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Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

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Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#61

Post by throwaway598 »

dotinvoke wrote: post #35
throwaway598 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're 16-158 years away from the collapse of easy orbits.

This is the first time I’m reading of this, why?

I was linked to a paper on this just yesterday.

> The Economics of Orbit Use: Open Access, External Costs, and Runaway Debris Growth (Rao, Rondina, upcoming 2024).

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/730695

And for an arvix/working paper link: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.07442v2.pdf

> In our main calibration, Kessler Syndrome can emerge anytime between the year 2040 and the year 2184, with the precise date being very sensitive to the calibration of autocatalytic debris growth parameters.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#62

Post by kirso »

aelmeleegy wrote: post #25
vouaobrasil wrote: post #16

In my opinion, for the vast majority of people, and hence for society, we are past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to truly improving the world with technology. We should now switch from unfettered development to trying to be more sustainable with the tools that we have. Academia has become a game and tech development has become driven by pure consumerism in the race to replace human relationships with…

Agree with your point about tech, and I don't know a lot about academia to disagree. One of my issues as someone who works in tech is that it so much capital has poured in and so much attention was on the field that there are relatively few innovations where one can create value. OpenAI being an exception that also proves the rule. A true innovation that literally needs billions of $ to have a chance of happening. Mi…

This is driven by incentives though...

The same incentives that enable google to exist, then push the same company to be "less good" by prioritizing growth and public market interests.

As long as you borrow capital, there is always a cost on incentives.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#64

Post by namaria »

bodiekane wrote: post #43
jschveibinz wrote: post #9

I'm a boomer, so I see things differently than younger generations. Nevertheless, I think that solid, heartfelt advice to young people looking to advance in this rapiy changing environment should consider the following: 1. Become an expert in using and augmenting AI tools to accomplish your work, whatever that may be. There is a difference between average and expert in the results that can be obtained. AI expertise w…

Regarding your point 3, the challenge is that at present, so many incentives are aligned against that. I'd love to do hard science, rather than my current meaningless consumer webapp job. But it'd mean... giving up 5-6 years of tech salary to go back and get a phD, and then post-phD my job prospects would be geographically limited to a couple locations where all the science/research jobs are, with worse hours, worse…

> my golden handcuffs

I never got this frame of mind. You chose to wear them. You like your golden bracelets. You can take them off any time you want. You are making the choice of staying. At the very least assume the responsibility.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#65

Post by namaria »

gota wrote: post #41
RecycledEle wrote: post #32

AI is a personal tutor, amd the biggest change in education since the invention of writing. I imagine a day when it is socially unacceptable to hire someone to do something for you. You have AI and Amazon, why not learn, order the parts, and do it yourself? Imagine a world where we all work a few hours a week but occupy ourselves learning new skills and applying those skills to improve our environments. This would al…

I am afraid that AI tutors and teachers will slow down our progress in ethics and moral issues. Model X trained on all our data thinks Y is ok and that permeates lessons here and there. Raising a generation that does not rightfully challenge Y as it should. As a somewhat stupid example: had LLMs been invented in thr 1800's would they teach whatever topic with an underlying sentiment that slavery is a just and natural…

You make a good point. Something I hadn't been able to put my finger on but which was bothering me on a subliminar level.

It is likely that a main LLM will dominate the play field (network effects) and it will breed a thinking monoculture. The more entrenched it becomes, the less resilient society will be, because we will become over reliant on its model weights.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#66

Post by aelmeleegy »

namaria wrote: post #64
bodiekane wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding your point 3, the challenge is that at present, so many incentives are aligned against that. I'd love to do hard science, rather than my current meaningless consumer webapp job. But it'd mean... giving up 5-6 years of tech salary to go back and get a phD, and then post-phD my job prospects would be geographically limited to a couple locations where all the science/research jobs are, with worse hours, worse…

> my golden handcuffs I never got this frame of mind. You chose to wear them. You like your golden bracelets. You can take them off any time you want. You are making the choice of staying. At the very least assume the responsibility.

Loss aversion is way stronger than potential but not guaranteed gain.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#68

Post by giantg2 »

I'm not really excited about any technologies since I'm sure anything new will be expensive, complex, break easily, be of marginal use, or come with privacy issues, etc.

I wouldn't look for a specific industry or anything interesting. It's all pretty much corporate BS. Take whatever job pays pretty well and isn't obscure tech so you'll be able to switch jobs. Finance, law, and institutionl sales (gov, schools, hospitals) aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#69

Post by CyberDildonics »

hagbard_c wrote: post #60
CyberDildonics wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear here, your answer to "What fields or technologies are you excited about?" Is "kids hooking up with each other?"

Yes, in a field. Try it, it can be quite exciting and certainly helps to create a better future. I'd even go so far as to state that without that there is no future.

Can you expand on that? Are you an adult and where was the field you had this 'quite exciting' experience?

Re: Ask HN: What fields or technologies are you excited about?

#70

Post by throwaway38375 »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #46

Don't laugh. I am really, really excited about Bash and vanilla PHP. I landed myself in a shop that sells, essentially, tiny locally-networked systems of specialized Linux boxes. Yes, our core offering is running on the JVM, but all along the edges there is just so much Bash and PHP . I don't think I'll ever work in a place again where I have this much opportunity to become a genuine old school shell and webshell wiz…

Sounds like a dream come true! Any jobs going?
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