6 ms·

What a joke. Carmack is going to sit at home and solve what teams of scientists can't do in decades. I'm complaining less about Carmack wanting to spend his ti

by nwsm 7y ago

What a joke. Carmack is going to sit at home and solve what teams of scientists can't do in decades. I'm complaining less about Carmack wanting to spend his time doing this and more about the comments here acting like he is some 10000x research scientist.

kyle-rb 7y ago
No one expects him to emerge with a fully formed AGI. By through experimenting he might contribute some new incremental but still useful improvements.
- klyrs 7y ago
  This feels somewhat obligatory... http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001018 http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001018
drcode 7y ago
There are few AI researchers (maybe around 5 or so) that could credibly claim technical accomplishments of any sort in the same ballpark as Carmack's. People with this level of track record should not be underestimated, there aren't many of them out there... They matter.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  Carmack has had a lot of commercial success, which is great and I value his creativity in the space but working on a research question that is about ten paradigm shifts away is a different task than putting in hard labour to build games.
  - taurath 7y ago
    And maybe the output is he helps bring about one of those ten paradigm shifts, which would be a wonderful success. He didn’t say “solve” it, he said work on it.
- robotresearcher 7y ago
  Carmack is an accomplished and inventive engineer. He is not and would never claim to be the most important graphics researcher of his generation. How can you rank him against AI researchers, a field where he has not attempted to contribute?
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    Not to mention all the mathematicians who contributed to the theoretical foundations of machine learning. This announcement is meaningless IMO. Those who will make meaningful, core contributions to AI tech are doing it with pen and paper, not computers.
- tgv 7y ago
  That first line is pure nonsense.
starpilot 7y ago
I wouldn't be that... mean. But if it's anything like his aerospace pursuits, yeah, I wouldn't bet on any breakthroughs.
- robryan 7y ago
  To be fair aerospace was never really a full time thing and was budget restricted. Given fulltime and Bezos money who knows.
wanderer2323 7y ago
I doubt he will sit at home working on it alone for long.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lostmsu 7y ago
I recently "retired" to do the same, and logic here is - there is no harm in trying, if you have resources (of course, he has magnitudes more). You can get up to date in the field in under half a year of extensive reading. And many of those scientists are too busy solving more specific goals, that their labs set. I doubt there are more than 1,000 researchers in the world specifically working on AGI.
- b3kart 7y ago
  “_Specifically_ working on Artificial _General_ Intelligence” is a bit like “As a physics major I’ve decided to specialise in physics.”
  - marvin 7y ago
    Well.... There's the possibility that there's a certain degree of myopia in the AI field as a whole. As in, we know that there are some pretty gaping holes in our models and understanding, and most of the effort is spent on refining approaches that we have already validated. Maybe a better analogy would be "specialize physical theories that work in all environments, not have to be adapted separately for the ocean, space, the atmosphere, the forest" etc.
    - b3kart 7y ago
      There's certainly a lot to be done, and we'll likely need new approaches. But is it really productive to be tackling a general problem when we don't even know how to solve specific sub-problems? Especially if solving said sub-problems would bring a lot of value in its own right.
      - marvin 7y ago
        It’s basic research. No one knows anything about which approaches will work. If a genius millionaire technologist wants to dedicate all their time and effort to any novel approach, I’d strongly endorse it. (Not that it matters; they’ll do it anyway). I feel likewise for any research effort; it’s not like this will put all cancer research on hold, or more immediately practical AI research. It’s just a few hundred people globally :) And it’s such promising technology.

by nwsm 7y ago

kyle-rb 7y ago

No one expects him to emerge with a fully formed AGI. By through experimenting he might contribute some new incremental but still useful improvements.

klyrs 7y ago
This feels somewhat obligatory... http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001018 http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001018

drcode 7y ago

There are few AI researchers (maybe around 5 or so) that could credibly claim technical accomplishments of any sort in the same ballpark as Carmack's. People with this level of track record should not be underestimated, there aren't many of them out there... They matter.

Barrin92 7y ago
Carmack has had a lot of commercial success, which is great and I value his creativity in the space but working on a research question that is about ten paradigm shifts away is a different task than putting in hard labour to build games.
- taurath 7y ago
  And maybe the output is he helps bring about one of those ten paradigm shifts, which would be a wonderful success. He didn’t say “solve” it, he said work on it.
robotresearcher 7y ago
Carmack is an accomplished and inventive engineer. He is not and would never claim to be the most important graphics researcher of his generation. How can you rank him against AI researchers, a field where he has not attempted to contribute?
- unityByFreedom 7y ago
  Not to mention all the mathematicians who contributed to the theoretical foundations of machine learning. This announcement is meaningless IMO. Those who will make meaningful, core contributions to AI tech are doing it with pen and paper, not computers.
tgv 7y ago
That first line is pure nonsense.

starpilot 7y ago

I wouldn't be that... mean. But if it's anything like his aerospace pursuits, yeah, I wouldn't bet on any breakthroughs.

robryan 7y ago
To be fair aerospace was never really a full time thing and was budget restricted. Given fulltime and Bezos money who knows.

wanderer2323 7y ago

I doubt he will sit at home working on it alone for long.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lostmsu 7y ago

I recently "retired" to do the same, and logic here is - there is no harm in trying, if you have resources (of course, he has magnitudes more). You can get up to date in the field in under half a year of extensive reading. And many of those scientists are too busy solving more specific goals, that their labs set. I doubt there are more than 1,000 researchers in the world specifically working on AGI.

b3kart 7y ago
“_Specifically_ working on Artificial _General_ Intelligence” is a bit like “As a physics major I’ve decided to specialise in physics.”
- marvin 7y ago
  Well.... There's the possibility that there's a certain degree of myopia in the AI field as a whole. As in, we know that there are some pretty gaping holes in our models and understanding, and most of the effort is spent on refining approaches that we have already validated. Maybe a better analogy would be "specialize physical theories that work in all environments, not have to be adapted separately for the ocean, space, the atmosphere, the forest" etc.
  - b3kart 7y ago
    There's certainly a lot to be done, and we'll likely need new approaches. But is it really productive to be tackling a general problem when we don't even know how to solve specific sub-problems? Especially if solving said sub-problems would bring a lot of value in its own right.
    - marvin 7y ago
      It’s basic research. No one knows anything about which approaches will work. If a genius millionaire technologist wants to dedicate all their time and effort to any novel approach, I’d strongly endorse it. (Not that it matters; they’ll do it anyway). I feel likewise for any research effort; it’s not like this will put all cancer research on hold, or more immediately practical AI research. It’s just a few hundred people globally :) And it’s such promising technology.