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What day to day problems do people have that require parallel processing to solve anyway? Sure graphics and neural networks, but is having a neural network the
by nuc1e0n 3y ago
What day to day problems do people have that require parallel processing to solve anyway? Sure graphics and neural networks, but is having a neural network the end problem that needs solving? Maybe I'm just a grumpy old programmer but I believe the human mind is specialised to think in terms of serial solutions. I think that's no accident as race conditions and other synchronization issues are difficult to avoid in parallel algorithms. That may be a fundamental property of processing in general, even for algorithms some AI may come up with, which remains mostly fictional at this point.
- winwang 3y agoCompilation comes to mind. Efficient distributed compute also usually prefers vertical scaling (i.e. more cores per node).
- Legend2440 3y ago>I believe the human mind is specialised to think in terms of serial solutions The brain is massively parallel - 80 billion neurons operating asynchronously at only 100hz. >is having a neural network the end problem that needs solving? Absolutely! Neural networks are a general-purpose way to solve a huge number of problems, especially problems that involve raw data or the messy real world.
- nuc1e0n 3y agoI'm talking about the solutions we tend to produce, not our internal workings. You contradicted yourself in that last paragraph. I don't know what else to say to you about that.
- dgfitz 3y agoI know I think in parallel often enough that two threads end up disagreeing with each other and a 3rd one has to sort it out. I can’t begin to describe the internal fork() sensation that happens in my noggin constantly.