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The question it raises is if this is the fake surge, the one we see, what is the real one we don't see? Renewable energy comes to mind. Robotics too but maybe t
by jemmyw 6mo ago
The question it raises is if this is the fake surge, the one we see, what is the real one we don't see? Renewable energy comes to mind. Robotics too but maybe that's too tied up with AI.
- schnitzelstoat 6mo agoI think robotics will be the next surge for sure. But I don't think it's really tied up with the LLM stuff either and it could be decades away. In the end, it'll probably require something like model-based RL like Yann LeCun talks about and that's totally different to the LLMs.
- pixl97 6mo agoEh, robotics is going through explosive growth right now with the same computing power that's being used on LLMs. You can take human motion capture of a task, dump it in a robotics simulator for a few hours and get a model that can operate autonomously better than something that would have taken a half a year to teach just a few years back.
- whizzter 6mo agoSpace (Space-X showed that reusable rockets are feasible), Programmable health (Covid vaccine and remember that mRNA curing that dog?),etc. Sadly, I think there's a risk we might also be heading towards a dark age with few advances since fundamental research has been squeezed away for being unprofitable or hobbled by a industrialized publishing/review-system for a while now and we've been coasting along on profitable applications rather than (expensive) breakthroughts in basics.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo agoI firmly believe that Renewable energy, the Solar+battery+EV stack, not LLMs, really is the biggest technology transformation of our times. Renewable energy really is surging, just it's on a longer timeline and unlike LLMs, it doesn't benefit venture capitalists to hype it. In fact many existing sectors deliberately downplay it. But we are in the middle of it. Robotics? lights-out operations in automated factories are already a thing, so I don't know if they're the "next thing". mRNA vaccines? Sure, they're a huge medical advance. With great potential, in that area. But it's just an area. Space? Maybe, if we get past LEO, find something useful to do there, and don't succumb to Kessler syndrome.
- pixl97 6mo ago>Robotics? lights-out operations in automated factories are already a thing, so I don't know if they're the "next thing". Eh, I do think this is kind of underestimating the changes in robotics that are occurring. LLMs incorporated with other ML kernels extend the capabilities a long way. That and the amount of computing power now usable to train robotics is far far larger.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo agoAre large Language Models of use to move robot limbs around?
- pixl97 6mo agoI mean yes, just tell a robot to go pick up a green apple that has an integrated LLM and it can setup a course of actions to the other things like movement models to accomplish that task.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo agoIt doesn't seem to me that voice control of ad-hoc tasks would be such a big area of automated manufacturing, but ok.
- pixl97 6mo agoVoice control is one thing, generalized vision is another, actual development of the automated manufacturing systems is another.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo agoI take your word that there is progress in this area, but it doesn't change my view that the Solar+battery+EV stack really is the biggest technology transformation of our times.