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Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

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Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#101

THIEL: "one other way of interpreting the AI boom is that on the surface, it is about extreme optimism about the potentialities of computer technology, and the beneath the surface, it is simultaneously, perhaps, a great deal of pessimism around the possibilities in other technologies that will be developed by humans, and deep pessimism about the possibility of what humans can do." This is what I think about whenever…

I'm of the mind the technological singularity won't come from AI but from enhanced human minds. I think it's easier to load more memory, processing, and the like indirectly to the human brain that it is to recreate a perfect mind inside a machine not even equipped to handle the questions we wish to ask it.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#102
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, the LHC was designed in the 80s. Genome project launched in 1990. It's true that current generations work on incremental problems. The blockchain and social media are something of note.

Don't forget we are close to an electric vehicle breakthrough to the mass market, and it looks like solar PV is on a cost curve that will potentially mean it will dominate electricity generation in the decades ahead (took it's time getting there, but better late than never.)

Both of which are results of slow incremental progress after decades (and china), which brought the prices of materials (PV panels and batteries) to affordable levels. Of course they are wonderful things, but i cant get very excited about either.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you may be tooting your own horn there. its a trap to believe you and/or your community is "above average" in intelligence. the community on hacker news is more enculturated than most for a few things. 1. working with computers 2. selling technology 3. thinking about business in the medium term 4. calling ourselves very smart with little backing evidence for that claim and besides that stuff I am not particularly imp…

It's not a trap, HN definitely has a higher IQ than the general population. FWIW I have some data on IQs from a similar online community, showing the cumulative distribution of IQ compared to the general population: http://www.leijuvakaupunki.fi/images/box/lw_ssc_iq_cdf.png HN is highly correlated with technical professions and especially programmers. Those things happen to be highly correlated with and selective of…

post I responded to said "smarter than average" which is not the same thing as IQ and conflating the two of those is also a trap.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#104
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth. Should we artificially limit population growth? Can it be done in a way that isn't forceful, but perhaps with the right incentives? Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario? It's an ethical and ideological mess and frankly, it'll require some…

For Europe and Japan, population is in decline. US population would be in decline if it were not for immigration. China is expected to max out around 2026. (The one-child policy worked.) India, though, has real problems.[1] Two big problems we expected to have were overpopulation and running out of energy. Neither happened. [1] http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/05/indias-population-in...

Yes, we've neither run out of food nor energy. Yet.

But that requires some modulation.

1. The cornucopian arguments that we'd have no problems with food nor energy, or that these would grow without limits, haven't panned. out.

2. Yes, the specific predictions that we would be facing major global starvation by now (or at equivalent populations -- ~8 billion), haven't panned out. But those have been mitigated by a few circumstances.

a). The Green Revolution. Largely unanticipated, but through mechanisation, new plant breeds, fertilisers, and pesticides, per-acre and per-farmer productivity has been increased. This represents, though, another potentially one-time-only transfer, as we've basically amped up the nutrient cycle for plants (using copious amounts of natural gas to produce nitrogen fertiliser), taken over for plant functions in pest and disease resistance (through pesticides), and replaced human and animal power through fossil-fuel powered tractors and other equipment (so long the fuel holds out). Withdraw fertiliser and pesticides, and many of those benefits disappear (or must be replaced with far more labour input). Moreover, topsoil depletion itself is now a major concern.

b). Population growth, accellerating at unprecedented rates in the 1950s and 1960s, levelled off somewhat. This has been fortunate. However rather than growing at a constant percentage (exponential growth), it's been growing at a constant rate (linear growth). Trends such as the demographic transition may be helpful, but they're not assured.

c). The 1970s oil shocks. Prior to the OPEC oil embargo (1973) and Iranian oil embargo (1979), growth in global oil consumption was increasing at an increasing rate. The so-called oil shocks had global economic impacts, and sharply slowed growth in energy consumption. This delayed global peak oil (occurring in 2005 rather than 2000), but also put to lie cornucopian estimates of future energy consumption.

One argument might be that "the market responded" to higher oil prices. I read the response somewhat differently: the system responded to higher energy costs and greater energy volatility. The long period of exceptionally steady growth from 1945 - 1972 was, well, exceptional. Trends since 1973 have been highly erratic, though "better" (in terms of growth) at times, worse at others.

What's increasingly clear to me is that explanations of conventional economics are substantively incorrect. That energy and inputs do matter, hugely. And that "technology" almost certainly lags rather than leads energy availability, though the relationship is complex.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#105
Well, I am working on hard science. Neuroevolutionary development algorithms for reinforcement learning. Online unsupervised learning.

I can't get funding.

He talks big but he doesn't invest in the research. He still wants some business plan dropped in front of him. It doesn't work that way until the hard science is done first.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#106

Well, I am working on hard science. Neuroevolutionary development algorithms for reinforcement learning. Online unsupervised learning. I can't get funding. He talks big but he doesn't invest in the research. He still wants some business plan dropped in front of him. It doesn't work that way until the hard science is done first.

He's a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian. He never grew up beyond 16. It's not worth bothering about what he says or means.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#107
post #97
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a good URL change. It is not like http://conversationswithbillkristol.org is a blog spam for "Conversations with Bill Kristol". And the original site has video divided into chapters which is useful.

It was a borderline call, but I'm guessing a URL with Bill Kristol in it would have had an evil-catnip effect. So, risk mitigation.

It definitely gave me pause when I hit the YT link.

Fair call.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#109
post #74
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We build the LHC, we landed on a comet, we decoded the human genome...

Evolutionary, not revolutionary. We haven't discovered anything really new in a while. CRISPR-CAS9 and the like may qualify but still I'm not sure they stack up next to the discovery of DNA itself. All that happened from about 1945 until 1970. Then it stopped. I find it impossible to believe that we learned everything there is in 25 years. Something is broken.

In 1960, say, the discovery of DNA looked like a fundamental increase in understanding, but not revolutionary - kind of like discovery of the Higgs boson looks today.

What's "broken" is that it takes more than 25 years to work out the practical uses of a lot of these discoveries. We see much more of the total fruit from a discovery in 1950 than we do for an equivalent discover in 1990.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#110
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a superficial thing to say. Is social media all you can think of? Every generation is born into a context out of its control and contributes what it can to what it was dealt. If you think social media is the pinnacle of the Generation X,Y,Z group, you aren't looking very far.

We 're listening.

I am your parents. We invented nuclear weapons. We still regret it. So what if we decided to stay the course and figure out how to make a black hole? The first thing that would happen is it would be weaponized. That is what we do. Weaponize stuff. It's an extension of what makes us human-the ability to make tools. At least social media cannot be wpaonized in an immediately lethal way. The worst it can do is make us dumber. and therefore safer to play with.
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