4 ms·

I dont really get how people see the progress of the last 10 or even 5 years and then imply that things won't improve all that much further than that for a whol

by Tenoke 5y ago

I dont really get how people see the progress of the last 10 or even 5 years and then imply that things won't improve all that much further than that for a whole generation.

adventured 5y ago
It's just the pattern of people camping into one or the other extreme, which tends to occur with every topic. Nuance and depth is mentally expensive, whereas extremes are trivially easy by comparison and super fast (because you can discard so much explanation, discussion, thought and reality-binding once you decide to pursue fantasy). It's identical to: AI sucks vs AI is amazing. Well, no, it's a complicated subject and always will be. Those extremes snippets are worthless bumpersticker-thought. AI will very rapidly conquer all, becoming a practical Earth deity in the span of decades. AI will disappoint perpetually, progressing at a snail's pace for decades to come. The truth is dramatically more likely to be inbetween the extremes, and going there intellectually doesn't lend itself very well to short comments.
neltnerb 5y ago
The oldest publication from DeepMind is 2011, just for a post in the ground. Yes, I know neural networks are older than that. It would be a little disappointing if we could even guess how an AI system in 2040 would work, I don't think many people in 2000 would have guessed neural networks would be the most useful type in regular use in 2020. In my field of expertise there are grad students today taking classes on topics that when I finished my PhD in 2010 no one had heard of yet. Literal cases of people finding closed form solutions for equations that we had to solve with approximation before.
guscost 5y ago
You could have said the same exact thing about aerospace in 1970.
plorkyeran 5y ago
Most areas of study up being S-curves, not exponential gains forever.

4 ms·

I dont really get how people see the progress of the last 10 or even 5 years and then imply that things won't improve all that much further than that for a whol

by Tenoke 5y ago

I dont really get how people see the progress of the last 10 or even 5 years and then imply that things won't improve all that much further than that for a whole generation.

adventured 5y ago
It's just the pattern of people camping into one or the other extreme, which tends to occur with every topic. Nuance and depth is mentally expensive, whereas extremes are trivially easy by comparison and super fast (because you can discard so much explanation, discussion, thought and reality-binding once you decide to pursue fantasy). It's identical to: AI sucks vs AI is amazing. Well, no, it's a complicated subject and always will be. Those extremes snippets are worthless bumpersticker-thought. AI will very rapidly conquer all, becoming a practical Earth deity in the span of decades. AI will disappoint perpetually, progressing at a snail's pace for decades to come. The truth is dramatically more likely to be inbetween the extremes, and going there intellectually doesn't lend itself very well to short comments.
neltnerb 5y ago
The oldest publication from DeepMind is 2011, just for a post in the ground. Yes, I know neural networks are older than that. It would be a little disappointing if we could even guess how an AI system in 2040 would work, I don't think many people in 2000 would have guessed neural networks would be the most useful type in regular use in 2020. In my field of expertise there are grad students today taking classes on topics that when I finished my PhD in 2010 no one had heard of yet. Literal cases of people finding closed form solutions for equations that we had to solve with approximation before.
guscost 5y ago
You could have said the same exact thing about aerospace in 1970.
plorkyeran 5y ago
Most areas of study up being S-curves, not exponential gains forever.