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70 years ago we were fascinated by the concept of converting analog to a perfect digital copy. In reality, that goal was a pipe drea!m and the closest we can ev
by chasing0entropy 1y ago
70 years ago we were fascinated by the concept of converting analog to a perfect digital copy. In reality, that goal was a pipe drea!m and the closest we can ever get is a near identical facimile to which data fits... But it's still quite easy to determine digital from true analog with rudimentary means.
Human thought is analog. It is based on chemical reactions, time, and unpredictably (effectively) random physical characteristics. AI is an attempt to turn that which is purely digital into an rational analog thought equivalent.
No matter how much effort, money, power, and rare mineral eating TPUs will - ever - produce true analog data.
- largbae 1y agoThis is all true. But digital audio and video media has captured essentially all economic value outside of live performance. So it seems likely that we will find a "good enough" in this domain too.
- chasing0entropy 1y agoInteresting point with economic value extraction. The economy sacrificed accuracy and warmth of analog storage for convenience and security of digital storage. With economic incentive I am sure society will sacrifice accuracy and precision for the convenience of AI
- bcoates 1y agoIt's been closer to 100 years since we figured out information theory and discredited this idea (that continuous/analog processes have more, or different, information in them than discrete/digital ones)
- rightbyte 1y agoIn theory or in practice? Wouldn't the Nyquist frequency and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle put practical limits.