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What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

timharford.com

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Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#71

Post by s17n »

eru wrote: post #3
cdancette wrote: post #2

A simple solution would be for the government to fund more fundamental research. Research results should be public goods. It seems hard to encourage companies to do public research, as they have no short / middle term interest to do so

Companies have at least as much interest to do research as they have to do any other charitable activity. The private sector does plenty of charity. Not sure the government should be involved. Not because basic research ain't great---in an ideal world we'd all get ponies from the government---but because budgets are finite and there are other opportunities some of them with more definite benefits. (Like eg funding ed…

Corporate charitable donations were under $19B in 2016. The NIH budget alone is about $27B per year.

The idea that corporations would decide to replace federal funding for charitable reasons is absurd.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#72

Post by topmonk »

jjaredsimpson wrote: post #69
makomk wrote: post #22

The big question this fails to ask is: full employment of what kind? Recent research has found that nearly all of the net job growth is in "alternative work", meaning temporary jobs, contract workers, freelancers, etc: https://qz.com/851066/almost-all-the-10-million-jobs-created... Now think about the kind of innovation that companies like Uber and Deliveroo represent. While ostensibly they might be tech companies, i…

Criticism of the -- what I believe to be -- inevitable post-work post-scarcity economy is rooted in the false idea that employment provides meaning to those employed. But proclaiming the "Value of Work" is just arguing for the "Merits of Drudgery." I can't wait to not work ever again. The weak reply that, "doctors have valuable employment that gives them meaning," is completely beside the point. Doctors like helping…

When I think about UBI, I keep picturing a group of pidgeons fighting over pieces of bread.

I don't see UBI as freedom. It shares a lot with slavery, in that someone else is feeding you, and therefore has control over you.

What I hope for in the future is a fully independent machine that each person owns and is capable of caring for them, by providing food, shelter, etc. and is capable of building a clone of itself.

In this way, you truly are free, having a machine which you own, and can shutdown and leave at anytime if you wish.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#73

Post by ThomPete »

jjaredsimpson wrote: post #69
makomk wrote: post #22

The big question this fails to ask is: full employment of what kind? Recent research has found that nearly all of the net job growth is in "alternative work", meaning temporary jobs, contract workers, freelancers, etc: https://qz.com/851066/almost-all-the-10-million-jobs-created... Now think about the kind of innovation that companies like Uber and Deliveroo represent. While ostensibly they might be tech companies, i…

Criticism of the -- what I believe to be -- inevitable post-work post-scarcity economy is rooted in the false idea that employment provides meaning to those employed. But proclaiming the "Value of Work" is just arguing for the "Merits of Drudgery." I can't wait to not work ever again. The weak reply that, "doctors have valuable employment that gives them meaning," is completely beside the point. Doctors like helping…

It goes further than that.

More or less any job a human can do, technology will do better. If not today then soon. And so even if we purely took a market point of view it's pretty obvious that humans and work isn't really an optimal cocktail once there is a technological alternative.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#74

Post by s17n »

l3robot wrote: post #40

"It was a time when companies weren’t afraid to invest in basic science." No they were probably afraid, but they were forced to invest in science by states. AT&T did not decide to invest massively in science and risky projects like Unix, they were forced to. Please stop thinking companies are behind innovation. A great piece of article that demestify this myth: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/11/tech-…

In addition to generally being a garbage piece of writing, the linked article doesn't actually provide a citation for AT&T being "forced" to invest in anything.

Please somebody downvote this.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#75

Post by ThomPete »

topmonk wrote: post #72
jjaredsimpson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticism of the -- what I believe to be -- inevitable post-work post-scarcity economy is rooted in the false idea that employment provides meaning to those employed. But proclaiming the "Value of Work" is just arguing for the "Merits of Drudgery." I can't wait to not work ever again. The weak reply that, "doctors have valuable employment that gives them meaning," is completely beside the point. Doctors like helping…

When I think about UBI, I keep picturing a group of pidgeons fighting over pieces of bread. I don't see UBI as freedom. It shares a lot with slavery, in that someone else is feeding you, and therefore has control over you. What I hope for in the future is a fully independent machine that each person owns and is capable of caring for them, by providing food, shelter, etc. and is capable of building a clone of itself.…

You are looking at this from the wrong perspective.

You are assuming there is someone (other humans) who are feeding you.

The point of UBI is that it's built on a realization that technology itself is feeding you. In the end, there isn't going to be any single owners because everything is better solved by the technology we are all going to be owning the means of production so to speak.

The post-scarcity society is where all basic needs are met.

If each person has their own machine you are kind of back to the same problem you have now. Who gets to use what resources?

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#76

Post by eli_gottlieb »

eru wrote: post #3
cdancette wrote: post #2

A simple solution would be for the government to fund more fundamental research. Research results should be public goods. It seems hard to encourage companies to do public research, as they have no short / middle term interest to do so

Companies have at least as much interest to do research as they have to do any other charitable activity. The private sector does plenty of charity. Not sure the government should be involved. Not because basic research ain't great---in an ideal world we'd all get ponies from the government---but because budgets are finite and there are other opportunities some of them with more definite benefits. (Like eg funding ed…

>Not sure the government should be involved. Not because basic research ain't great---in an ideal world we'd all get ponies from the government---but because budgets are finite and there are other opportunities some of them with more definite benefits.

Budgets are finite, but currently, the state leaves both money and economic legibility on the table. The simple system should be: if you build and commercialize technology based on a public research grant, the state owns the patent and can set a fixed licensing rate proportional to the amount of the original grant funding. The state then splits the royalties, with you the developer taking most of them, but some large portion poured back into public research budgets (including from money you make off the patent). As your patent term expires, it begins costing you progressively larger portions of royalties and revenues to renew it.

Eventually, the knowledge you documented to get the patent becomes public domain, or the state basically takes all the revenue from renewed patents.

This doesn't just make money for the public research system, it guarantees legible terms to prospective licensees and rules out patent trolling wholesale.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#77

Post by pault »

pjc50 wrote: post #65
pault wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm under the impression that it works like this: I make $100,000 this year, donate $20,000 to charity, pay taxes on $80,000 in income. Is this not accurate? My understanding is that it can save you money if you're just over the bottom end of a tax bracket. Not sure if that applies to corporations too.

> I make $100,000 this year, donate $20,000 to charity, pay taxes on $80,000 in income. Is this not accurate? That sounds accurate. > it can save you money if you're just over the bottom end of a tax bracket. That sounds like a misunderstanding of tax brackets - if the brackets are (e.g) 20% up to $80k and 40% above that, with no deductions, what do you pay if you earn $80,001?

You're right. Obviously I've never given this subject much thought. :)

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#78

Post by eli_gottlieb »

topmonk wrote: post #72
jjaredsimpson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticism of the -- what I believe to be -- inevitable post-work post-scarcity economy is rooted in the false idea that employment provides meaning to those employed. But proclaiming the "Value of Work" is just arguing for the "Merits of Drudgery." I can't wait to not work ever again. The weak reply that, "doctors have valuable employment that gives them meaning," is completely beside the point. Doctors like helping…

When I think about UBI, I keep picturing a group of pidgeons fighting over pieces of bread. I don't see UBI as freedom. It shares a lot with slavery, in that someone else is feeding you, and therefore has control over you. What I hope for in the future is a fully independent machine that each person owns and is capable of caring for them, by providing food, shelter, etc. and is capable of building a clone of itself.…

>I don't see UBI as freedom. It shares a lot with slavery, in that someone else is feeding you, and therefore has control over you.

Right now, the labor market is feeding you, and very directly has control over you. You don't pick out where you think you can make the greatest contributions to humanity, you pick the job field that lets you make rent/mortgage each month.

Mind, I'm all in favor of fully automated luxury space homesteading, but a UBI or something like it will probably be an inevitable part of how we "convince" the economy to switch models from centralized infrastructure with competing workers to decentralized infrastructure with independent, mostly self-sufficient families and communities.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#79

Post by jririri82838 »

topmonk wrote: post #72
jjaredsimpson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticism of the -- what I believe to be -- inevitable post-work post-scarcity economy is rooted in the false idea that employment provides meaning to those employed. But proclaiming the "Value of Work" is just arguing for the "Merits of Drudgery." I can't wait to not work ever again. The weak reply that, "doctors have valuable employment that gives them meaning," is completely beside the point. Doctors like helping…

When I think about UBI, I keep picturing a group of pidgeons fighting over pieces of bread. I don't see UBI as freedom. It shares a lot with slavery, in that someone else is feeding you, and therefore has control over you. What I hope for in the future is a fully independent machine that each person owns and is capable of caring for them, by providing food, shelter, etc. and is capable of building a clone of itself.…

‘Look at your wrists. There – at any time – lies freedom.’ — Seneca

That is the only freedom in the absolute sense you’re peddling

A bit much maybe, but stoicism has been correlated to happiness.

My point being is you’re tethered to how your culture works.

Is it free to be told work in our factory or go hungry?

Don’t be so full of yourself. You had to wrangle and barter to get the “machine which you own”. You have no ability to materialize it from thin air

Fighting over access by competing for that job. Fighting to keep the power on in competition with other users needs

It was the same as you describe with the bread

Except in a UBI system the assumptions change from “make enough bread for the moneyed” to “make enough for all”

You seem to realize your current reality is the raw fight for life, but are projecting it on things you’ve never experienced

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#80

Post by eli_gottlieb »

dsacco wrote: post #38
GuB-42 wrote: post #35

Projects like DeepBlue and AlphaGo are not fundamental innovation nor research, they are just PR stunts that show the expertise of the company making them. TBH, winning a game of chess or go has little value in itself, except for the limited market of selling chess or go software. The reason they are doing that is mostly for publicity. IBM makes computers, and they show how good they are at it by having one beat top…

While I understand your cynicism in the practical applicability of a chess or go-playing AI, I think you are significantly underestimating the theoretical innovations contributed to the field every time these models are substantially improved. Much of the work that goes into improving something like AlphaGo is cross-applicable and cross-pollinated to other research projects, and gradually trickles out into other doma…

The basic problem with AlphaGo Zero is that the state of a Go game is fully deterministic, fully Markovian, and fully amenable to quick simulation. The player makes a move, and the simulator computes the next game-state in milliseconds from only the current game-state. This is what lets the AlphaGo Zero agent train so quickly on self-play.

If you start requiring high-dimensional empirical data where the generating dynamics aren't Markovian (or aren't neatly predictable with a Markovian simulator, even if God considers them fully determined), you start having to do stuff like full-blown physics simulations while also specifying agent goals in terms of those physical states. Then you've got the machine learning part and the simulation part taking up comparable amounts of compute power, and self-supervised training becomes much more difficult.

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