4 ms·

The most powerful supercomputers in the world are not even close in processing power of a 4 year old. Isn't it possible that some people can see patterns that t

by 6d6b73 7y ago

The most powerful supercomputers in the world are not even close in processing power of a 4 year old. Isn't it possible that some people can see patterns that the supercomputers can't?

chrisco255 7y ago
Sure, but those supercomputers aren't autonomous, they're programmed and designed by thousands of human adult experts.
- 6d6b73 7y ago
  And these people can make mistakes or be biased. If we can't predict what the weather in our hometowns will be how can we predict how will the climate change?
  - conception 7y ago
    You can't predict where a bubble will form when boiling water, but you can predict that the pot will get to over 100C.
    - 6d6b73 7y ago
      But doesn't that depend on how large is the pot and how much energy you're putting into boiling it? Not to mention that you also need to know the environment in the which you're trying to boil the water. If you're trying to boil the water in the middle of arctic winter, can you predict that the pot will get to over 100C if you're using just a small camping stove? :)
  - fwip 7y ago
    If you drop a glass full of water, I can't predict the exact splash pattern. But I can sure tell you the floor's gonna get wet.
- Theodores 7y ago
  "Thousands" is true, but, in the specific domain of modelling the climate there are not that many people doing it. Weather forecasting is more about interpreting the results than writing the code for the model, and, realistically there are only the British and American weather supercomputers. Everyone else is borrowing the GRIB data and then doing their own interpretations. As for that interpretation, a surprising amount of forecasters operate much like how gamblers work. Think of a horse racing scene, the horses and the riders have form, i.e. how they have performed in the past. Then there is the course, this may or may not suit a given horse/rider combo. Weather, time of day and other factors come into it. Not to mention the prize money and the competition. A gambler looks at the form, the weather and works with their niche of specialist knowledge, similar with weather forecasting. The 'bet' might be what the weather is going to be in Dudley tomorrow or in Barnstaple, or anywhere else. The goal of the forecaster is to get it right. The observations are the key to it and the GRIB forecast data is not to be considered strictly accurate. Even if it is accurate it still needs interpretation. Even with the data and an eye on the metosat images it is incredibly hard to get the likelihood of rain right. Sometimes a step outside is needed too - with a local forecast. The resolution of the GRIB is not that good, so if you have a town at the foot of a mountain and next to a lake, it might not have a realistic prediction. The GRIB data might be for the top of the mountain or the middle of the lake. You need an expert to actually do an educated guess as to what temperature it will be there in the morning. Forecasters actually understand some things that are going on in the now, so a storm off Africa that goes across to the U.S seaboard as some tropical storm will come back across to the British Isles as rain. Forecasters don't tell you that there is a queue of storms heading across the Atlantic on the way to the U.S. and inevitably going to bring rain to the UK after that. But that information could inform your holiday plans for a few weeks ahead. The computer and the meteosat images might show all this but they won't interpret it for you. Then, when you get down to it, forecasting can often be done with horse betting mentality, like a gambling addiction. What would be cool is to have a consumer grade version of the software the weather forecasters use, where you can go forward and back in time layering up different types of data at different altitudes. But weather forecasting is like its own magic circle and it would be betrayal of sorts to share the tricks and the props with the audience.
fromthestart 7y ago
That's simply not relevant, nor true.* Modeling climate change is much more complex than the simple heuristic pattern matching of the human mind. You're talking about a huge, complex, and fundamentally chaotic system; the latter property precludes the usefulness of heuristic based predictions by a 4 year old (or a human of any age). There's a reason we run massive numerical simulations on multi billion dollar HPCs. *Depending of course on how you define processing power. Sure, in terms of raw flops it is estimated that human brains are indeed orders of magnitude more performant than supercomputers, but for the type of operations required to simulate something like climate, humans don't come anywhere close to the accuracy or precision of results you can obtain from a gridded 3D model fed into a purpose built simulation - without which you really can't answer any but the most basic of climate change questions.
- pazimzadeh 7y ago
  I'm not sure what the use is of comparing human processing to "the type of operations required to simulate something like climate" since predicting the weather is not something our computers are particularly good at. Why is a 3D model even necessary? Personal anecdote: my grandmother is capable of predicting rain 1-2 days ahead of time based on smell and just "a feeling." Granted, we probably don't remember all of the times that she was wrong.
  - dlivingston 7y ago
    > Why is a 3D model even necessary? See [0]. PDEs can be solved discreetly in three dimensions on a three-dimensional grid (3D model, sort of). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_volume_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_volume_method
    - lutorm 7y ago
      That doesn't really explain why you need a 3d model, though. If there was no important vertical process, you could get away with not resolving it. However, vertical heat transport is the entire game since the lower atmosphere is opaque to heat.
masonic 7y ago
not even close in processing power of a 4 year old Sure, but in most developed nations, you can't force 4 year olds to work even individually, let alone wire them into an array against their will.

by 6d6b73 7y ago

The most powerful supercomputers in the world are not even close in processing power of a 4 year old. Isn't it possible that some people can see patterns that the supercomputers can't?

chrisco255 7y ago

Sure, but those supercomputers aren't autonomous, they're programmed and designed by thousands of human adult experts.

6d6b73 7y ago
And these people can make mistakes or be biased. If we can't predict what the weather in our hometowns will be how can we predict how will the climate change?
- conception 7y ago
  You can't predict where a bubble will form when boiling water, but you can predict that the pot will get to over 100C.
  - 6d6b73 7y ago
    But doesn't that depend on how large is the pot and how much energy you're putting into boiling it? Not to mention that you also need to know the environment in the which you're trying to boil the water. If you're trying to boil the water in the middle of arctic winter, can you predict that the pot will get to over 100C if you're using just a small camping stove? :)
- fwip 7y ago
  If you drop a glass full of water, I can't predict the exact splash pattern. But I can sure tell you the floor's gonna get wet.
Theodores 7y ago
"Thousands" is true, but, in the specific domain of modelling the climate there are not that many people doing it. Weather forecasting is more about interpreting the results than writing the code for the model, and, realistically there are only the British and American weather supercomputers. Everyone else is borrowing the GRIB data and then doing their own interpretations. As for that interpretation, a surprising amount of forecasters operate much like how gamblers work. Think of a horse racing scene, the horses and the riders have form, i.e. how they have performed in the past. Then there is the course, this may or may not suit a given horse/rider combo. Weather, time of day and other factors come into it. Not to mention the prize money and the competition. A gambler looks at the form, the weather and works with their niche of specialist knowledge, similar with weather forecasting. The 'bet' might be what the weather is going to be in Dudley tomorrow or in Barnstaple, or anywhere else. The goal of the forecaster is to get it right. The observations are the key to it and the GRIB forecast data is not to be considered strictly accurate. Even if it is accurate it still needs interpretation. Even with the data and an eye on the metosat images it is incredibly hard to get the likelihood of rain right. Sometimes a step outside is needed too - with a local forecast. The resolution of the GRIB is not that good, so if you have a town at the foot of a mountain and next to a lake, it might not have a realistic prediction. The GRIB data might be for the top of the mountain or the middle of the lake. You need an expert to actually do an educated guess as to what temperature it will be there in the morning. Forecasters actually understand some things that are going on in the now, so a storm off Africa that goes across to the U.S seaboard as some tropical storm will come back across to the British Isles as rain. Forecasters don't tell you that there is a queue of storms heading across the Atlantic on the way to the U.S. and inevitably going to bring rain to the UK after that. But that information could inform your holiday plans for a few weeks ahead. The computer and the meteosat images might show all this but they won't interpret it for you. Then, when you get down to it, forecasting can often be done with horse betting mentality, like a gambling addiction. What would be cool is to have a consumer grade version of the software the weather forecasters use, where you can go forward and back in time layering up different types of data at different altitudes. But weather forecasting is like its own magic circle and it would be betrayal of sorts to share the tricks and the props with the audience.

fromthestart 7y ago

That's simply not relevant, nor true.* Modeling climate change is much more complex than the simple heuristic pattern matching of the human mind. You're talking about a huge, complex, and fundamentally chaotic system; the latter property precludes the usefulness of heuristic based predictions by a 4 year old (or a human of any age). There's a reason we run massive numerical simulations on multi billion dollar HPCs. *Depending of course on how you define processing power. Sure, in terms of raw flops it is estimated that human brains are indeed orders of magnitude more performant than supercomputers, but for the type of operations required to simulate something like climate, humans don't come anywhere close to the accuracy or precision of results you can obtain from a gridded 3D model fed into a purpose built simulation - without which you really can't answer any but the most basic of climate change questions.

pazimzadeh 7y ago
I'm not sure what the use is of comparing human processing to "the type of operations required to simulate something like climate" since predicting the weather is not something our computers are particularly good at. Why is a 3D model even necessary? Personal anecdote: my grandmother is capable of predicting rain 1-2 days ahead of time based on smell and just "a feeling." Granted, we probably don't remember all of the times that she was wrong.
- dlivingston 7y ago
  > Why is a 3D model even necessary? See [0]. PDEs can be solved discreetly in three dimensions on a three-dimensional grid (3D model, sort of). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_volume_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_volume_method
  - lutorm 7y ago
    That doesn't really explain why you need a 3d model, though. If there was no important vertical process, you could get away with not resolving it. However, vertical heat transport is the entire game since the lower atmosphere is opaque to heat.

masonic 7y ago

not even close in processing power of a 4 year old Sure, but in most developed nations, you can't force 4 year olds to work even individually, let alone wire them into an array against their will.