21–30 of 44 posts
I enjoyed listening to the short segment on how and why he gave up chess at 11 despite being ranked 2nd in the world for that age group. Remarkable reflectiveness for an 11-year-old. Check out this down the page: "Demis Hassabis: ‘I thought we were wasting our minds’ AI expert Demis Hassabis on giving up chess tournaments aged 11." It makes me wonder how many other brilliant minds are wasted on trivial pursuits and h…
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I think I understand your sentiment, but I'd object to the phrasing of "trivial pursuits". If history teaches us anything, it's that humanity advances by people following their "trivial interests", rather than being herded onto the "major problems of our complex world". What is or isn't trivial vs important is only obvious in hindsight, unfortunately. That moment might still happen for advertising and the art of capt…
> What is or isn't trivial vs important is only obvious in hindsight, unfortunately. Amongst things of similar nature, sure, but surely you're not arguing that being very good at chess is just as likely advance humanity in some important way as directly tackling current existential dangers?
Where else would the next major advance come from, if not from raising our collective consciousness through games (cheap focused simulations) and articulate story-telling (social alignment and morality correction)? We're not robots, to somehow perceive objective reality independently and logically.
I certainly believe story-tellers and players are absolutely critical if humanity is to pull through. In the "standing on the shoulders of giants" kind of way: incremental digging at what really matters. And the free market seems to agree, as people who are good at this are among the highest valued individuals, however you choose to measure value (money, social status, attention...). What makes you think you could assign value better?
Just curious -- what do you see as the "current existential dangers"?
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The life of that Shepherd doesn't sound trivial at all. And neither does pursuing a life of chess mastery unless that pursuit doesn't bring one personal growth and satisfaction.
It's trivial to the people around him, and in my own eyes he is way more successful than demis, you or me will ever be. Because success isn't valued in money, achievements, fame, discoveries. If you do believe that success is only measured in those above, then am sorry about the life you have chosen to live.
That said, I won't make wide ranging judgements about your life based on the few words you have written.
I enjoyed listening to the short segment on how and why he gave up chess at 11 despite being ranked 2nd in the world for that age group. Remarkable reflectiveness for an 11-year-old. Check out this down the page: "Demis Hassabis: ‘I thought we were wasting our minds’ AI expert Demis Hassabis on giving up chess tournaments aged 11." It makes me wonder how many other brilliant minds are wasted on trivial pursuits and h…
Why is chess any more of a trivial pursuit than, say, art or music? Did Mozart or Michelangelo waste their whole lives for nothing?
Far smaller is the audience for play-by-plays of competitive chess. I'd guess because the experience is less visceral? I've read a beginner-intermediate books with this kind of play-by-play and found it interesting enough, but I'd take my record collection over those books any day.
E=mc2 is a fish, it cannot be consumed and used by you only.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I understand your sentiment, but I'd object to the phrasing of "trivial pursuits". If history teaches us anything, it's that humanity advances by people following their "trivial interests", rather than being herded onto the "major problems of our complex world". What is or isn't trivial vs important is only obvious in hindsight, unfortunately. That moment might still happen for advertising and the art of capt…
In principle we do not know the long-term impact in advance, but we can often make a probabilistic estimate. Choosing career as an AI researcher vs a Go player, for example. * Note: If you want to make an impact, whichever your career inclination is, this website provides some great guides: https://80000hours.org/ I think trying to capture more of the world's resources for Google, Facebook, etc. do have a large impac…
Capturing more of the world's resources for a small number of massive advertising corporations is not beneficial to society in any way. The "innovation" happening at those companies is mostly detrimental, and focused on finding new ways to surveil and manipulate people for profit.
I can highly recommend this. For us Brits this is a national institution and appearing on it is considered a badge of honour similar to a minor peerage. We listen to it live on a Sunday morning. If you enjoy the format there is a large archive of these with many of the most influential people of the 20th century. However the modern (Kirsty Young) ones are by far the most insightful due to her masterful, understated i…
Another amazing podcast series from BBC is "a brief history of mathematics": http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00srz5b/episodes/downloads
I enjoyed listening to the short segment on how and why he gave up chess at 11 despite being ranked 2nd in the world for that age group. Remarkable reflectiveness for an 11-year-old. Check out this down the page: "Demis Hassabis: ‘I thought we were wasting our minds’ AI expert Demis Hassabis on giving up chess tournaments aged 11." It makes me wonder how many other brilliant minds are wasted on trivial pursuits and h…
We humans, have this amazing ability to give or take away meaning and essence to whatever we do.
So for another brilliant or less brilliant mind, becoming a doctor, veterinarian, molecular biologists, etc. Means so much more than reaching the limits of AI.
For a guy who's in love with a girl, nothing has meaning except from the moments she's walking in the room... etc. etc. etc.
I enjoyed listening to the short segment on how and why he gave up chess at 11 despite being ranked 2nd in the world for that age group. Remarkable reflectiveness for an 11-year-old. Check out this down the page: "Demis Hassabis: ‘I thought we were wasting our minds’ AI expert Demis Hassabis on giving up chess tournaments aged 11." It makes me wonder how many other brilliant minds are wasted on trivial pursuits and h…
I'm not that brilliant, but I gave up on chess myself at around 18 when I crossed the threshold of playing blind and not being able to fall asleep at night because I was replaying games in my head. I think there are plenty of indicators that a more brilliant mind would take as clues of navigating to some local intellectual optimum. :-) Only now I'm twice that age I follow a bit of the tournaments again. Watching a ba…
I enjoyed listening to the short segment on how and why he gave up chess at 11 despite being ranked 2nd in the world for that age group. Remarkable reflectiveness for an 11-year-old. Check out this down the page: "Demis Hassabis: ‘I thought we were wasting our minds’ AI expert Demis Hassabis on giving up chess tournaments aged 11." It makes me wonder how many other brilliant minds are wasted on trivial pursuits and h…
> It makes me wonder how many other brilliant minds are wasted on trivial pursuits and how we can better engage them on major problems of our increasingly complex world. We humans, have this amazing ability to give or take away meaning and essence to whatever we do. So for another brilliant or less brilliant mind, becoming a doctor, veterinarian, molecular biologists, etc. Means so much more than reaching the limits…
And yet, all of those fields will benefit from advancements in AI -- whereas someone being great in chess wont have any impact at all for anything else.
What you said is kinda of true, but in a trivial way. Sure, for the guy who's just fallen in love other things aside from his love interest might not mean anything etc.
But that doesn't give any insight as to whether anything is more important than something else.
Might as well have answered "anything goes", which while true regarding available choices someone has if nothing else is considered to matter, it's not true when things are considered in some grander context and towards an end goal.
E.g. if the question "how I can help more people", or "how I can make more money", etc is also in place, chess loses quite fast compared to some scientific pursuit.