4 ms·

How on earth is AI going to help?

by padjo 3y ago

atleastoptimal 3y ago
AGI will make the economy far more efficient, increase the rate of scientific innovation, etc. For example, some ancestor of alphafold could spark a revolution in genetic engineering, creating crops which are far more efficient and resilient, etc.
- r3d0c 3y ago
  how, be specific & based in objective reality, without VC hype words & cultist like language
- gasparto 3y ago
  Technology won't save us. Hoping that someday soon^tm someone will come up with something that makes all the current mess go away is a dangerous path. In germany they call it 'Technologieoffen' - and even some political parties have written it on their flags. 'No need to implement changes now - someday God will decent and absolve us from all of our sins - until then party hard! #yolo' I'm all for accelerating research/tech. But it can't be an excuse to just let sh*t happen. Yet most people will do this - it's expected human behavior.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    I want to accelerate good stuff (fusion, mRNA cancer vaccines, solar power learning curve, LLMs that help programmers be more productive, housing construction) and decel bad stuff (proof-of-work crypto, deepfakes, new coal mines, microplastics). If we accel/decel the right things, I think we have a shot.
  - 52-6F-62 3y ago
    Well put.
  - ted_bunny 3y ago
    We're more likely to get Deus Ex than a Deus Ex Machina
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  The difficult and limiting part of scienctific work isn't coming up with ideas (which is, at best, all a glorified Montecarlo chain autocorrect can do) but actually designing and performing good experiments. Add to that the amount of junk papers that will be generated and published - through which all future scientists will have to sift - and AI in it's current form is much more likely to be a concrete block dragging scientific progress down.
- exe34 3y ago
  I believe that AGI is capable of all of this. Eventually. If it doesn't kill us at that point. If we don't get enslaved by the corporations who control AGI first. Expecting it to happen just in time to save us from ourselves? That sounds more like religious belief to me. We're burning down the garden in the hope we will find a yellow brick road under the ashes.
- lm28469 3y ago
  Either that or the second coming of jesus, I give it 50/50 given the available data
odiroot 3y ago
It will deliver great shareholder value.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  >“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.” Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed. “But we have also,” continued the management consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut." Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down. “So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances." The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the management consultant a standing ovation. The accountants among them looked forward to a profitable autumn aloft and it got an appreciative round from the crowd. - The Restaurant at the end of the universe, Douglas Adams
gniv 3y ago
[Deleted the comment. Seems like I unwittingly answered a rhetorical question.]
- Y-bar 3y ago
  … which is accomplished by … building lots of new data centres with each with thousands upon thousands of GPU:s drawing megawatts day and night. The maths checks out.
moffkalast 3y ago
A race of machines doesn't need to eat food, drink water, breathe clean air, and doesn't die from wet bulb temperatures. I bet it's a lot easier to build nuclear reactors when radiation poisoning doesn't matter. The perfect candidate for carrying our cultural torch forward.
- thelastgallon 3y ago
  > doesn't die from wet bulb temperatures AI, which is data-centers have been first-class citizens on this planet. All DCs have air conditioning, which most humans don't have. Without AC, these race of machines will fail often. Also, this race of machines is refreshed every 3 years.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    > refreshed every 3 years. That's not been my experience. I've got plenty of 7+ year old machines and DC infrastructure components that are even older than that. Power and compute density improvements are no longer fast enough to have full turnovers in 3 years.
    - thelastgallon 3y ago
      Big companies refresh based on their depreciation and not if they are still usable, these are usually fully depreciated in 3 - 5 companies, depending on their accountants. Also, there is going to be massive growth in DCs with AI, companies aren't going to compete on 7+ year old hardware just because it runs ok.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    Just gonna leave this here: https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/ https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/pr... There are much more efficient ways of doing datacenters than we're doing right now.

How on earth is AI going to help?

by padjo 3y ago

How on earth is AI going to help?

AGI will make the economy far more efficient, increase the rate of scientific innovation, etc. For example, some ancestor of alphafold could spark a revolution in genetic engineering, creating crops which are far more efficient and resilient, etc.

r3d0c 3y ago
how, be specific & based in objective reality, without VC hype words & cultist like language
gasparto 3y ago
Technology won't save us. Hoping that someday soon^tm someone will come up with something that makes all the current mess go away is a dangerous path. In germany they call it 'Technologieoffen' - and even some political parties have written it on their flags. 'No need to implement changes now - someday God will decent and absolve us from all of our sins - until then party hard! #yolo' I'm all for accelerating research/tech. But it can't be an excuse to just let sh*t happen. Yet most people will do this - it's expected human behavior.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  I want to accelerate good stuff (fusion, mRNA cancer vaccines, solar power learning curve, LLMs that help programmers be more productive, housing construction) and decel bad stuff (proof-of-work crypto, deepfakes, new coal mines, microplastics). If we accel/decel the right things, I think we have a shot.
- 52-6F-62 3y ago
  Well put.
- ted_bunny 3y ago
  We're more likely to get Deus Ex than a Deus Ex Machina
_Algernon_ 3y ago
The difficult and limiting part of scienctific work isn't coming up with ideas (which is, at best, all a glorified Montecarlo chain autocorrect can do) but actually designing and performing good experiments. Add to that the amount of junk papers that will be generated and published - through which all future scientists will have to sift - and AI in it's current form is much more likely to be a concrete block dragging scientific progress down.
exe34 3y ago
I believe that AGI is capable of all of this. Eventually. If it doesn't kill us at that point. If we don't get enslaved by the corporations who control AGI first. Expecting it to happen just in time to save us from ourselves? That sounds more like religious belief to me. We're burning down the garden in the hope we will find a yellow brick road under the ashes.
lm28469 3y ago
Either that or the second coming of jesus, I give it 50/50 given the available data

odiroot 3y ago

It will deliver great shareholder value.

_Algernon_ 3y ago
>“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.” Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed. “But we have also,” continued the management consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut." Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down. “So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances." The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the management consultant a standing ovation. The accountants among them looked forward to a profitable autumn aloft and it got an appreciative round from the crowd. - The Restaurant at the end of the universe, Douglas Adams

gniv 3y ago

[Deleted the comment. Seems like I unwittingly answered a rhetorical question.]

Y-bar 3y ago
… which is accomplished by … building lots of new data centres with each with thousands upon thousands of GPU:s drawing megawatts day and night. The maths checks out.

moffkalast 3y ago

A race of machines doesn't need to eat food, drink water, breathe clean air, and doesn't die from wet bulb temperatures. I bet it's a lot easier to build nuclear reactors when radiation poisoning doesn't matter. The perfect candidate for carrying our cultural torch forward.

thelastgallon 3y ago
> doesn't die from wet bulb temperatures AI, which is data-centers have been first-class citizens on this planet. All DCs have air conditioning, which most humans don't have. Without AC, these race of machines will fail often. Also, this race of machines is refreshed every 3 years.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  > refreshed every 3 years. That's not been my experience. I've got plenty of 7+ year old machines and DC infrastructure components that are even older than that. Power and compute density improvements are no longer fast enough to have full turnovers in 3 years.
  - thelastgallon 3y ago
    Big companies refresh based on their depreciation and not if they are still usable, these are usually fully depreciated in 3 - 5 companies, depending on their accountants. Also, there is going to be massive growth in DCs with AI, companies aren't going to compete on 7+ year old hardware just because it runs ok.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Just gonna leave this here: https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/ https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/pr... There are much more efficient ways of doing datacenters than we're doing right now.