7 ms·

Customers who liked this Recommendation Engine may also like its Dequantization

87 points by beefman 8y ago

lainga 8y ago
A fantastic result, and a nice story behind it. Per the abstract of Tang's paper, the current best results are linear in m and n.
- titanomachy 8y ago
  Prof Aaronson said the best upper bound they have so far is O(log(n)^33)... to give that more meaning, O(log(n)^33) grows faster than O(n) until about n = 10^15, so "not practical" is a bit of an understatement! I still get why this is an interesting result, though. And if Scott thinks that lower bounds are achievable he is probably right.
  - paradroid 8y ago
    10^15 is not that big. We could construct and compute on sparse matrices that large today.
    - rspeer 8y ago
      I'm glad to know where the crossover point is, and yeah, hearing that it's around 10^15 tells me it's just a few orders of magnitude of improvement away from being a practical machine learning tool.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
doitLP 8y ago
Brings to mind a recent quote that goes something like "Many of our brightest scientists are trying to figure out how to get you to buy one more thing or stay on a website a few seconds longer, instead of spending their time and genius tackling pressing issues desperate for more attention."
- empath75 8y ago
  In this case, both.
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  Meh, some problems are theoretically very interesting, but presently have limited practical applications. Everyone has to find means to survive. For some people those theoretical problems, that understanding, are one of very few things that keep oneself whole. That fine line between genius and insanity, it really does exist. I'm not saying that because I think I'm a genius. Just, for some people, the only things that 'ground' us are things that are abstract (I say this with great awareness of the irony). Trying to make the pieces fit with the world, that's sometimes hard. You can throw the whole understanding you've built in the garbage, but then you lose yourself, and, I dunno. I don't think it's desperation for attention. I think it's a compulsion for things to make sense, because, a chaotic world. Some things just have to make sense.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    You don't subscribe to the notion that there might be a market failure here? There is marketmaking, then there is pro-consumption manipulation, how much is each in adtech is debatable, but it is a waste of investment for advanced degree holders to spend time manipulating people.
    - s-shellfish 8y ago
      Yea, I agree with that too, I can't say I fully like recommendation engines, as someone who has always veered on the side of 'independent artist' in terms of 'preference philosophy' I find them somewhat pointless, but whatever works. I do like them when they actually yield a correct product that is coming from informed consumers. I waste less money that way as a consumer. I'm talking mainly about books and art supplies here, that's pretty much what I've used them for. Makeup too, but that one, lots of money wasted because the beauty industry is it's own insane beast of navigating trends. I don't like them when they are manipulated by additional entities to dilute the quality of recommendation, and I think honestly this was the reason for their initial creation. But, open system, many recommendation engines work great so long as the consumer base follows the rules. The more lucrative it gets, the more layers of reasoning you need (to compete against bad actors diluting the data quality). The more layers, the greater the need for computational speed. Worthy problem, worthless problem, I don't really know. I know the people working on this stuff aren't necessarily the ones inventing the problems. It's more that the original intent has been corrupted, and that makes some people unhappy. So, people work on fixing the problems.
charmides 8y ago
Scott: Your student is brilliant. Kudos to you for not insisting on sharing authorship on the paper, like some academic advisors in your position would do.
- ScottAaronson 8y ago
  Thanks! In theoretical computer science as a whole, authorship is only for those who made a direct intellectual contribution. It’s one of the things I like best about the culture of our field.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
anjc 8y ago
How is it possible for an 18 year old to be so accomplished? Insane.
- kennyg25 8y ago
  Apparently he is the son of a bioengineering professor and was able to work in his father's nanotechnology lab while growing up. He also started taking college courses at a local university when he was 12 (UT Arlington) before going to UT Austin. http://www.uta.edu/utamagazine/archive-issues/2010-13/2012/12/cultivating-genius/index.html http://www.uta.edu/utamagazine/archive-issues/2010-13/2012/1...

87 points by beefman 8y ago

A fantastic result, and a nice story behind it. Per the abstract of Tang's paper, the current best results are linear in m and n.

titanomachy 8y ago
Prof Aaronson said the best upper bound they have so far is O(log(n)^33)... to give that more meaning, O(log(n)^33) grows faster than O(n) until about n = 10^15, so "not practical" is a bit of an understatement! I still get why this is an interesting result, though. And if Scott thinks that lower bounds are achievable he is probably right.
- paradroid 8y ago
  10^15 is not that big. We could construct and compute on sparse matrices that large today.
  - rspeer 8y ago
    I'm glad to know where the crossover point is, and yeah, hearing that it's around 10^15 tells me it's just a few orders of magnitude of improvement away from being a practical machine learning tool.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

doitLP 8y ago

Brings to mind a recent quote that goes something like "Many of our brightest scientists are trying to figure out how to get you to buy one more thing or stay on a website a few seconds longer, instead of spending their time and genius tackling pressing issues desperate for more attention."

empath75 8y ago
In this case, both.
s-shellfish 8y ago
Meh, some problems are theoretically very interesting, but presently have limited practical applications. Everyone has to find means to survive. For some people those theoretical problems, that understanding, are one of very few things that keep oneself whole. That fine line between genius and insanity, it really does exist. I'm not saying that because I think I'm a genius. Just, for some people, the only things that 'ground' us are things that are abstract (I say this with great awareness of the irony). Trying to make the pieces fit with the world, that's sometimes hard. You can throw the whole understanding you've built in the garbage, but then you lose yourself, and, I dunno. I don't think it's desperation for attention. I think it's a compulsion for things to make sense, because, a chaotic world. Some things just have to make sense.
- pishpash 8y ago
  You don't subscribe to the notion that there might be a market failure here? There is marketmaking, then there is pro-consumption manipulation, how much is each in adtech is debatable, but it is a waste of investment for advanced degree holders to spend time manipulating people.
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    Yea, I agree with that too, I can't say I fully like recommendation engines, as someone who has always veered on the side of 'independent artist' in terms of 'preference philosophy' I find them somewhat pointless, but whatever works. I do like them when they actually yield a correct product that is coming from informed consumers. I waste less money that way as a consumer. I'm talking mainly about books and art supplies here, that's pretty much what I've used them for. Makeup too, but that one, lots of money wasted because the beauty industry is it's own insane beast of navigating trends. I don't like them when they are manipulated by additional entities to dilute the quality of recommendation, and I think honestly this was the reason for their initial creation. But, open system, many recommendation engines work great so long as the consumer base follows the rules. The more lucrative it gets, the more layers of reasoning you need (to compete against bad actors diluting the data quality). The more layers, the greater the need for computational speed. Worthy problem, worthless problem, I don't really know. I know the people working on this stuff aren't necessarily the ones inventing the problems. It's more that the original intent has been corrupted, and that makes some people unhappy. So, people work on fixing the problems.

charmides 8y ago

Scott: Your student is brilliant. Kudos to you for not insisting on sharing authorship on the paper, like some academic advisors in your position would do.

ScottAaronson 8y ago
Thanks! In theoretical computer science as a whole, authorship is only for those who made a direct intellectual contribution. It’s one of the things I like best about the culture of our field.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

anjc 8y ago

How is it possible for an 18 year old to be so accomplished? Insane.

kennyg25 8y ago
Apparently he is the son of a bioengineering professor and was able to work in his father's nanotechnology lab while growing up. He also started taking college courses at a local university when he was 12 (UT Arlington) before going to UT Austin. http://www.uta.edu/utamagazine/archive-issues/2010-13/2012/12/cultivating-genius/index.html http://www.uta.edu/utamagazine/archive-issues/2010-13/2012/1...