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What's interesting isn't what the article got wrong. It's what the article got right. A 400k program is insanely difficult to write, if you're working in straig

What's interesting isn't what the article got wrong. It's what the article got right. A 400k program is insanely difficult to write, if you're working in straight assembly. What the article misses, though, is that programmers' tools evolve too. As we're required to do more in less time we abstract away more and more of the code until the abstractions become incorporated right into the programming languages we write. In the '80s, you still had to write your own basic data structures. Making something like a dictionary, or a hash table might have been an all-day exercise. Today, you can just pull up one of the many ready-made data structures provided by the standard library of your favorite programming language. On a side note, I find it interesting that the author seems to equate artificial intelligence and e-mail integration as being approximately the same order of difficulty.

Create 15y ago
artificial intelligence and e-mail integration as being approximately the same order of difficulty. Interestingly enough, it seems it is the same as we stand today: see gMail, spamassasin, bayes condition. Turing (award), GOOG. A very senior Microsoft developer who moved to Google told me that Google works and thinks at a higher level of abstraction than Microsoft. "Google uses Bayesian filtering the way Microsoft uses the if statement," he said. That's true. -- http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/10/17.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/10/17.html
techdmn 15y ago
I think part of the problem is that "artificial intelligence" is always being redefined upward toward areas we don't well understand. If you don't know how a computer plays chess, it certainly appears intelligent. Once you do understand it becomes purely mechanical.
- TelmoMenezes 15y ago
  When we fully understand how the human brain works, it will probably also seem purely mechanical.
- Dn_Ab 15y ago
  I agree and I think the inverse can be said about intelligence. There the target keeps moving down instead of up. At least for me, the more I learn the more I appreciate the intelligence of the nematode. I appreciate intelligence as not some binary human like or not, but a spectrum. The cat is not not a human it simply has varying levels of what we call human. Empathy, Sapience, Self Awareness,Consciousness, Sentience, Abstraction, Awareness, Intentionality, Intelligence. AI only needs the last three to be useful and the last four to be dangerous. The AI does not need a theory of mind to collect enough data to be able to produce an accurate distribution of your actions for all interesting situations and then use it to arrange your environment so it can exploit you in line with its intentions. >If you don't know how the human brain plays chess, it certainly appears intelligent. Once you do understand it becomes purely mechanical. It is after all bound by the laws of physics.
barce 15y ago
Maybe the author equated the 2 because in most large organizations both are unsolved. This is part jest and part industry veteran talking.
gcb 15y ago
i found it's exactly the oposite. i think i STARTED right, and then became hogwash of someone that does not understand hacker. basically i read it as: "hackers laugh at the pace of big corporations, but big corporations will prevail now that we need (gasp) 400k programs" seems like the journalist started right, and then just wrote whatever the PR guy at IBM told him to write.

Create 15y ago

artificial intelligence and e-mail integration as being approximately the same order of difficulty. Interestingly enough, it seems it is the same as we stand today: see gMail, spamassasin, bayes condition. Turing (award), GOOG. A very senior Microsoft developer who moved to Google told me that Google works and thinks at a higher level of abstraction than Microsoft. "Google uses Bayesian filtering the way Microsoft uses the if statement," he said. That's true. -- http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/10/17.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/10/17.html

techdmn 15y ago

I think part of the problem is that "artificial intelligence" is always being redefined upward toward areas we don't well understand. If you don't know how a computer plays chess, it certainly appears intelligent. Once you do understand it becomes purely mechanical.

TelmoMenezes 15y ago
When we fully understand how the human brain works, it will probably also seem purely mechanical.
Dn_Ab 15y ago
I agree and I think the inverse can be said about intelligence. There the target keeps moving down instead of up. At least for me, the more I learn the more I appreciate the intelligence of the nematode. I appreciate intelligence as not some binary human like or not, but a spectrum. The cat is not not a human it simply has varying levels of what we call human. Empathy, Sapience, Self Awareness,Consciousness, Sentience, Abstraction, Awareness, Intentionality, Intelligence. AI only needs the last three to be useful and the last four to be dangerous. The AI does not need a theory of mind to collect enough data to be able to produce an accurate distribution of your actions for all interesting situations and then use it to arrange your environment so it can exploit you in line with its intentions. >If you don't know how the human brain plays chess, it certainly appears intelligent. Once you do understand it becomes purely mechanical. It is after all bound by the laws of physics.

barce 15y ago

Maybe the author equated the 2 because in most large organizations both are unsolved. This is part jest and part industry veteran talking.

gcb 15y ago

i found it's exactly the oposite. i think i STARTED right, and then became hogwash of someone that does not understand hacker. basically i read it as: "hackers laugh at the pace of big corporations, but big corporations will prevail now that we need (gasp) 400k programs" seems like the journalist started right, and then just wrote whatever the PR guy at IBM told him to write.