5 ms·

I know that reference. When I watched that movie I was just like ugh, and then I continued watching, and it just got worse.

by carlmr 4y ago

eru 4y ago
Inception also used that myth, I think, to justify why time runs at different speed in the dream. (Which makes no sense, when they go multiple layers..)
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Related to that, I find I often end up getting into arguments with people over the "computers run at such faster speeds than humans" myths/tropes. It's very common in the cyberpunk genre especially that time "runs faster" for people inside simulation spaces (metaverses/The Matrix/whatever). (Or sometimes the other direction where robots/cyborgs are significantly faster than humans at "thinking".) Computers are very fast at raw, boring mathematical calculations such addition, but that doesn't transfer to entire physics simulations or human scale activities. Think about how much time it takes a large file to download/transfer, for instance. A lot of videogame design through history and continuing through the modern day is fighting to keep the physics simulation close to real time and lot of classic videogame glitches and/or bugs are when it takes longer than real time to simulate. (With the fun that the Halting Problem tells us that we'll never be certain exactly how long it takes to run algorithms, in general.)
  - eru 4y ago
    Well, with sufficiently advanced computers, your simulations can run as fast or your cyborgs think as fast as the plot demands. Many video games are and always have been pushing limits. So you'd expect many them to barely run on their contemporary hardware. (A notable exception is Tetris. Thanks to being invented by people on obsolete Soviet computers, no western computer ever had any trouble running it.) > With the fun that the Halting Problem tells us that we'll never be certain exactly how long it takes to run algorithms, in general. The Halting Problem is barely relevant here: it only applies to arbitrary programs. It doesn't have any bearing on running one specific computation faster.
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      > Well, with sufficiently advanced computers, your simulations can run as fast or your cyborgs think as fast as the plot demands. We've reached the edges of Moore's Law. We're starting to see the horizon where "sufficiently advanced computers" end. You might be fine with plots playing fast and loose with physics limitations and optimistically still believe tomorrow's computers will be "magic". I'm just saying that it is starting to bug me versus realism in the exact same sorts of fashion as "humans only use 10% of their brains" tropes. "Computers only use 10% of their transistors." Just like the bad human trope, it ignores that most transistors are highly specialized (an FPU is not a GPU is not a general purpose CPU). > The Halting Problem is barely relevant here: it only applies to arbitrary programs. It doesn't have any bearing on running one specific computation faster. We're talking about extremely arbitrary programs from stories that are being done for the first time ever. "Hacks" that no one has ever done before. "Holodeck simulations" built in magic amounts of time just on a couple of spoken sentences. Humans "diving into" computer dreamscapes and doing all sorts of human scale simulation things in some sort of "quick time" which seems to be directly in the intersection of both the "humans only use 10% of their brains" myths and the "computers run really fast" myths. Those aren't just well studied apps running standalone without human interaction and with just "one specific computation". Those are REPLs and other human input devices including speech to text to ML (?) and complicated physics calculus that isn't just add/subtract things real fast and all sorts of other things that take wall clock time and are being "programmed" for the first time, on the fly. Of course The Halting Problem applies to all of those types of scenarios. I certainly enjoy watching/reading such magic computer fantasies when I can muster a suspension of disbelief, but I've also started to feel like most of them are written by people that have never faced the contemporary realities of computer programming and believe in a myth of magically faster computers and human interface design that doesn't exist today and pessimistically may never exist.
      - eru 4y ago
        What makes you think we reached the edge of Moore's Law? It's often been pronounced dead, but it's still going strong. Especially if you consider that not just CPUs, but GPUs (and Systems-on-a-chip etc) can also be torch-bearers as far as the Law is concerned. Even present day chips are already much faster than neurons. Oversimplified: our transistors work at (the same order of magnitude as) the speed of light; while neurons work at (the same order of magnitude as) the speed of sound. As far as we can tell, we can just use more and more transistors in parallel, and will eventually get something that can probably run a mind much faster than a human brain can. I have no opinion on whether that's actually the case, but it seems a plausible enough assumption for a story. > Just like the bad human trope, it ignores that most transistors are highly specialized (an FPU is not a GPU is not a general purpose CPU). You are right for CPU-type workloads. But if your story take how present day GPUs run present day neural nets, and extrapolates from there, you could very plausibly have an architecture that runs general intelligence, uses most of its transistors most the time, but the hardware looks extremely specialised for one very specific type of computation. (I suspect that it is battery-energy consumption and waste heat consideration that will make us not use most transistors powering our cyborgs most of the time. We have already been seeing dynamic frequency scaling with CPUs for ages even on Desktop. Smartphones made these energy considerations even more of a priority.) > We're talking about extremely arbitrary programs from stories that are being done for the first time ever. "Hacks" that no one has ever done before. "Holodeck simulations" built in magic amounts of time just on a couple of spoken sentences. Doesn't sound magic at all to me. Today Dall-E 2 already produces awesome images from short descriptions, and GPT-3 can produce stories. Building a complete holodeck simulation is a straightforward extrapolation. (Yet again, I don't know whether in reality there will be a smooth road from today's technology. But it's more than plausible enough for fiction.) The Halting Problem doesn't apply to these kinds of things at all. Dall-E 2 and GTP-3 aren't even Turing complete. > [...] but I've also started to feel like most of them are written by people that have never faced the contemporary realities of computer programming [...] That's most likely true for most authors, yes.
KineticLensman 4y ago
Somewhat coincidentally, I watched it - the film Lucy - yesterday and can confirm that it does indeed get worse. I would have liked it better if the story arc was more like 'Flowers for Algernon'.

I know that reference. When I watched that movie I was just like ugh, and then I continued watching, and it just got worse.

by carlmr 4y ago

I know that reference. When I watched that movie I was just like ugh, and then I continued watching, and it just got worse.

eru 4y ago

Inception also used that myth, I think, to justify why time runs at different speed in the dream. (Which makes no sense, when they go multiple layers..)

WorldMaker 4y ago
Related to that, I find I often end up getting into arguments with people over the "computers run at such faster speeds than humans" myths/tropes. It's very common in the cyberpunk genre especially that time "runs faster" for people inside simulation spaces (metaverses/The Matrix/whatever). (Or sometimes the other direction where robots/cyborgs are significantly faster than humans at "thinking".) Computers are very fast at raw, boring mathematical calculations such addition, but that doesn't transfer to entire physics simulations or human scale activities. Think about how much time it takes a large file to download/transfer, for instance. A lot of videogame design through history and continuing through the modern day is fighting to keep the physics simulation close to real time and lot of classic videogame glitches and/or bugs are when it takes longer than real time to simulate. (With the fun that the Halting Problem tells us that we'll never be certain exactly how long it takes to run algorithms, in general.)
- eru 4y ago
  Well, with sufficiently advanced computers, your simulations can run as fast or your cyborgs think as fast as the plot demands. Many video games are and always have been pushing limits. So you'd expect many them to barely run on their contemporary hardware. (A notable exception is Tetris. Thanks to being invented by people on obsolete Soviet computers, no western computer ever had any trouble running it.) > With the fun that the Halting Problem tells us that we'll never be certain exactly how long it takes to run algorithms, in general. The Halting Problem is barely relevant here: it only applies to arbitrary programs. It doesn't have any bearing on running one specific computation faster.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    > Well, with sufficiently advanced computers, your simulations can run as fast or your cyborgs think as fast as the plot demands. We've reached the edges of Moore's Law. We're starting to see the horizon where "sufficiently advanced computers" end. You might be fine with plots playing fast and loose with physics limitations and optimistically still believe tomorrow's computers will be "magic". I'm just saying that it is starting to bug me versus realism in the exact same sorts of fashion as "humans only use 10% of their brains" tropes. "Computers only use 10% of their transistors." Just like the bad human trope, it ignores that most transistors are highly specialized (an FPU is not a GPU is not a general purpose CPU). > The Halting Problem is barely relevant here: it only applies to arbitrary programs. It doesn't have any bearing on running one specific computation faster. We're talking about extremely arbitrary programs from stories that are being done for the first time ever. "Hacks" that no one has ever done before. "Holodeck simulations" built in magic amounts of time just on a couple of spoken sentences. Humans "diving into" computer dreamscapes and doing all sorts of human scale simulation things in some sort of "quick time" which seems to be directly in the intersection of both the "humans only use 10% of their brains" myths and the "computers run really fast" myths. Those aren't just well studied apps running standalone without human interaction and with just "one specific computation". Those are REPLs and other human input devices including speech to text to ML (?) and complicated physics calculus that isn't just add/subtract things real fast and all sorts of other things that take wall clock time and are being "programmed" for the first time, on the fly. Of course The Halting Problem applies to all of those types of scenarios. I certainly enjoy watching/reading such magic computer fantasies when I can muster a suspension of disbelief, but I've also started to feel like most of them are written by people that have never faced the contemporary realities of computer programming and believe in a myth of magically faster computers and human interface design that doesn't exist today and pessimistically may never exist.
    - eru 4y ago
      What makes you think we reached the edge of Moore's Law? It's often been pronounced dead, but it's still going strong. Especially if you consider that not just CPUs, but GPUs (and Systems-on-a-chip etc) can also be torch-bearers as far as the Law is concerned. Even present day chips are already much faster than neurons. Oversimplified: our transistors work at (the same order of magnitude as) the speed of light; while neurons work at (the same order of magnitude as) the speed of sound. As far as we can tell, we can just use more and more transistors in parallel, and will eventually get something that can probably run a mind much faster than a human brain can. I have no opinion on whether that's actually the case, but it seems a plausible enough assumption for a story. > Just like the bad human trope, it ignores that most transistors are highly specialized (an FPU is not a GPU is not a general purpose CPU). You are right for CPU-type workloads. But if your story take how present day GPUs run present day neural nets, and extrapolates from there, you could very plausibly have an architecture that runs general intelligence, uses most of its transistors most the time, but the hardware looks extremely specialised for one very specific type of computation. (I suspect that it is battery-energy consumption and waste heat consideration that will make us not use most transistors powering our cyborgs most of the time. We have already been seeing dynamic frequency scaling with CPUs for ages even on Desktop. Smartphones made these energy considerations even more of a priority.) > We're talking about extremely arbitrary programs from stories that are being done for the first time ever. "Hacks" that no one has ever done before. "Holodeck simulations" built in magic amounts of time just on a couple of spoken sentences. Doesn't sound magic at all to me. Today Dall-E 2 already produces awesome images from short descriptions, and GPT-3 can produce stories. Building a complete holodeck simulation is a straightforward extrapolation. (Yet again, I don't know whether in reality there will be a smooth road from today's technology. But it's more than plausible enough for fiction.) The Halting Problem doesn't apply to these kinds of things at all. Dall-E 2 and GTP-3 aren't even Turing complete. > [...] but I've also started to feel like most of them are written by people that have never faced the contemporary realities of computer programming [...] That's most likely true for most authors, yes.

KineticLensman 4y ago

Somewhat coincidentally, I watched it - the film Lucy - yesterday and can confirm that it does indeed get worse. I would have liked it better if the story arc was more like 'Flowers for Algernon'.