4 ms·

Seems like a much better mission for George Hotz to go on than single handedly trying to fix Twitter.

by neom 3y ago

vippy 3y ago
George Hotz is a talented engineer but he absolutely does not have the social science background to "fix" Twitter.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Being an engineer at Twitter is much more akin to an enterprise like a bank or telco. You need to be a team player and work across different groups e.g. Product, Testing, SRE etc in order to successfully get features into Production. So being a talented engineer is useful but having high emotional intelligence and being able to negotiate and collaborate is far more important.
  - pankajdoharey 3y ago
    You mean talk more and code less?
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    I'm surprised more people don't realize this. It happens to all big corp.
- confoundcofound 3y ago
  You don’t need a social science background to fix Twitter.
  - pinewurst 3y ago
    I think abnormal psychology or perhaps criminology would be helpful in understanding the current Twitter decision making process.
  - vippy 3y ago
    Define "fix." Twitter is a tool used by extremists to reach massive audiences. Some of those extremists have socially destructive and violent objectives. Responding to harassment and hate speech involves understanding the psychology of harassers and racists so that incentives can be designed not to reward those behaviors. IMO, "fixing" Twitter isn't just about fail whales and 500 errors.
asdfman123 3y ago
It wasn’t even fixing Twitter. It was marginally improving search.
- threeseed 3y ago
  From the actual engineers that were posting on Twitter marginal is putting it lightly. The quality, arrogance and ignorance of enterprise SDLC was akin to that of a 1st year grad.
  - asdfman123 3y ago
    It was so painful watching self-proclaimed tech geniuses displaying the same moronic attitude I had at 22
    - ActorNightly 3y ago
      I mean imagine being full of vigor to go out and do great things in the tech world, and then get your life almost destroyed by a stupid lawsuit at a young age by people who are much "stupider". Many of us would absolutely be just as contrarian towards general society as he is, and idolize contrarian figured like Musk. Doesn't mean that the work he is doing is not valid. It's a shame though because his ideology is very likely to hinder the progress in his companies (like for example policy against remote work).
stefan_ 3y ago
I thought he was doing AI self-driving. I see we are now moving the goalposts to "generalized intelligence" so I suppose there was no point for him to put up with just cars anymore.
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  I’m not convinced ai driving can even work without GAI. Seems like a logical next step to the gigantic yak shave that is autonomous driving.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Both Cruise and Waymo have human backup in case of unexpected edge cases. I suspect they are going to be needed for quite some time to come.
    - neom 3y ago
      Waymo removed it's backup drivers years ago... https://spectrumnews1.com/ap-top-news/2020/10/08/waymo-removing-backup-drivers-from-its-autonomous-vehicles https://spectrumnews1.com/ap-top-news/2020/10/08/waymo-remov... https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/29/waymo-launches-its-self-driving-service-without-backup-drivers https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/29/waymo-launches-its-self-... There was also a waymo press released this year that stated all rides in Arizona are now backup driver free, although I can't find it.
      - zaroth 3y ago
        They removed the human from the car. There’s still humans to recover from the edge cases. I don’t know if they actually remote control the cars or if they have to send a driver though.
        The_Double 3y ago
        When I tried waymo a month or two ago a remote "driver" took over. When we called the support center about it later they told us that it's not them literally taking over the controls, but only giving some additional guidance to the system.
reaperman 3y ago
I think that was a great mission for the individual, George Hotz. It's beneficial to be humbled by complex systems and imposing bureaucracy -- it makes future endeavors better informed.
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  There isn't really any evidence he was humbled by the experience.

Seems like a much better mission for George Hotz to go on than single handedly trying to fix Twitter.

by neom 3y ago

Seems like a much better mission for George Hotz to go on than single handedly trying to fix Twitter.

vippy 3y ago

George Hotz is a talented engineer but he absolutely does not have the social science background to "fix" Twitter.

threeseed 3y ago
Being an engineer at Twitter is much more akin to an enterprise like a bank or telco. You need to be a team player and work across different groups e.g. Product, Testing, SRE etc in order to successfully get features into Production. So being a talented engineer is useful but having high emotional intelligence and being able to negotiate and collaborate is far more important.
- pankajdoharey 3y ago
  You mean talk more and code less?
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  I'm surprised more people don't realize this. It happens to all big corp.
confoundcofound 3y ago
You don’t need a social science background to fix Twitter.
- pinewurst 3y ago
  I think abnormal psychology or perhaps criminology would be helpful in understanding the current Twitter decision making process.
- vippy 3y ago
  Define "fix." Twitter is a tool used by extremists to reach massive audiences. Some of those extremists have socially destructive and violent objectives. Responding to harassment and hate speech involves understanding the psychology of harassers and racists so that incentives can be designed not to reward those behaviors. IMO, "fixing" Twitter isn't just about fail whales and 500 errors.

asdfman123 3y ago

It wasn’t even fixing Twitter. It was marginally improving search.

threeseed 3y ago
From the actual engineers that were posting on Twitter marginal is putting it lightly. The quality, arrogance and ignorance of enterprise SDLC was akin to that of a 1st year grad.
- asdfman123 3y ago
  It was so painful watching self-proclaimed tech geniuses displaying the same moronic attitude I had at 22
  - ActorNightly 3y ago
    I mean imagine being full of vigor to go out and do great things in the tech world, and then get your life almost destroyed by a stupid lawsuit at a young age by people who are much "stupider". Many of us would absolutely be just as contrarian towards general society as he is, and idolize contrarian figured like Musk. Doesn't mean that the work he is doing is not valid. It's a shame though because his ideology is very likely to hinder the progress in his companies (like for example policy against remote work).

stefan_ 3y ago

I thought he was doing AI self-driving. I see we are now moving the goalposts to "generalized intelligence" so I suppose there was no point for him to put up with just cars anymore.

dclowd9901 3y ago
I’m not convinced ai driving can even work without GAI. Seems like a logical next step to the gigantic yak shave that is autonomous driving.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Both Cruise and Waymo have human backup in case of unexpected edge cases. I suspect they are going to be needed for quite some time to come.
  - neom 3y ago
    Waymo removed it's backup drivers years ago... https://spectrumnews1.com/ap-top-news/2020/10/08/waymo-removing-backup-drivers-from-its-autonomous-vehicles https://spectrumnews1.com/ap-top-news/2020/10/08/waymo-remov... https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/29/waymo-launches-its-self-driving-service-without-backup-drivers https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/29/waymo-launches-its-self-... There was also a waymo press released this year that stated all rides in Arizona are now backup driver free, although I can't find it.
    - zaroth 3y ago
      They removed the human from the car. There’s still humans to recover from the edge cases. I don’t know if they actually remote control the cars or if they have to send a driver though.
      - The_Double 3y ago
        When I tried waymo a month or two ago a remote "driver" took over. When we called the support center about it later they told us that it's not them literally taking over the controls, but only giving some additional guidance to the system.

reaperman 3y ago

I think that was a great mission for the individual, George Hotz. It's beneficial to be humbled by complex systems and imposing bureaucracy -- it makes future endeavors better informed.

plorkyeran 3y ago
There isn't really any evidence he was humbled by the experience.