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"And so, if we were to rightsize the scaling for our intellectual life, you should describe Harvard, not as one of the thousands of great universities, you shou

"And so, if we were to rightsize the scaling for our intellectual life, you should describe Harvard, not as one of the thousands of great universities, you should describe it as a Studio 54 nightclub" is really all you need to take away from this. Not for what it says, but for the desperate attempt of those words to make any real sense. Although don't miss out on gems like: "But in practice, the main AI applications that people seem to talk about are using large data to sort of monitor people, know more about people than they know about themselves. And in the limit case, maybe it can solve a lot of the sort of Austrian Economics type problems where you can know enough about people that you know more about them than they know about themselves, and you can sort of enable communism to work, maybe not so much as an economic theory, but at least as a political theory. So it is definitely a Leninist thing. And then, it is literally communist because China loves AI; it hates crypto. And so that, I think, tells you something." AI is literally communist. Thanks Peter.

jmull 7y ago
Thanks, I was wondering if I should read it or not and this gives me some good tidbits to help decide.
chrisco255 7y ago
Maybe not so elegantly put, but there's no question that China has embraced AI as a tool for spying on its own people. For whatever reason, spying seems to be a consistent Orwellian feature of communism. It was a central feature of the Soviet Union and China just seems to be taking the franchise to new heights with its approach to AI. I don't know what to say about the Harvard quote, but with the recent admissions scandal implicating that rich people are buying their way into premium universities and into higher SAT scores, there's some nugget of truth to criticizing the current situation. I wonder if universities aren't suffering Goodheart's Law: "Once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a useful measure." That is to say, once we measured that a university degree lead to higher incomes, better life outcomes, etc. and then we started pressuring everyone to get a four year degree...did it cease to be a good measure for quality employees, creative thinking, problem solving skills, etc? I think there's something to that. When everyone is obsessed with getting the degree, and they're not worried about the practical application of their knowledge, they are doing the world a disservice. And we're all suffering for it, through higher debt and inflated expectations.
- Omnitaus 7y ago
  I'm not sure America is as different from China as you seem to imply here. You don't manage to incarcerate more individuals than "an authoritarian communist dictatorship" four times your size without massively scaling the state's ability to monitor citizens. 20% of the world's prisoners are in America. Is spying a consistent Orwellian feature of American capitalism?
davidivadavid 7y ago
I'm not sure what's unclear about what he's saying. a) Harvard is a pure signaling mechanism that doesn't provide education as much as exclusionary credentials. b) AI/Big data is a way to solve the economic calculation problem that was once seen as one of the main theoretical hurdles against communism. That a country like China favors AI and punishes crypto tells you something (that it's a communist dictatorship). It's pretty straightforward.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  I also liked the fact that he points out he'd like to see innovation not just "in some iPhone app" but more broadly in different fields. I think this is a good point, there isn't enough going on in other areas, like he said people ride the 100 year old subway distracted by their iPhones not realizing the world around them is unchanging mostly. It's true in some ways, who will build or even demand the better faster subways of the future if 99% of the people don't even realize they're on the subway.
  - davidivadavid 7y ago
    Yup. To be fair, that's a point he's been making for ~10 years about the world of atoms and world of bits dichotomy. I think it's also, in part, subtly caused by our narrow understanding of the word "technology" to be "software made in Silicon Valley" as opposed to a broader "tool that serves a human purpose." If we broadened that understanding, we could see engineers applying their skills to problems that would be just as lucrative, but could be more legitimately called "innovative" than working on the umpteenth marginal "tech" app.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Well, but China doesn't use AI to centrally plan the details of its economy. Corporations, prices, and competition are undisputed features of the economy there. Whether you want to call it communist or not, the computational problem is still as intractable as ever. There's a difference between monitoring and regulating society with computers and solving the classical economic calculation problem. And Harvard is a way for elites to network, but that's not merely arbitrary signalling - it depends on how those elites are selected.
roenxi 7y ago
Quoting him and restating the point isn't an argument. AI fits very neatly into China's policy goals in a way that it doesn't for liberal politics. We don't know how the improvements in AI are going to play out - it is very easy to see how it could turn out that these are the missing technologies to make a totalitarian state the most productive equilibrium, or communism, or anything else.
taneq 7y ago
> And then, it is literally communist because China loves AI; it hates crypto. And so that, I think, tells you something. China also loves cheap r/c cars, does that make them communist?
- Animats 7y ago
  "Crypto"? The biggest Bitcoin miners are in China. That's because mining Bitcoin is "exporting", and a legit way to get yuan into dollars or euros. Buy mining hardware with yuan, mine, sell Bitcoin outside China. Not only is it legal, because it's exporting, it's encouraged and some breaks for creating an export business are available.
  - Williamrussell 7y ago
    Well, Bitcoin is valued a lot lower now in 2019. I'm a Christian and I have many investments as well as stock and cryptocurrency (BITCOIN). Also, your education, you need to educate yourself on investing. Everything including the knowledge and monies that I have gained over the years related to cryptocurrency/bitcoin I have learnt all through this guy right here…[DIGITALASSETSCONSULTANCY@HOTMAIL. COM ] I personally fell in love with everything cryptocurrency and I'm invested in blockchain projects that may be disruptive and solve future problems. I met this cryptocurrency expert on a blockchain blog where he helped people retrieved their stolen bitcoin wallets, passwords from online scammers. My life changed for good when I signed up for his mining investment and trading strategies. I started with just $500 and in less than 5 days my investment increased by 1000% was able to accumulate about 176000 USD in less than 3 weeks. I am not used to doing something like this but i believe there are millions of people out there that need to see this and I really can not keep this to myself. I am a very appreciative person and this is a way of saying thank you to the team Digital Assets Consultancy for a job well done. Contact him at his email address if you need help in bitcoin mining or trading or wish to invest to yield maximal profits.
  - incognition 7y ago
    Exactly. Obvious factual errors on Thiel's part tells he's lost the plot
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
frickinLasers 7y ago
Isn't this the guy who founded Palantir?

jmull 7y ago

Thanks, I was wondering if I should read it or not and this gives me some good tidbits to help decide.

chrisco255 7y ago

Maybe not so elegantly put, but there's no question that China has embraced AI as a tool for spying on its own people. For whatever reason, spying seems to be a consistent Orwellian feature of communism. It was a central feature of the Soviet Union and China just seems to be taking the franchise to new heights with its approach to AI. I don't know what to say about the Harvard quote, but with the recent admissions scandal implicating that rich people are buying their way into premium universities and into higher SAT scores, there's some nugget of truth to criticizing the current situation. I wonder if universities aren't suffering Goodheart's Law: "Once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a useful measure." That is to say, once we measured that a university degree lead to higher incomes, better life outcomes, etc. and then we started pressuring everyone to get a four year degree...did it cease to be a good measure for quality employees, creative thinking, problem solving skills, etc? I think there's something to that. When everyone is obsessed with getting the degree, and they're not worried about the practical application of their knowledge, they are doing the world a disservice. And we're all suffering for it, through higher debt and inflated expectations.

Omnitaus 7y ago
I'm not sure America is as different from China as you seem to imply here. You don't manage to incarcerate more individuals than "an authoritarian communist dictatorship" four times your size without massively scaling the state's ability to monitor citizens. 20% of the world's prisoners are in America. Is spying a consistent Orwellian feature of American capitalism?

davidivadavid 7y ago

I'm not sure what's unclear about what he's saying. a) Harvard is a pure signaling mechanism that doesn't provide education as much as exclusionary credentials. b) AI/Big data is a way to solve the economic calculation problem that was once seen as one of the main theoretical hurdles against communism. That a country like China favors AI and punishes crypto tells you something (that it's a communist dictatorship). It's pretty straightforward.

bamboozled 7y ago
I also liked the fact that he points out he'd like to see innovation not just "in some iPhone app" but more broadly in different fields. I think this is a good point, there isn't enough going on in other areas, like he said people ride the 100 year old subway distracted by their iPhones not realizing the world around them is unchanging mostly. It's true in some ways, who will build or even demand the better faster subways of the future if 99% of the people don't even realize they're on the subway.
- davidivadavid 7y ago
  Yup. To be fair, that's a point he's been making for ~10 years about the world of atoms and world of bits dichotomy. I think it's also, in part, subtly caused by our narrow understanding of the word "technology" to be "software made in Silicon Valley" as opposed to a broader "tool that serves a human purpose." If we broadened that understanding, we could see engineers applying their skills to problems that would be just as lucrative, but could be more legitimately called "innovative" than working on the umpteenth marginal "tech" app.
perl4ever 7y ago
Well, but China doesn't use AI to centrally plan the details of its economy. Corporations, prices, and competition are undisputed features of the economy there. Whether you want to call it communist or not, the computational problem is still as intractable as ever. There's a difference between monitoring and regulating society with computers and solving the classical economic calculation problem. And Harvard is a way for elites to network, but that's not merely arbitrary signalling - it depends on how those elites are selected.

roenxi 7y ago

Quoting him and restating the point isn't an argument. AI fits very neatly into China's policy goals in a way that it doesn't for liberal politics. We don't know how the improvements in AI are going to play out - it is very easy to see how it could turn out that these are the missing technologies to make a totalitarian state the most productive equilibrium, or communism, or anything else.

taneq 7y ago

> And then, it is literally communist because China loves AI; it hates crypto. And so that, I think, tells you something. China also loves cheap r/c cars, does that make them communist?

Animats 7y ago
"Crypto"? The biggest Bitcoin miners are in China. That's because mining Bitcoin is "exporting", and a legit way to get yuan into dollars or euros. Buy mining hardware with yuan, mine, sell Bitcoin outside China. Not only is it legal, because it's exporting, it's encouraged and some breaks for creating an export business are available.
- Williamrussell 7y ago
  Well, Bitcoin is valued a lot lower now in 2019. I'm a Christian and I have many investments as well as stock and cryptocurrency (BITCOIN). Also, your education, you need to educate yourself on investing. Everything including the knowledge and monies that I have gained over the years related to cryptocurrency/bitcoin I have learnt all through this guy right here…[DIGITALASSETSCONSULTANCY@HOTMAIL. COM ] I personally fell in love with everything cryptocurrency and I'm invested in blockchain projects that may be disruptive and solve future problems. I met this cryptocurrency expert on a blockchain blog where he helped people retrieved their stolen bitcoin wallets, passwords from online scammers. My life changed for good when I signed up for his mining investment and trading strategies. I started with just $500 and in less than 5 days my investment increased by 1000% was able to accumulate about 176000 USD in less than 3 weeks. I am not used to doing something like this but i believe there are millions of people out there that need to see this and I really can not keep this to myself. I am a very appreciative person and this is a way of saying thank you to the team Digital Assets Consultancy for a job well done. Contact him at his email address if you need help in bitcoin mining or trading or wish to invest to yield maximal profits.
- incognition 7y ago
  Exactly. Obvious factual errors on Thiel's part tells he's lost the plot

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

frickinLasers 7y ago

Isn't this the guy who founded Palantir?