12 ms·

You can't necessarily judge the future of of a technology by its past. Consider transportation. Imagine it's 1936, automobiles have been around for 50 years, bu

by ewzimm 10y ago

You can't necessarily judge the future of of a technology by its past. Consider transportation. Imagine it's 1936, automobiles have been around for 50 years, but there are still plenty of people getting around by horse. Some people are claiming that in another 50 years, by 1986, horses will be hardly used for transportation compared to cars, other people say that horses have been used for thousands of years, there's no way they'll ever go out of style. Programming languages exist today because computers can't handle ambiguity and don't understand software design. In another 50 years, machines will be a lot smarter, more able to handle ambiguity, and better than people at designing workflows and catching potential errors. Like the horse, no doubt some people will still prefer to do things the old way, but there's a good chance this will be limited mostly to academic exercises. All they're saying here is that the tools we have will progress a lot in the next 50 years. There are some obvious problems with the way we design software right now which are due to human limitations. The only way to fix those is to remove a lot of direct control from humans and give it to AI programmers. Manually writing JavaScript in 2066 will be like manually carving arrowheads today: still effective but not something you would do for a serious purpose.

nickbauman 10y ago
There are currently no signs that what you think will happen will happen. Soft AI is the only place where anything is moving on that front and the movement is infinitesimally small. Here's an analogy for you: It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  Years don't make progress on their own, people working during those years push progress forward. The estimated population of ancient Babylon at its height was 200,000. Let's imagine that 1% of them were working on developing writing for at leat 2 hours every week and that those who came after them were able to maintain that level of work for 1000 years until ancient Greece, over 200 million hours of work. That's less time than the official Gangnam Style video has been watched on YouTube. In 50 years, 99%+ of all the work ever done by civilization will be done after 2016.
  - nickbauman 10y ago
    As long as we're criticizing the analogies in the discussion (rather than the actual arguments) I'd say the hours spent do not have a consistent quality vis-a-vis solving hard problems. Because there are more absolute hours available does not mean that there are more hours available for solving hard AI problems. There are very likely less. And there has been virtually NO progress on the hard AI front.
    - xeromal 10y ago
      Analogies are always a rabbit hole. Haha.
    - ewzimm 10y ago
      Hard, human-level AI would help this a lot, but it isn't necessary. All that's required for traditional programming to become obsolete is for computers to be much better at understanding ambiguity and have a robust model for the flow of programs. With today's neural networks and technology, I have no doubt it would be possible to design something that would create good code based on all the samples on github. Not easy by any means or someone would have done it, but it doesn't require any breakthroughs of computer science, just lots of data and good design. The tools referenced in the articles are working primitive versions of this.
      - foota 10y ago
        There's an important distinction though between being able to write a compiling (or even functional) program and being able to write a program that serves a particular purpose.
        ewzimm 10y ago
        I'm talking about human-guided programming without using traditional programming language, creating a design document to lay out what it does and how data flows and allowing the computer to sort out the details based on a stored data set.
- paavokoya 10y ago
  >It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time Yeah and it took "us" 60 years from discovering flight to landing a rocket on the moon. Took "us" 60 years from the first computer to globally-live video streaming in your pocket. Time is a pointless metric when it comes to technology. You don't know what someone is cooking up down in some basement somewhere that will be released tomorrow and shatter your concept of reality.
  - mooreds 10y ago
    I wonder if 'leisure-person years' is a better metric of progress (where 'leisure' is defined as the number of hours you can spend neither raising/searching for food nor sleeping). Be really hard to identify, though.
- davorb 10y ago
  > for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time Speaking as someone who has studied cuneiform and Akkadian, I would say that this claim isn't true. Here's a vowel that predates the period that you mentioned[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(cuneiform) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(cuneiform)
- sapphireblue 10y ago
  There are signs, if you know were to look for them: http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.07211 http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.07211 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4615 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4615 http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.06640 http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.06640 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > Here's an analogy for you: It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time. Where did you get this idea? Babylonian writing fully indicated the vowels. It always has. You're thinking of Egyptian / Hebrew / Arabic writing. Even where a semitic language was written in cuneiform, vowels were always indicated, because the cuneiform system didn't offer you the option to leave them out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language#Vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language#Vowels (Old Persian was written in repurposed cuneiform, and therefore could have omitted the vowels, but didn't.)
rayiner 10y ago
Your example actually cuts the other way. Imagine it's 1966 and someone tells you that the cars, trains, and planes will "have to be dramatically different in 50 years," yet lo and behold a trip from NYC to LA takes about the same amount of time now as it did back then and the Northeast Regional is a hair slower than the Metroliner used to be.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  I was focusing on 50 years into the development of the technology as a rough analogy. By 1966 it was much more mature, but look at how much things have changed. A mechanic from 1966 would find today's cars completely unrecognizable. They might appear somewhat similar from the outside, but on the inside they're basically just giant computers. We now have cars with varying levels of self-driving capabilities, drones replacing pilots, traditional pilots being essentially babysitters for autopilot systems, hyperloop designs. I'd say those are much bigger changes than 1936-1986.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Cars are not "basically just giant computers" on the inside. Computers are used to control various engine parameters, and aspects of the transmission and suspension, but all the parts that make the car go are just refined versions of what existed in the 1960s. Okay, so now we use computers to control valve timing instead of mechanical means. But the principles of what valves are and how they make the engine work are very similar to 1966. And that computing horsepower mostly goes towards fuel efficiency and safety. Which is nice, but almost certainly not the kind of progress people in the 1960's thought we'd make in automobiles over 50+ years. > traditional pilots being essentially babysitters for autopilot systems The first autopilot takeoff/cruise/landing happened in 1947. > hyperloop designs But we don't have hyperloops. > I'd say those are much bigger changes than 1936-1986. By 1986 we had fully-digital fly-by-wire aircraft. Our big achievement since then has been about a 20% improvement in fuel efficiency.
    - ewzimm 10y ago
      The concept of what change is more or less significant can be pretty subjective. I'm not talking about things like fuel efficiency, although those are some really interesting facts. Autopilot in 1947! didn't know that one. Yes, cars and jets still use the same basic architecture for what makes them move, but the control mechanisms for that architecture have completely changed. To bring your comparison closer to the subject at hand, this article has nothing to do with the design of computers themselves. We could use the same basic Von Neumann architecture in 50 years and still get rid of traditional programming languages as a primary method of designing software, just like we use the same basic engine designs from 50 years ago but use entirely different methods of designing and controlling them now. Take an engineer designing a jet in 1966 and put them with a 2016 team. They will have to learn an entirely different workflow. Now computers are heavily involved in the design process and most of what was done manually by engineers is now written into software. The same situation will happen 50 years from now for people who design software. Take an extreme example like game creation. In 1966, you could make a computer game, but you were doing manual calculations and using punch cards. Now you download Unity and almost everything but the art design and game logic is done for you. Game design moved quickly toward these kinds of automated systems because they tend to have highly reusable parts and rely mostly on art and story for what separates them from the competition. But there's no reason why this same concept wouldn't apply to tools used for any kind of program. The horse to car comparison was only meant to show that the development of a technology in the first 50 years (or any arbitrary number) will not necessarily look like the next 50 years. Well-established tools quickly fall out of use when a disruptive technology has reached maturity, even if that tool has been used for thousands of years. Right now, software design is difficult, buggy, and causes constant failures and frustrations. Once we have established and recorded best practices that can be automated instead of manually remaking them every time, there will be no need for manual coding in traditional programming languages. Machines are getting much better at understanding intent, and this will be built into all software design.
hackguru 10y ago
What do you mean by computers handling ambiguity? At the end of the day for a idea to become cristalized it needs to be free from ambiguity. That is the case even in human interactions. When using ambiguous language, we iterate over ideas together to make sure everybody is on the same page. If by handling ambiguity, you mean that computers can go back and forth with us to help us remove ambiguity from our thoughts then they are basically helping us think or in some sense do programming for us. That is a great future indeed! A future where actually AIs are doing the programming in long run! But with this line of thought we might as well not teach anything to our kids because one day computers will do it better. Specially if we already stablished that they can think better than us :)
- ewzimm 10y ago
  Let's teach our kids the higher level stuff that doesn't ever get old, thinking clearly, engaging in creativity, solving problems, whether through code or whatever means appeals to them. Let's give them options and opportunities, not must mandate memorizing specific facts. Let's teach kids computer science instead of just programming, creative writing instead of just grammar, mathematics instead of just algebra, let's engage their imagination, not just their instincts to conform to expectations!
  - sanderjd 10y ago
    Let's teach them computer science with programming as a fantastic way to concretely demonstrate its abstract ideas. (The same goes for math vs. arithmetic!)
    - ewzimm 10y ago
      Yes, definitely. Too often the application of the idea is taught without understanding the idea itself. Then we get standardized testing and focus not even on the application but in what ways the application of the idea will be stated on a test. We still need the conceptual framework to learn anything lasting!
  - dragonwriter 10y ago

by ewzimm 10y ago

nickbauman 10y ago

There are currently no signs that what you think will happen will happen. Soft AI is the only place where anything is moving on that front and the movement is infinitesimally small. Here's an analogy for you: It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time.

ewzimm 10y ago
Years don't make progress on their own, people working during those years push progress forward. The estimated population of ancient Babylon at its height was 200,000. Let's imagine that 1% of them were working on developing writing for at leat 2 hours every week and that those who came after them were able to maintain that level of work for 1000 years until ancient Greece, over 200 million hours of work. That's less time than the official Gangnam Style video has been watched on YouTube. In 50 years, 99%+ of all the work ever done by civilization will be done after 2016.
- nickbauman 10y ago
  As long as we're criticizing the analogies in the discussion (rather than the actual arguments) I'd say the hours spent do not have a consistent quality vis-a-vis solving hard problems. Because there are more absolute hours available does not mean that there are more hours available for solving hard AI problems. There are very likely less. And there has been virtually NO progress on the hard AI front.
  - xeromal 10y ago
    Analogies are always a rabbit hole. Haha.
  - ewzimm 10y ago
    Hard, human-level AI would help this a lot, but it isn't necessary. All that's required for traditional programming to become obsolete is for computers to be much better at understanding ambiguity and have a robust model for the flow of programs. With today's neural networks and technology, I have no doubt it would be possible to design something that would create good code based on all the samples on github. Not easy by any means or someone would have done it, but it doesn't require any breakthroughs of computer science, just lots of data and good design. The tools referenced in the articles are working primitive versions of this.
    - foota 10y ago
      There's an important distinction though between being able to write a compiling (or even functional) program and being able to write a program that serves a particular purpose.
      - ewzimm 10y ago
        I'm talking about human-guided programming without using traditional programming language, creating a design document to lay out what it does and how data flows and allowing the computer to sort out the details based on a stored data set.
paavokoya 10y ago
>It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time Yeah and it took "us" 60 years from discovering flight to landing a rocket on the moon. Took "us" 60 years from the first computer to globally-live video streaming in your pocket. Time is a pointless metric when it comes to technology. You don't know what someone is cooking up down in some basement somewhere that will be released tomorrow and shatter your concept of reality.
- mooreds 10y ago
  I wonder if 'leisure-person years' is a better metric of progress (where 'leisure' is defined as the number of hours you can spend neither raising/searching for food nor sleeping). Be really hard to identify, though.
davorb 10y ago
> for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time Speaking as someone who has studied cuneiform and Akkadian, I would say that this claim isn't true. Here's a vowel that predates the period that you mentioned[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(cuneiform) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(cuneiform)
sapphireblue 10y ago
There are signs, if you know were to look for them: http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.07211 http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.07211 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4615 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4615 http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.06640 http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.06640 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401
thaumasiotes 10y ago
> Here's an analogy for you: It took more than 1000 years (from Babylon to Archaic Greece) for us to go from writing with only consonants to using vowels for the first time. Where did you get this idea? Babylonian writing fully indicated the vowels. It always has. You're thinking of Egyptian / Hebrew / Arabic writing. Even where a semitic language was written in cuneiform, vowels were always indicated, because the cuneiform system didn't offer you the option to leave them out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language#Vowels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language#Vowels (Old Persian was written in repurposed cuneiform, and therefore could have omitted the vowels, but didn't.)

rayiner 10y ago

Your example actually cuts the other way. Imagine it's 1966 and someone tells you that the cars, trains, and planes will "have to be dramatically different in 50 years," yet lo and behold a trip from NYC to LA takes about the same amount of time now as it did back then and the Northeast Regional is a hair slower than the Metroliner used to be.

ewzimm 10y ago
I was focusing on 50 years into the development of the technology as a rough analogy. By 1966 it was much more mature, but look at how much things have changed. A mechanic from 1966 would find today's cars completely unrecognizable. They might appear somewhat similar from the outside, but on the inside they're basically just giant computers. We now have cars with varying levels of self-driving capabilities, drones replacing pilots, traditional pilots being essentially babysitters for autopilot systems, hyperloop designs. I'd say those are much bigger changes than 1936-1986.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Cars are not "basically just giant computers" on the inside. Computers are used to control various engine parameters, and aspects of the transmission and suspension, but all the parts that make the car go are just refined versions of what existed in the 1960s. Okay, so now we use computers to control valve timing instead of mechanical means. But the principles of what valves are and how they make the engine work are very similar to 1966. And that computing horsepower mostly goes towards fuel efficiency and safety. Which is nice, but almost certainly not the kind of progress people in the 1960's thought we'd make in automobiles over 50+ years. > traditional pilots being essentially babysitters for autopilot systems The first autopilot takeoff/cruise/landing happened in 1947. > hyperloop designs But we don't have hyperloops. > I'd say those are much bigger changes than 1936-1986. By 1986 we had fully-digital fly-by-wire aircraft. Our big achievement since then has been about a 20% improvement in fuel efficiency.
  - ewzimm 10y ago
    The concept of what change is more or less significant can be pretty subjective. I'm not talking about things like fuel efficiency, although those are some really interesting facts. Autopilot in 1947! didn't know that one. Yes, cars and jets still use the same basic architecture for what makes them move, but the control mechanisms for that architecture have completely changed. To bring your comparison closer to the subject at hand, this article has nothing to do with the design of computers themselves. We could use the same basic Von Neumann architecture in 50 years and still get rid of traditional programming languages as a primary method of designing software, just like we use the same basic engine designs from 50 years ago but use entirely different methods of designing and controlling them now. Take an engineer designing a jet in 1966 and put them with a 2016 team. They will have to learn an entirely different workflow. Now computers are heavily involved in the design process and most of what was done manually by engineers is now written into software. The same situation will happen 50 years from now for people who design software. Take an extreme example like game creation. In 1966, you could make a computer game, but you were doing manual calculations and using punch cards. Now you download Unity and almost everything but the art design and game logic is done for you. Game design moved quickly toward these kinds of automated systems because they tend to have highly reusable parts and rely mostly on art and story for what separates them from the competition. But there's no reason why this same concept wouldn't apply to tools used for any kind of program. The horse to car comparison was only meant to show that the development of a technology in the first 50 years (or any arbitrary number) will not necessarily look like the next 50 years. Well-established tools quickly fall out of use when a disruptive technology has reached maturity, even if that tool has been used for thousands of years. Right now, software design is difficult, buggy, and causes constant failures and frustrations. Once we have established and recorded best practices that can be automated instead of manually remaking them every time, there will be no need for manual coding in traditional programming languages. Machines are getting much better at understanding intent, and this will be built into all software design.

hackguru 10y ago

What do you mean by computers handling ambiguity? At the end of the day for a idea to become cristalized it needs to be free from ambiguity. That is the case even in human interactions. When using ambiguous language, we iterate over ideas together to make sure everybody is on the same page. If by handling ambiguity, you mean that computers can go back and forth with us to help us remove ambiguity from our thoughts then they are basically helping us think or in some sense do programming for us. That is a great future indeed! A future where actually AIs are doing the programming in long run! But with this line of thought we might as well not teach anything to our kids because one day computers will do it better. Specially if we already stablished that they can think better than us :)

ewzimm 10y ago
Let's teach our kids the higher level stuff that doesn't ever get old, thinking clearly, engaging in creativity, solving problems, whether through code or whatever means appeals to them. Let's give them options and opportunities, not must mandate memorizing specific facts. Let's teach kids computer science instead of just programming, creative writing instead of just grammar, mathematics instead of just algebra, let's engage their imagination, not just their instincts to conform to expectations!
- sanderjd 10y ago
  Let's teach them computer science with programming as a fantastic way to concretely demonstrate its abstract ideas. (The same goes for math vs. arithmetic!)
  - ewzimm 10y ago
    Yes, definitely. Too often the application of the idea is taught without understanding the idea itself. Then we get standardized testing and focus not even on the application but in what ways the application of the idea will be stated on a test. We still need the conceptual framework to learn anything lasting!
- dragonwriter 10y ago