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The AI Misinformation Epidemic

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Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#191

Post by MR4D »

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.

I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it.

For instance, let's say you have a small circle with a small bump on it. The circle represents current technology, and the bump is a change in technology (i.e. innovation).

Now take a much larger circle that has many small bumps on it. The bumps look tiny in comparison, but in aggregate, they are much larger than the bump from the smaller circle. In fact, at some point, they will be bigger than the old circle, even though it just looks like an un-smoothed circle.

Further, 60 years ago we were coming out of wartime, which meant that many innovations were able to come to market in a short period of time (they had been held up do to wartime limitations like rationing, material shortages, etc.)

This is why I think Thiel is wrong.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#192

Post by paperpunk »

bad_user wrote: post #85
paperpunk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's reasonable to equate 'technologies that existed since the 60s' with 'technologies that are ubiquitous today'. I'm in the bottom 15% of my country (UK) by income and I have access to things like: near-instantaneous hot water at all times, affordable next-day delivery services from a pocket-sized device I carry around with me, international air travel that is affordable for me, efficient fridge/freez…

> I'm in the bottom 15% of my country (UK) by income Dude, no offense, but you're talking about the center of an empire that's literally the biggest that the world has ever seen. That your country is wealthy and can provide for your basic necessities has more to do with this little historical fact than it does with technological advances.

That's a fair point, but it does align with what I was trying to get across.

That being that achieving 'technological progress' with a milestone that applies only to the super wealthy is only one part of technological progress. Bringing it to millions of people at an affordable cost is also something worth considering.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#193

Post by shuntress »

coldtea wrote: post #140
notahacker wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I'd consider stuff like the vast majority of human knowledge sitting in my pocket to be less useful than the dishwasher because it has fewer moving parts or most people can afford to fly to be less of an achievement than the megarich can fly 50% faster . Recent decades might a disappointment compared with the millenialist interpretation of exponential curves, but that's only the same as the disappointment a…

> Not sure I'd consider stuff like the vast majority of human knowledge sitting in my pocket to be less useful than the dishwasher because it has fewer moving parts or most people can afford to fly to be less of an achievement than the megarich can fly 50% faster. Not sure anybody told you to consider that. What they did ask you to consider is that technological progress, outside of the digital realm, has been slowed…

>Technological progress, as long as you don't count all of this massive technological progress (which when left out conveniently makes my point), has been slowed down.

Edit: I should be less combative and provide some actual content. Take a look at semiconductors from the 60s vs now. They are clearly related to 'the digital realm' but are purely physical technology. The fast computers we have now (which enable our digital realm) are at the tip of a screaming bullet train of physical technological progress.

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#194

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

coldtea wrote: post #140
notahacker wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I'd consider stuff like the vast majority of human knowledge sitting in my pocket to be less useful than the dishwasher because it has fewer moving parts or most people can afford to fly to be less of an achievement than the megarich can fly 50% faster . Recent decades might a disappointment compared with the millenialist interpretation of exponential curves, but that's only the same as the disappointment a…

> Not sure I'd consider stuff like the vast majority of human knowledge sitting in my pocket to be less useful than the dishwasher because it has fewer moving parts or most people can afford to fly to be less of an achievement than the megarich can fly 50% faster. Not sure anybody told you to consider that. What they did ask you to consider is that technological progress, outside of the digital realm, has been slowed…

Consider cameras that can shoot 10000 frames a second at ultra high definition resolutions; in the 1970s we had shitty auto developing film as the height of consumer tech.

Battery tech has gotten so advanced you're literally carrying around a firestorm's worth of energy in your pocket and only notice in the rare case that things go spectacularly wrong; compare that to the heavy inefficient NiCds of your parent's age.

Semiconductors are 14nm. That's not for scientists, that's not for researchers, that's for any joe that has 300 bucks. 70 years ago the idea that a pace described by Moore's law could even exist was seen with skepticism (remember it's a marketing "law" not a physical one).

We have rockets that can land themselves, cars that weigh half as much as they did 70 years ago and are twice as safe, a logistic network such that exotic foods are available year round world wide.

It just kills me to watch people post on the Internet using more than likely their mobile super computers, saying tech clearly has slown down because "they've got a feeling".

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#195

Post by syntaxing »

MR4D wrote: post #191
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.

I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it. For instance, let's say you have a small circle with a small bump on it. The circle represents current technology, and the bump is a change in technology (i.e. innovation). Now take a much larger circle that has many small bumps on it. The bumps look tiny in comparison, but in aggregate, they are much larger than the bump from the smaller circle. In fact, at some point…

Your statement reminds me of the representation of PhD:

http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#196

Post by CocoaGeek »

ewjordan wrote: post #74
Banthum wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To reuse a point brought up quite often in this context, making predictions about when and if AGI might arrive based on extrapolations of current technological trends is like trying to predict when the atom bomb would have been created based on a chart of conventional explosive yields leading up to 1940. Undiscovered discoveries are not predictable, certainly not by extrapolating from the current progress. This appli…

"There are no experts in AGI right now" ... Well there's Ben Goertzel from http://opencog.org/

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#198

Post by arca_vorago »

beaconstudios wrote: post #76
jodrellblank wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from the camp the singularity is a continuous process. When you travel away from the Sun, the light from it gets dimmer and dimmer and dimmer, until it becomes single photons appearing with more and more delays but on average energy of 'dimmer' light. Fly towards the Sun and there isn't a sudden cutoff point where it goes from dark to bright, or bright to incandescent, it's a continual increase. Same with life, l…

the whole premise of a singularity is that we will hit a point of exponential technological growth, extrapolated from the accelerating pace of technological development over human history and usually based on the idea that we'll make a self-iterating AI which will lead to runaway intelligence. The "singularity" specifically is intended as a tipping-point where the acceleration of technology becomes faster than human…

Yep, this is why the singularity is a zero-sum game... I expect many entities to vie for the title, but the first one there will subsequently dominate... which is why it's my intention to program my conciousness into my own AI which seeks to become the singularity and therefor my digial conciousness version will become the ultimate god of the universe.

mad scientist laugh

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#199

Post by TuringNYC »

dragonwriter wrote: post #143
TuringNYC wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying people should be able to tell the difference, nor am I discounting the value of the final outcome. Just that pitching an app as ML-driven, when it is barely 1% ML-driven is deceptive and mis-informs the public. Consider taking the side mirror from a Ferrari, putting it on a Ford Escort, and then pitching the Ford Escort as a race-car. The Ford Escort may be a great family car, but it is not a sports ca…

If that 1% is essential to the purpose of the app, it seems reasonable no matter what % of the code of the app it represents.

Going along with my racecar example...the side view mirrors are essential...so does that make the Ford Escort a racecar?

Re: The AI Misinformation Epidemic

#200

Post by soundwave106 »

coldtea wrote: post #183
meri_dian wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a relatively low income individual has access to a large number of goods and services which were once considered exclusive to the wealthy is a clear indication that technological progress has continued at a steady pace. While 'slowed down' or 'sped up' are difficult to quantify, the fact that 3 billion human beings have gained access to smartphone technology over the last decade seems to support the ide…

> The fact that a relatively low income individual has access to a large number of goods and services which were once considered exclusive to the wealthy is a clear indication that technological progress has continued at a steady pace. No, it's just a clear indication of market efficiencies and/or better engineering. It doesn't say anything about what the grandparent asked for: the rate and magnitude of new scientifi…

One era (early 20th) is the industrial revolution; one era (approx. 1960-now) is the information revolution. It is true that the industrial revolution has slowed down and mostly focused on incremental improvements, but it seems strange to discount the information revolution gains completely. There's been a lot of information revolution gains.

That said, I would argue that medicine too has made some pretty significant advances in the 2nd half of the 20th century... mostly in surgery techniques (transplants are 2nd half 20th century), scanning techniques (NMR and CT both were 2nd half 20th century), and pharmaceuticals. Significant vaccines (polio, measles, mumps) were 2nd half of the 20th century developments. Genetic science has made huge gains as of late. Etc.

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