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This guy is so weirdly pessimistic about the future. I don’t understand what you get by being right about predicting omission. Doesn’t seem to be helpful. Mayb

by twayt 4y ago

This guy is so weirdly pessimistic about the future. I don’t understand what you get by being right about predicting omission. Doesn’t seem to be helpful. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t stand to inherit the future others seek to build

sfpotter 4y ago
How is he weirdly pessimistic? He's consistently right. Personally, I would be happy if there were fewer people moving into overheated areas. Every person working on crypto, quantum computing, AI, self-driving cars, virtual reality (among other things!) is a person who isn't doing something tangibly and immediately useful for society. And it's clear most of those people are in it for purely venal reasons: they want a big payday. It's not good to have so many bull shit artists in a society.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I've nothing against people working on long-term--and possibly speculative--problems. It's when they basically lie about the prospects as, for you say, a payday.
ghaff 4y ago
So we should all just hype things we don't actually think will happen (at least in a given timeframe)? Perhaps so we can get in on the grift as seems to have been the case in at least some cases with autonomous driving. It's one thing to work towards ambitious goals. It's another to mislead people about what is realistically possible.
s1mon 4y ago
"This guy" has been inventing the future for a while [0]. Some of the earliest walking, self-balancing robots are ones of which he lead the development. He founded iRobot (amongst other companies) which has sold over 30 million home robots. [1] He's been part of the real world implementation of AI for decades. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRobot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRobot
goatlover 4y ago
Maybe because he works in a relevant field for seeing certain technologies be consistently overhyped and overpromised? Also because he has really good point about predicting the future of tech whose limitations we don't really understand. It becomes a way for us to make magical predictions. AGI can do anything if you don't understand what its limits might be. Cue Ray Kurzweil.

by twayt 4y ago

sfpotter 4y ago

How is he weirdly pessimistic? He's consistently right. Personally, I would be happy if there were fewer people moving into overheated areas. Every person working on crypto, quantum computing, AI, self-driving cars, virtual reality (among other things!) is a person who isn't doing something tangibly and immediately useful for society. And it's clear most of those people are in it for purely venal reasons: they want a big payday. It's not good to have so many bull shit artists in a society.

ghaff 4y ago
I've nothing against people working on long-term--and possibly speculative--problems. It's when they basically lie about the prospects as, for you say, a payday.

ghaff 4y ago

So we should all just hype things we don't actually think will happen (at least in a given timeframe)? Perhaps so we can get in on the grift as seems to have been the case in at least some cases with autonomous driving. It's one thing to work towards ambitious goals. It's another to mislead people about what is realistically possible.

s1mon 4y ago

"This guy" has been inventing the future for a while [0]. Some of the earliest walking, self-balancing robots are ones of which he lead the development. He founded iRobot (amongst other companies) which has sold over 30 million home robots. [1] He's been part of the real world implementation of AI for decades. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRobot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRobot

goatlover 4y ago

Maybe because he works in a relevant field for seeing certain technologies be consistently overhyped and overpromised? Also because he has really good point about predicting the future of tech whose limitations we don't really understand. It becomes a way for us to make magical predictions. AGI can do anything if you don't understand what its limits might be. Cue Ray Kurzweil.