3 ms·

Chess also has a rigid, well-defined set of rules. Business does not. Being a CEO requires combining a lot of (sometimes nebulous) mental models, each with a de

by bumby 3y ago

Chess also has a rigid, well-defined set of rules. Business does not. Being a CEO requires combining a lot of (sometimes nebulous) mental models, each with a degree of uncertainty, to some overall business strategy. I think it was Sam Harris who pointed out this is why there are child prodigies in subjects like math and chess, but none in something like political science.

passwordoops 3y ago
"Chess also has a rigid, well-defined set of rules. Business does not" I believe every MBA Program, Management Department and Executive Coach would beg to differ
- bumby 3y ago
  If that's the case, can you define those succinctly here?
- nradov 3y ago
  My MBA program did not teach a rigid, well-defined set of business rules. Even something rules based like GAAP is somewhat open to interpretation. And when it comes to something like strategy or finance or organizational structure the options are endless.
- blitzar 3y ago
  Only the dumbest tik-tok positive grindset twitter thread version of the above suggests that doing x, y & z will gaurantee a win in business.
awegio 3y ago
> mental models, each with a degree of uncertainty, to some overall business strategy That actually sounds a lot like model based reinforcement learning. AlphaGo still had an explicit model of a perfect information game, but newer algorithms are capable of learning the rules of games like Minecraft with very little prior information. The problem is that the real world is still much more complicated and hard to access for machines. However, I wouldn't say it is a fundamentally different problem, but rather a matter of scale. That's part of the reason why AI research spent so much effort on building game playing systems.
- bumby 3y ago
  I'm not so sure it is a matter of scale. Humans have already lost the scalability race to machines. But I still don't think there is AI developing political policy. Or, if they are, like in the case of setting sentences/bail for criminals/suspects, they show how bad current AI is at it, despite being able to scale more effectively. 'Scaling' IMO is one of the things SWEs harp on a lot, to the extent that they see it as a solution to every problem. This is in part because they recognize that software scales well. When you're a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
- bumby 3y ago
  There's also some question about the fragility of some of these models, compared to humans [1]. I think there have been some other examples where changing one rule makes their aptitude crash. The implication being they are still hard-rule based, but scale well. But that scale advantage erodes quickly with a rule change because of the lack of contextual understanding. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/new-go-playing-trick-defeats-world-class-go-ai-but-loses-to-human-amateurs/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/new-g...

by bumby 3y ago

passwordoops 3y ago

"Chess also has a rigid, well-defined set of rules. Business does not" I believe every MBA Program, Management Department and Executive Coach would beg to differ

bumby 3y ago
If that's the case, can you define those succinctly here?
nradov 3y ago
My MBA program did not teach a rigid, well-defined set of business rules. Even something rules based like GAAP is somewhat open to interpretation. And when it comes to something like strategy or finance or organizational structure the options are endless.
blitzar 3y ago
Only the dumbest tik-tok positive grindset twitter thread version of the above suggests that doing x, y & z will gaurantee a win in business.

awegio 3y ago

> mental models, each with a degree of uncertainty, to some overall business strategy That actually sounds a lot like model based reinforcement learning. AlphaGo still had an explicit model of a perfect information game, but newer algorithms are capable of learning the rules of games like Minecraft with very little prior information. The problem is that the real world is still much more complicated and hard to access for machines. However, I wouldn't say it is a fundamentally different problem, but rather a matter of scale. That's part of the reason why AI research spent so much effort on building game playing systems.

bumby 3y ago
I'm not so sure it is a matter of scale. Humans have already lost the scalability race to machines. But I still don't think there is AI developing political policy. Or, if they are, like in the case of setting sentences/bail for criminals/suspects, they show how bad current AI is at it, despite being able to scale more effectively. 'Scaling' IMO is one of the things SWEs harp on a lot, to the extent that they see it as a solution to every problem. This is in part because they recognize that software scales well. When you're a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
bumby 3y ago
There's also some question about the fragility of some of these models, compared to humans [1]. I think there have been some other examples where changing one rule makes their aptitude crash. The implication being they are still hard-rule based, but scale well. But that scale advantage erodes quickly with a rule change because of the lack of contextual understanding. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/new-go-playing-trick-defeats-world-class-go-ai-but-loses-to-human-amateurs/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/new-g...