century were about utilizing those models to master the electromagnetic field. Similar data was how we figured out the nuclear forces.
We should be funding the mapping of the human biological system. We should be gathering the data required interact with our bodies.
No amount of "self improving superintelligent AGI" can actually overcome the whole "There's no data" problem. If we had a magical AGI in 1750, it would not have been able to produce Maxwell's equations.
Many people believe a company exists only to make profit for its shareholders, and that no matter the amount it should continue to maximise profits at the expense of all else.
The impression is that you must know nothing about the merits and this is all you have - name-calling, swearing, condescension. But most of that is unnecessary and definitely inappropriate to HN: What makes you think you can treat people this way? Because they have economic ideas you don't like - and, it seems, don't understand?
I don’t think I insulted anyone, I said neoliberal ideas are bullshit. Because they’re demonstrably so. In the UK, Thatcherism resulted in terrible decision after terrible decision, and we must all live with the consequences.
Of all the current nuclear weapons delivery systems, Trident is probably the most reliable. Minuteman might be up there due to being a very very mature system, but I would take Trident in a heart beat.
That's also my thinking that nullifies a lot of the discussion here. Like why would anyone start a naval beef with the UK, given the UK's nuclear submarine fleet?
It's not about starting a direct conflict, it's that blockading it can be done at a distance rather easily.
If ships can't get to the UK, or the foreign shipyards reduced to rubble - or outbid - then it's more effective and cost efficient then any direct kinetic action.
No, it's not nearly enough. The exact number of weapons onboard is largely irrelevant. At any given time only about one third of a nation's attack submarines can be out on active patrol while the others are in transit, undergoing maintenance, or working up. During a crisis they can maybe surge two thirds of the force for a few months but that isn't sustainable. Each submarine can only be in one place at a time and they're likely to take some losses against a competent adversary.
That's so naive. Those robot submarines will be useful for local defense but they lack the range, speed, and staying power to project power and protect sea lines of communication over thousands of miles on a sustained basis. The notion of doing that with robots remains firmly in the realm of science fiction today. Maybe in 30 years.
And my point is it's not about a physical blockade.
If you buy your ships from half way around the world, then the shipyards can be destroyed before you get anywhere near them. And certainly now preventing that is politically commiting to a war on the other side of the planet which may not immediately effect you, but is likely to eventually.
But the other part is: you don't have to physically do anything. You could deny shipping to your opponent by someone just outbidding you for the output. Why not? You're already outsourcing so you're cost sensitive, and guaranteed volume is cat nip to manufacturers - no amount of strategic alliance wording is going to save you if an adversary reliably buys 10x as much.
Say, with satellite coverage to find out where any blockade runners are and a lot of cruise missiles you could enforce a blockade from a thousand miles away.
That would be extremely difficult to defend against unless you have enough ships to defend every single convoy. WWII showed how helpless big surface ships were against u-boats in defending shipping.
having nukes doesn't mean when you invade a nuke-free country and it will just fall over for you. but not having nukes means a country with nukes can feel comfy invading you....
Russia aren’t going to use nukes on their own doorstep. That’s a a NATO problem. It’s like openly knifing somebody in public repeatedly while holding the would be hero’s at bay with a gun. Yes this is an actual thing that happened in the UK about 10 years ago.
Um... Russia's doctrine during the Cold War was to turn Poland into a nuclear wasteland to stop Nato advancing through it. At the time, Poland was a part of the USSR.
What Russia considers "a buffer zone" is really "inferior peoples we can atomise without having to open a new conflict with a foreign power." To be clear, I use the term "inferior peoples" as seen from the Russian point of view.
I’ve been looking and you are correct, though I do recall seeing something different, so perhaps what I read was misinterpreting the Seven Days to the Rhine plan.
That’s the point, and you’re in big trouble if that’s what you’re actually dependent upon is something you can’t use. Nukes are only for the other nukes. The bit of butter, so they say, Betty bought to make the bitter butter better.
I recently encountered someone who spoke like this and I researched what might be the issue.
I came across narcissism. The idea that you’re smarter than everyone else. Comes from a grandiose sense of self importance. But the truth is most people are smarter than you in some ways and less smart in others, but you’re unable to see it because you’re in this black and white mode where preserving your ego relies on you being the smart guy amongst the idiots.
It’s very common in tech to see this. Maybe because we were all exceptional at maths when we were young and got the idea that meant we were super smart and this compensated for our nerdiness.
I worked with a bunch of physicists and every single one of them was smarter than me at maths and physics, I wasn’t even close. But they sometimes talked about politics and current affairs, which I’m very well read in. I didn’t say anything, but I was shocked at how little they knew and how overconfident they were.
None of those folks were narcissists, thankfully they were lovely people, but for sure it highlighted how poor people were at judging their own expertise in an area.
It’s so easy to dismiss people, criticising is easy, and so hard to see just how stupid you can be yourself.
I don't think a bunch of physicists is the best example if you're trying to make the point that most people are smart but just in different ways. Physics requires and attracts intelligence, of course a bunch of physicists were smarter than you in some ways.
Try it with, say, a parole officer's case list, a group of high school dropouts, or people who have not touched a book in the past ten years. You'll certainly find things they know that you don't, but that's mostly going to be a matter of experience, not them being smarter in that area. No doubt the average petty thief knows more about shoplifting than I do, but I'm pretty sure I could learn quickly and become a much better shoplifter than them if I put my mind to it. And those groups will certainly contain some really smart people who just happen to have ended up in those groups, but that's going to be a small number of them.
Yeah no I don’t think intelligence works like that.
There’s not some core reasoning engine in your brain that is independent of your knowledge. The two are intertwined.
Some people are better at reasoning about politics vs maths, for example, because they have both the knowledge, skills, and experience to understood how such systems work vs a mathematician who does not.
> I came across narcissism. The idea that you’re smarter than everyone else. Comes from a grandiose sense of self importance.
This may be the colloquial description of how narcissism manifests, but it isn't even close to (and possibly completely opposite) clinical narcissism. The grandiosity isn't so much a belief as it is a "false self" put on to garner caretaking from others. It's not "I got all the toys as a kid, so I deserve more stuff!" but a failure to individuate from caregivers. "Mom (as a tool, not a wholly independent person) came when I cried as a kid, so I need you to lavish attention on me and make me feel better now as an adult. I can't see myself without external input; I only see myself as a reflection through you."
Disclaimer: I'm just an...interested layman, but as far as I know we don't really know. It looks like there's both genetic and environmental components to it; your genes have a big impact on your "temperament" and more volatile temperaments correlate more strongly with cluster B disorders. But it seems like neglect, a failure to recognize a child as their own independent person (basically "my needs are your needs"), from parents/caregivers who are often themselves narcissists contributes pretty strongly, too.
The Little Shaman[1] has been one of the most comprehensive-yet-approachable resources I've found for understanding these kinds of high-conflict personalities. In particular [2-4] are pretty relevant to your question.
Perhaps there are some people like you say that are grandiose narcissists and ALSO some people that are genuinely smarter than most others in the room and can see the obvious through the fog.
I think the frustration they're experiencing is more likely to do with a lack of control over their environment (including the lack of ability to control others).
It is entirely their fault. If no one agrees to do performative research, the problem will be solved.
The problem is some people prefer an academic lifestyle in exchange for doing performative research.
Yes there are other actors eg politicians demanding performative productivity, but mostly it’s the inmates running the asylum.
Academia is one failed western institution amongst many, and those failures are ultimately directed by the actions of the individuals that comprise those institutions.
> It is entirely their fault. If no one agrees to do performative research, the problem will be solved.
Right, and the prisoner's "dilemma" isn't a real thing; everyone knows it's their own fault for not just all picking the decision that gives them all the best outcome. Every individual within a network effect is obviously responsible for the outcomes the entire system produces.
They're not responsible for the situations that end up encouraging certain actions though, and they shouldn't be blamed for not being able to solve the collective action problem[1]. I'd argue that the only blame that's fair to place on them in situations like this is from direct results of their individual actions, not the propagation of incentives that are beyond their power to change regardless of their own individual decisions.
If you're willing to blame someone for not acting against their own individual interest, doesn't it make more sense for it to be the people who are going out of their way to reward others for acting in that way?
Evolution creates a situation that encourages all sorts of terrible actions, and the vast majority of people choose to control their animal instincts.
Additionally: the people who encourage the performative research are the people who control grant review. And those people are the same people as the performative researchers.
A bunch of people figured they could make a career doing bs performative research and corrupted the whole system to serve them.
Possible candidates we are missing: online learning, embodiment, self direction, long term memory and associated processing (compression etc), the ability to quickly think in tensor space.
We don’t understand quantum mechanics and we don’t understand gravity. There’s no reason to assume that we won’t find ways to travel the universe, e.g. by manipulating space time. We just don’t know what we don’t know.
If you had to bet based on past achievements, humanity will find a way. Our job is to push the limits as much as we can and build a foundation for future generations.
reply