The AI Misinformation Epidemic • Hacker News Board

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#21

Post by nradov » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:10 AM UTC

acover wrote: post #12

prvnsmpth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate?

One way he profits is in the expectations of self driving cars. If people expect it in 3 years and it to be 10x better than humans [to quote musk] then there is huge value in any company that can provide it. Tesla has a market cap larger than Ford. Tesla also has been on the edge of bankruptcy every couple years and recently raised $1 billion in capital.

Tesla funding is driven more by proven demand for the product (huge order backlog with paid deposits) than any belief in autonomous vehicle technology. That plus historically low interest rates which have caused investors to do silly things in search of higher returns.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#22

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:13 AM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #17

Welcome to the club. Now you know how Economists, healthcare professionals, skateboarders, basket weavers and anybody else whose domain knowledge runs deeper than the average joe's feels whenever their area of technical expertise becomes the subject du jour for the public at large.

[deleted]

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#23

Post by didibus » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:21 AM UTC

Sounds like only a primer, I couldn't find any glimpse at what the problem was though?

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#24

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:21 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #21

acover wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way he profits is in the expectations of self driving cars. If people expect it in 3 years and it to be 10x better than humans [to quote musk] then there is huge value in any company that can provide it. Tesla has a market cap larger than Ford. Tesla also has been on the edge of bankruptcy every couple years and recently raised $1 billion in capital.

Tesla funding is driven more by proven demand for the product (huge order backlog with paid deposits) than any belief in autonomous vehicle technology. That plus historically low interest rates which have caused investors to do silly things in search of higher returns.

[deleted]

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#25

Post by iagovar » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:29 AM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #17

Welcome to the club. Now you know how Economists, healthcare professionals, skateboarders, basket weavers and anybody else whose domain knowledge runs deeper than the average joe's feels whenever their area of technical expertise becomes the subject du jour for the public at large.

This. Everyone has the same problem. And it even gets worse in the Internet, where people just pretend to know things that they don't.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#26

Post by ExactoKnight » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:39 AM UTC

The AI and Singularity hype irks me, because I'm genuinely in agreement with Peter Thiel's argument that technological progress is actually decelerating relative to how it was moving 60 years ago once you look beyond the advancements we have experienced in information technology and finance.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#27

Post by walrus » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:45 AM UTC

tempodox wrote: post #13

The epidemic starts with calling it “AI”.

I've been informally A/B testing the terms machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computational statistics:

- Machine learning: "Oh, neat, what are you working on?"

- Artificial intelligence: "What do you think about the singularity?" or [rolls eyes]

- Computational statistics: "That's nice. So, how was your weekend?"

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#28

Post by Banthum » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:54 AM UTC

ExactoKnight wrote: post #26

The AI and Singularity hype irks me, because I'm genuinely in agreement with Peter Thiel's argument that technological progress is actually decelerating relative to how it was moving 60 years ago once you look beyond the advancements we have experienced in information technology and finance.

True that. 1880-1950 (70 years) took us from train-and-telegraph to jet-and-atom bomb. Horse and carriage was the top-tier tech for personal transportation in 1880, and they were just starting to understand that diseases are often caused by these little blobby creatures called germs.

1950-2020 (70 years) will take us much less distance.

Almost everything we're developing seems to be about information processing. If you look at the technologies that actually do things in the physical world, it seems like almost nothing has changed since the 60's. Cars, trains, bridges, rockets, sewers... all more or less the same.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#29

Post by Banthum » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:58 AM UTC

kordless wrote: post #4

zackchase wrote: post #2

Some strident Singularitarians joined the comment thread.

I'm from the camp the singularity already happened! ;)

Probably happened when proto-people developed complex grunting noises.

Or maybe before - with grasping digits? Hard to tell.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#30

Post by uwiiuvvwu » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 7:09 AM UTC

Banthum wrote: post #28

ExactoKnight wrote: post #26

The AI and Singularity hype irks me, because I'm genuinely in agreement with Peter Thiel's argument that technological progress is actually decelerating relative to how it was moving 60 years ago once you look beyond the advancements we have experienced in information technology and finance.

True that. 1880-1950 (70 years) took us from train-and-telegraph to jet-and-atom bomb. Horse and carriage was the top-tier tech for personal transportation in 1880, and they were just starting to understand that diseases are often caused by these little blobby creatures called germs. 1950-2020 (70 years) will take us much less distance. Almost everything we're developing seems to be about information processing. If y…

compared to what though ? are we assuming a linear rate of development ? in evolution organisms change gradually with occasional bursts, and the same seems to be true of human tech evolution. There are periods of stagnation with tiny increments or even regress in places, then there are rapid bursts of unpredictable change, often enabled by information from one area reaching another previously unrelated one.