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Whenever I see these kinds of video processing on real time, I just want to drop everything and work on that. It seems so cool! It's just like movies that we al

Whenever I see these kinds of video processing on real time, I just want to drop everything and work on that. It seems so cool! It's just like movies that we all saw while growing. Now the world is completely full of smartphones with cameras that could make great things! But somehow they don't reach us. Might it be that sensors and processing power are still not quite there? I've just seen a Project Tango video (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9634317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9634317) and it seems to suggest that. BUT there are so much people focusing on these things that on one hand I feel that great things will come very soon (Oculus, etc.), but on the other hand, it's just a very risky move. The market is not yet created, everything is just a demo. The other day here in HN someone commented something similar here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627754 There is a huge risk in creating a cohesive value proposition for a big mass of people. Be reckless and you could flop like Google Glass. But once someone does that successfully, a huge market for entertainment will have just open. So my idea is to just toy with these things and gain knowledge and proficiency, but don't jump into it full time just yet. Do you think this is an intelligent (non-)move? Or just fear of the unknown? The thing is, I would also not want to move just for Fear Of Missing Out!

DenisM 11y ago
Why not go work for a funded startup in the area? Working full time on this problem will advance your skill like nothing else ever could, you will have a tiny chance at winning the lottery, you will meet like-minded people, and the only downside is slightly reduced pay.
amelius 11y ago
> Whenever I see these kinds of video processing on real time, I just want to drop everything and work on that. Personally, I find AI too much of a "fuzzy black box" thing to be really interested in it. I have to agree that the applications are often truly marvelous. But the fact that, for example, training neural nets is often more of an art than a science is holding me back to step into the field. I like to work on a problem, think it through, and be 99% sure that it will work before I have even written one line of code. With AI, it is more like "let's try this and see if it works".
- chongli 11y ago
  Personally, I find AI too much of a "fuzzy black box" thing to be really interested in it. That's because artificial intelligence is subject to eternally moving goalposts. Any technology which we are fully able to understand ceases to be intelligent; it is relegated to the status of mere "algorithm".
  - visarga 11y ago
    We understand machine learning itself, it's the problem space that needs to be understood. That's why it is such a black box - you never know the complexity of the model you need to build before you tackle it.
- tormeh 11y ago
  Yes, the truly interesting models are hard to analyze but, to paraphrase, if intelligence was simple enough that we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
chewxy 11y ago
I wrote a UX tracking tool for tablets[0]. It ended up not going to market simply because you're right: processing power is not cheap enough. I started with on-board processing, but that led to substandard result. We then moved on to cloud based processing, but having cloudbased processing would increase costs a lot and we couldn't keep the pricepoint. Lastly, such things are difficult to market and we weren't ready financially to take on such risks. [0] - http://blog.chewxy.com/2014/04/08/eyetracking-jetpack-joyride-smash-hit-and-dungeon-keeper/ http://blog.chewxy.com/2014/04/08/eyetracking-jetpack-joyrid...

DenisM 11y ago

Why not go work for a funded startup in the area? Working full time on this problem will advance your skill like nothing else ever could, you will have a tiny chance at winning the lottery, you will meet like-minded people, and the only downside is slightly reduced pay.

amelius 11y ago

> Whenever I see these kinds of video processing on real time, I just want to drop everything and work on that. Personally, I find AI too much of a "fuzzy black box" thing to be really interested in it. I have to agree that the applications are often truly marvelous. But the fact that, for example, training neural nets is often more of an art than a science is holding me back to step into the field. I like to work on a problem, think it through, and be 99% sure that it will work before I have even written one line of code. With AI, it is more like "let's try this and see if it works".

chongli 11y ago
Personally, I find AI too much of a "fuzzy black box" thing to be really interested in it. That's because artificial intelligence is subject to eternally moving goalposts. Any technology which we are fully able to understand ceases to be intelligent; it is relegated to the status of mere "algorithm".
- visarga 11y ago
  We understand machine learning itself, it's the problem space that needs to be understood. That's why it is such a black box - you never know the complexity of the model you need to build before you tackle it.
tormeh 11y ago
Yes, the truly interesting models are hard to analyze but, to paraphrase, if intelligence was simple enough that we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.

chewxy 11y ago

I wrote a UX tracking tool for tablets[0]. It ended up not going to market simply because you're right: processing power is not cheap enough. I started with on-board processing, but that led to substandard result. We then moved on to cloud based processing, but having cloudbased processing would increase costs a lot and we couldn't keep the pricepoint. Lastly, such things are difficult to market and we weren't ready financially to take on such risks. [0] - http://blog.chewxy.com/2014/04/08/eyetracking-jetpack-joyride-smash-hit-and-dungeon-keeper/ http://blog.chewxy.com/2014/04/08/eyetracking-jetpack-joyrid...