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> it is far more interesting than 90% of the stuff a lot of your FAANG companies are spending R&D dollars on Yup. “The best minds of my generation are thinking
by shaan7 5y ago
> it is far more interesting than 90% of the stuff a lot of your FAANG companies are spending R&D dollars on
Yup. “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.”
- wiz21c 5y agoYup double yup ! > numerous lives it would save If you want to save lives, work on malnutrition, reducing coal energy, water access, basic vaccines, etc. You'll have a much greater impact.
- XorNot 5y agoThese are political problems, it's a different skillset.
- logicchains 5y agoGlobally around 1.3 million people are killed in motor accidents yearly and tens of millions more are permanently disabled (https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index...). In comparison there are around 0.4 million malaria deaths annually (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria). So eliminating motor accidents would save around 3x more lives than curing malaria.
- bildung 5y agoThis is indeed a problem, but Denmark's highways right now have 1/6 of the death rate of US highways, so if saving lives actually was the goal, AI isn't exactly the low hanging fruit.
- LudwigNagasena 5y agoWhat’s the point of comparing the US to countries that are as populous as the DC metro area? There are so many factors at play the comparison is completely meaningless.
- bildung 5y agoDeath rate is calculated as deaths per billion miles driven, so I don't see how the respective populations matter here. One could make the argument that population density is important to consider, but in the US the less populated states have higher death rates IIRC.
- jcims 5y agoWhere are you getting those stats? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Denmark (like most countries) are definitely better at not getting killed on the road, but closer to a factor of two by miles driven and four per capita.
- bildung 5y agoFrom here (and my number was indeed wrong, its 1/5, not 1/6): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#United_States_compared_to_other_nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
- martin8412 5y agoDon't worry about it to be honest. The guy is just giving the typical American response. Nothing that works in every single other country in the world could possibly work in the US due to their size. Nevermind the fact that it works in less or more populated countries. It just can't possibly work in the US. For other examples look at how the only way to deal with trash in New York is to throw it on the street or how California has huge forest fires almost every year due to powerlines falling.. If only there was a solution to those already solved problems
- LudwigNagasena 5y agoNo, it is a typical response of a guy who spent two years and countless nights studying econometrics and the issues of specification and identification. But thank you for wrongly assuming my nationality and disregarding my response based on that.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoI think it would be a lot easier to develop full self-driving than to get Americans to accept and implement the road safety measures that are in place in Denmark. And that's not even counting if there are cultural factors that make Danes better drivers other things being equal. I can't even imagine how many billions of dollars it would take.
- piva00 5y agoSo it's easier for us to teach a computer to think than to teach people to think and act differently? Not sure if I agree with that statement, they require very different solutions, one is technical and the other social. I don't think just because the social solution is hard that it makes the technical one easier...
- jacobmischka 5y agoMaybe not objectively, but probably for some people. While some could be, many expert engineers wouldn't be expert social scientists or public servants.
- boringg 5y agoGo look up changing to the metric system in the US. Failed effort billions of dollars. Definitely agree with the prior commentators statement. Technical solitarily already seems in the wild by enhancing driving capability...
- bbarnett 5y agoAgree. I expect 2050, easily, before there's even the remotest hope of even parity with human drivers. I'm always astonished at how those most skilled at software, turn around and explain how software is better than humans at task $x. Yet, I've never used a piece of software without bugs. I've never seen a piece of software, not real world capable, which even remotely close to dealing with things, as well as humans. And the more complex the software, the more bugs. Bugs abound in complex software. Full self driving is as complex as the linux kernel, easily. How many bugs are in the Linux kernel? Right now? To even hope, even begin to hope that things will be mostly bug free, bug free beyond human "bugs" when driving, we'd: - Need to 100% freeze the platform, so the car has zero changes. Ever. Like a Volvo, 10+, 20+ years with only fixes for flaws. No change in drive train. No change in how the car handles, etc. - A 100% feature freeze fix for years and years, only bug fixes, no feature add. It's just not happening overnight. And when it does, cars are going to require an addition of massive sensors, it's not going to be camera or radar, it's going to be camera, radar, lidar, motion, wind, and 50 other environmental sensors. It's going to be mainine computing power in triplicate. Connectivity and sensors in triplicate. 100%, no way is the AI CPU even slightly network connected. No over-the-air updates. Bugs cannot happen. Bugs kill. Bad hardware kills. I do get that having a car self drive, in the desert, in constantly warm temp is an easy thing. Try it at -40C, in a snow storm, with a snow filled road, in the country with no ditches, no lines to see (due to snow), in the dark, when windy, periodic white-outs, and more. Heck, I'll say there's a chance when AI can drive on a frozen lake. And yes, humans do and can. So far, all AI driving is monoculture. Not to mention, how about a 20 year old car? Or even 10? "Buy new?" Now you hate the environment! And 20 year old cars are driven daily by humans, no they aren't the primary cause of accidents, because, when driving you notice issues in the feel of how the car drives. Can AI "feel" that? Sure! But that means loads and loads of sensors! And cost! ANd repair bills! To be honest, my 2050 thing is likely mostly due to this. Cost.
- yarcob 5y agoWhen I was in Sweden on vacation, I was surprised that almost all except the most minor roads have a central divider. To allow overtaking, they have 2+1 lanes, and then after a few km they switch to 1+2 lanes (extra lane in the other direction). This eliminates the most deadly accidents (head on collisions) and makes overtaking completely stress free. It's a simple intervention that you can do almost anywhere, and it saves lives immediately. You only need to invest a bit in concrete barriers and paint. I wonder why almost no other country does that.
- halikular 5y agoSweden has the lowest traffic related deaths of any country [1]. There must be something to it, however it's strange how lackluster the government response was to covid in comparison. Edit: You think our covid restrictions was successful? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero#Outcomes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero#Outcomes
- breakfastduck 5y agoI imagine you're getting the downvotes because the covid point isn't really relevant to the thread at all. They're talking about road layouts.
- halikular 5y agoI was making an off topic comment but it was related to the information I gave comparing the wide differences of effort and in turn success of these independent issues. Maybe they weren't interested in that.
- sim_card_map 5y agoyes it was very successful: https://www.statista.com/statistics/525530/sweden-death-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/525530/sweden-death-rate...
- bratcomplex 5y agothey set standards for what a street, road, and highway are. and they do not mix them. As a result they are safer, cheaper, and land use has a higher tax revenue. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
- FredPret 5y agoThere’s also the time spent not driving. That counts as part of a life saved for every commuter
- h0l0cube 5y ago> So eliminating motor accidents would save around 3x more lives than curing malaria. Indeed, a worthwhile intervention. But when do you think Tesla will be auto-updating the FSD rickshaws in Liberia?
- fastball 5y agoThe faster it gets solved in the first market the faster it gets solved in the last, so the point stands.
- h0l0cube 5y agoNot really. If you spend a dollar now on mosquito nets you might save a life. If you order a Tesla, you have yourself a fancy car that few people in the world can afford.
- fastball 5y agoNot sure I follow.
- h0l0cube 5y agoYou can execute a vastly cheaper intervention now, or you can speculate on something that helps in the future at some indeterminate time, probably decades away, that will always cost more.
- h0l0cube 5y agoAnd to make another point against FSD as a humanitarian intervention. Looking at the highest vehicle deaths per capita (or per no. of vehicles), it over represented by developing nations. What's common to them is poor infrastructure, unpaved roads, older vehicles with less safety features, lack of government enforced safety standards, lack of road rules and enforcement, etc. Worldwide road deaths will be more affected by regulatory interventions, capital spending, etc. FSD won't make a real dint in this number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
- exdsq 5y agoIf we just look at deaths then sure, this could be right. However malaria is something we know how to tackle and isn’t that expensive. It’d be much more efficient to cure malaria than to eliminate all motor accidents.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Graffur 5y agoHow can we get jobs in these areas or do you mean to start businesses in these areas?
- halfmatthalfcat 5y agoI'm sure there will be a ton of residual effects from FSD. One off the top of my head being Emergency Services will be able to respond to emergencies faster because of minimized road congestion.
- scrose 5y agoHistory has shown that when you make driving easier, people drive more.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y agoAnd? Does that matter if we have better capacity/congestion planning because all the cars are self driving. There's so much wasted time in traffic and excess congestion because humans are at the wheel creating chaotic traffic fluctuations by their driving.
- scrose 5y agoYes. That does matter, a lot. Look up induced demand. Also consider that full-self driving will likely mean more cars on the road that don't even have a person in them. Traffic backups and delays aren't just created from people crashing, it's because when you take a a dozen tiny humans and you put each of them in mostly > 15foot long cars, you now have 12 people managing to take up over 180 feet of space. Speeding up emergency services is a solved problem. You take a lane that is filled with single-occupant vehicles, and you dedicate that to efficient forms of transit, whether it be a high-speed bus lane or a bike lane. Emergency services will not only opt to use that the majority of the time, they will also be less likely to crash with another vehicle due to not needing to weave lane to lane. Hope this helps.
- p1esk 5y agoNope. The best minds work on whatever they're interested in (this includes making better ads): https://ai.facebook.com/research https://ai.facebook.com/research https://research.google/research-areas/ https://research.google/research-areas/
- ramraj07 5y agoThat’s definitely not true. The smartest (clearly not the best if you take conscience into account) minds of today work either in ad farms or as money movers. You can sugarcoat it however you want but if you work in google or Facebook you definitely are just farming ads but with extra steps.
- DrAwdeOccarim 5y agoMaybe in tech, but not in bio.
- PatentlyDC123 5y agoOr nearly any other field, e.g., mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry/chemical engineering, nearly any of the sciences involved in the medical field (from pharmacology to psychology to name a few). Even "softer" fields like law and literature have present day geniuses pioneering new ground. I understand that HackerNews is tech centered, but some times when I read "the best minds of my generation are doing X" I wonder if the commenter can see the flashes of brilliance shining beyond their field or what they know as "tech."
- DrAwdeOccarim 5y agoTotally agree. I'm surprised I was downvoted for my comment?
- p1esk 5y agoHinton and Lecun are two of the smartest people working at Google/FB, and they don't work in ad farms or as money movers.
- Graffur 5y agoAre they really the 'best' minds if that is what they choose to do? Not in my opinion.
- piva00 5y agoI'd change "the best minds" to the "some of the most educated and technically prepared minds". And it's not only to click ads, there is a whole lot of engineers (even more in poorer countries such as Brazil) who end up working in banks and finance, mostly to deal with complex spreadsheets. It's a complete waste of educational investment.
- MperorM 5y agoSpreadsheets and finance has tremendous value!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wyre 5y agoI think their described as ‘best’ minds because they graduated top of their class at Ivy League, leading California school, etc.
- hoseja 5y agoWell, the idea is that they demand the highest salary and those who pay the highest salary are companies interested in improving ad-clicking. It's not "abstractly best" but "empirically best". If you get the most money, you are by some definition the best.
- p1esk 5y agoThe companies might be interested in add clicking, but they are willing to hire extraordinary people who work on whatever they feel like.
- nickalaso 5y ago
- zitterbewegung 5y agoBut, indirectly it becomes an interesting problem (nlp research). If we didn't have people playing / making video games then we wouldn't have figured out GPU acceleration to use with deep networks (backpropagation is fast when you can do matrix multiplication fast).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- GuB-42 5y ago> Yup. “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” That's better than when the best minds are thinking about how to kill people. Anyways, it is a good thing that even if the end goal is far from noble, most of the times, invest enough in R&D and positive things come out of it.
- devonkim 5y agoI’ve heard it also as “making global scale dopamine delivery systems” when bringing in social media KPIs and other addiction-driven engagement like modern gaming monetization models
- an_opabinia 5y agoOn the other hand, “The average minds of my generation are thinking about Instagram.”