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Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

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Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#61

Post by sbov »

ewzimm wrote: post #48
sbov wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I mean, a lot of hard work was put into it. And, it's a step that needs to be taken. And people can work on what they want to work on. But how can a machine beating the best human at a game really be the biggest triumph of 2016? Whenever I think about this stuff, I have a similar nagging question. E.g. if there are entire classes of problems that we now "know" are solvable, and have an actual benefit to mankin…

This is like asking, "why didn't they just build a new dam instead of spending so much time drawing up blueprints?" Games can be useful abstractions and guides that advance our understanding of the same decision making processes that allow people to create real, effective changes in the world. The balance is shifting to the point in the near future where most of the best solutions to real world problems won't come di…

I can see games being an impetus, but are they really the blueprint, as opposed to just another application, but one that the public at large can appreciate?

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#62

Post by ewzimm »

sbov wrote: post #61
ewzimm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like asking, "why didn't they just build a new dam instead of spending so much time drawing up blueprints?" Games can be useful abstractions and guides that advance our understanding of the same decision making processes that allow people to create real, effective changes in the world. The balance is shifting to the point in the near future where most of the best solutions to real world problems won't come di…

I can see games being an impetus, but are they really the blueprint, as opposed to just another application, but one that the public at large can appreciate?

The game itself isn't the blueprint. The source code of the application used to play the game is a blueprint for learning and pattern recognition that can be applied to other things. For example, the DeepMind AI used to play Go has been adapted to diagnose kidney injury by reusing much of the same code which was developed for the game.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/nhs-deepmind-ai-app/

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#63

Post by zeveb »

darkerside wrote: post #26
newswriter99 wrote: post #11

Some of these are objectively good, such as world literacy increasing, less pollution in the atmosphere or survival rates increasing for endangered species. Then it lost me with "Oh and smoking bans are good and global human population increases are good and also drilling=evil corporations so banning it across the board=good" Those are debatable. Not very politically neutral is it.

It's hard to argue against public smoking bans being a huge positive for society. As long as it's legal in your own home, I don't have a problem with regulating it in public areas.

I disagree: telling consenting adults what they may and may not do _in private_ (because 'public smoking bans' have so far almost been bans on smoking in private establishments) is never good for society.

And anyone who thinks that smoking in actual outdoor public spaces is a health threat is simply incorrect.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#64

Post by belorn »

mistermann wrote: post #42
nodamage wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article is about improved health outcomes due to secondhand smoke bans in public areas : http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD005992... You're free to continue smoking in the privacy of your own home.

> You're free to continue smoking in the privacy of your own home. Not where I live, was banned years ago.

Where is that, and is that in your own house or is it a apartment that is owned by a landlord/collection of tenants?

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#65

Post by estsauver »

candu wrote: post #29
arcanus wrote: post #19

Missing the biggest triumph of 2016 by far: the victory by DeepMind's machine learning algorith at Go over the greatest living human player. At this time last year it was highly questionable if humans would ever lose to algorithms at games as complex as Go. Now we have reason to be optimistic that an entire class of problems are amenable to solution through computation, and more evidence super-human synthetic intelli…

...and hundreds of millions worldwide who have been saved from malaria or lifted out of extreme poverty would likely disagree with you: what good is super-human synthetic intelligence several decades from now (assuming that's even a tractable generalization of largely task-specific ML models) if you're not sure where your next meal comes from?

Well, I founded a startup that's using ML to help turn satellite data into credit risk profiles for the world's poorest farmers so we can sell them fertilizer and seed.

So... I think tensor flow is going to be pretty great for the 1K farmers we're working with this year and ~50k we're going to try and reach next year.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#66

Post by csallen »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #38
ciconia wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read it from start to end? By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health, political and economic progress, climat change response, less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture, endangered animals, charity. The conservation of our planet is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity, and everything else sort of ties in with it. You cannot really separate economic progress, political stabil…

> Did you read it from start to end? Yes, I did. > The conservation of our planet is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity, and everything else sort of ties in with it. Okay, you just conceded a point that negates any reasonable premise for your question that I can imagine at this time. If everything is sort of tied in with environmental concerns, then why did you think I didn't read the article from start t…

I didn't downvote you, but I can only assume you're being downvoted because you ignored this:

    By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health,
    political and economic progress, climate change response,
    less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture,
    endangered animals, charity.
It's pretty clear that this was the main point to counter your claim that the list was dominated by a single theme, yet you ignored it and focused on something else.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#67

Post by philfrasty »

estsauver wrote: post #65
candu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and hundreds of millions worldwide who have been saved from malaria or lifted out of extreme poverty would likely disagree with you: what good is super-human synthetic intelligence several decades from now (assuming that's even a tractable generalization of largely task-specific ML models) if you're not sure where your next meal comes from?

Well, I founded a startup that's using ML to help turn satellite data into credit risk profiles for the world's poorest farmers so we can sell them fertilizer and seed. So... I think tensor flow is going to be pretty great for the 1K farmers we're working with this year and ~50k we're going to try and reach next year.

This is one of those ideas where I think...how on earth did you come up with the idea of building such a company? Sidenote: sounds absolutely amazing! Congrats!

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#68

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

csallen wrote: post #66
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you read it from start to end? Yes, I did. > The conservation of our planet is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity, and everything else sort of ties in with it. Okay, you just conceded a point that negates any reasonable premise for your question that I can imagine at this time. If everything is sort of tied in with environmental concerns, then why did you think I didn't read the article from start t…

I didn't downvote you, but I can only assume you're being downvoted because you ignored this: By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health, political and economic progress, climate change response, less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture, endangered animals, charity. It's pretty clear that this was the main point to counter your claim that the list was dominated by a single theme, yet you ignor…

Nature conservation, climate change response, sustainable agriculture, endangered animals.

That's all under the same theme I was talking about in my comment. It's half of your list.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#69

Post by noobermin »

protomyth wrote: post #59
sgustard wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you propose making a list of "99 reasons 2016 was a good year" without "sampling bias"? The entire premise of the article depends on your definition of the word "good". I agree this article is viewed through a liberal lens. A conservative's list would be very different: opened up vast new areas to oil drilling! Outlawed abortion in more countries! Rolled back environmental regulations that protect penguins…

> A conservative's list would be very different: opened up vast new areas to oil drilling! Outlawed abortion in more countries! Rolled back environmental regulations that protect penguins over jobs! Reduced crime with stiffer prison sentences! and that's why liberals lose elections - one of these years we'll skip the caricatures

You ignore the last two elections. We'd all do well to avoid succumbing to recent-ism.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#70

Post by noobermin »

sgustard wrote: post #50
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #7

So much of this list was about conservation and environmental issues that it was almost frustrating to filter it out. I have nothing against these topics, but when you dominate your list with one theme and don't address that theme in the lede, I reflexively assume the author is attempting to pull the wool over my eyes. There is almost certainly some sampling bias going on, at least.

How would you propose making a list of "99 reasons 2016 was a good year" without "sampling bias"? The entire premise of the article depends on your definition of the word "good". I agree this article is viewed through a liberal lens. A conservative's list would be very different: opened up vast new areas to oil drilling! Outlawed abortion in more countries! Rolled back environmental regulations that protect penguins…

Many conservatives would agree with much in this list. It's hard to consider things like eradication of Ebola infections as negative.
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