I find it strange that probably the most successful and influential compiler and PL developer in a generation doesn't seem to be interested in compilers or PL anymore.
As a machine learning researcher I have to say that you should join us too! AI is the future! PL is an area with big challenges, but AI has even bigger challenges and the impact in the society is bigger, much bigger, too. I would change the question and ask why anyone shouldn't be interested in AI?
PL seems easier to get into and make useful things with, like a static analyzer that enforces some rule at a big co. From my perspective it seems like your need something PhD level to do useful things with it and get paid better than a standard FANG software engineer.
I'm probably wrong although, it's probably an exposure thing.
I find it strange that probably the most successful and influential compiler and PL developer in a generation doesn't seem to be interested in compilers or PL anymore.
> Not now, but if you can really create AI, it shouldn't be indistinguishable of human Intelligence. If we really create AI that is "indistinguishable of human Intelligence", then all questions about human jobs or research become moot, no? If someone was to create AI that is human-equivalent (aka strong AI) then that would be their final project as a human being. There would be no need for human professional or acade…
>'If someone was to create AI that is human-equivalent (aka strong AI)' Creating AI with human level intelligence isn't going to be so great, most people are complete idiots. Creating AI with above human intelligence is a different story.
A well-known "paradox" states that tasks that require savant-level intelligence from humans (like playing chess) are actually doable with computers, but tasks that any idiot can do (say, pouring yourself a cup of tea) are crazy hard.
Just wondering - does a normal person stand a chance to join Google Brain, or do you need to make node.js, swift, own self-driving car or another crazy project to get in?
Not sure about in general, but it seems like their residency program [0] gives a good shot at landing on the team afterwards and is accessible to "normal" people passionate about ML [0] https://research.google.com/teams/brain/residency/
Not now, but if you can really create AI, it shouldn't be indistinguishable of human Intelligence. My point is that it is unlikely to make big steps now to advance in PL, but it is very likely you can do it in AI. The last 5 years have been crazy and the people working on it now is much more than few years ago. Note: most probably you wont be getting human-like AI anytime soon
Sounds a lot like saying people should get into management so that they can get other people to do stuff for them. People can do anything people can do, so you should get into people. And it's totally true! A good manager can make anything happen that their team can accomplish, and their impact can be huge. But some people want to actually work on the stuff, not work on the stuff that works on the stuff.
Actually, compilers are a great example of this dynamic - when you work becomes more and more impactful, but more and more removed from actual problems people have. Say, you write a script to solve a specific problem someone has. But that is not very impactful - one person is happy and that's all. So you generalize your program to a whole class of problems. But that's not the end. Next, you write a framework for writing programs similar to the one you've developed on the previous step. And of course, all languages being shit, you'll want to write a compiler for a language to write your framework in. So you end up with a thing that is very impactful but also pretty useless on its own.
I find it strange that probably the most successful and influential compiler and PL developer in a generation doesn't seem to be interested in compilers or PL anymore.
If you want to understand his motivations, he gave a wide ranging interview to the ATP (Accidental Tech Podcast) guys at the time he jumped ship to Tesla.
Basically it seemed to boil down to him now being a people manager as much as he is an engineer - he really enjoys helping teams of people succeed at complex technical problems. This doesn't surprise me at all, given how the nature of work often changes as one climbs an org tree.
I find it strange that probably the most successful and influential compiler and PL developer in a generation doesn't seem to be interested in compilers or PL anymore.
There is an obvious overlap between programming languages and machine learning at Google: TensorFlow. For example, see "A Computational Model for TensorFlow" https://research.google.com/pubs/pub46196.html There are tons of interesting things going on in TensorFlow from a programming language perspective. It has optimization at the low level, like CUDA and SIMD back ends via the Eigen library [1] (which is pretty craz…
> There is an obvious overlap between programming languages and machine learning at Google
This doesn't explain his very brief stint at Tesla as head of AutoPilot.
I find it strange that probably the most successful and influential compiler and PL developer in a generation doesn't seem to be interested in compilers or PL anymore.
PL / compilers has a lot to do with logic and formal reasoning, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's interested in applying that to other domains. Merging DL with more traditional reasoning frameworks is an interesting question I know a few people have tried attacking.