Google Will Become an AI Company • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#131

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 1:56 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #115

lars512 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offices are cheaper per person to run and provision than individual dwellings due to the extra density of workers, so this trend depends on the tradeoff between the energy saved by reducing travel and the energy spent heating/cooling/running individual home offices. On the other hand, many countries are dealing with ageing populations. Self-driving cars will give the elderly and the disabled a level of autonomy that…

But given that the homes exist anyway, from a pure monetary basis the home office ends up winning pretty much every time. (To be sure, not everyone has a home office they'd be comfortable working in full-time.) The issue, one of them anyway, is that F2F communication is a lot more interactive, higher bandwidth, and encourages unstructured interaction. I do a lot of conference calls and other forms of telecommuting bu…

[deleted]

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#132

Post by dasil003 » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 1:57 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #124

nowarninglabel wrote: post #73

Did no one stop to think about this? It is extremely far-fetched at best. >safety regulations could be greatly relaxed. No, at least not if the author's vision of 200mph average speeds is to be taken. When a mistake or malfunction happens at that speed, safety mechanisms will be imperative. Furthermore, having a mechanical car does not prevent: someone else running into you, a deer running in front of the car, etc. >…

You really shouldn't complain about someone not having any facts and then fail to provide them yourself. Watch, I'll do the same thing: >No, at least not if the author's vision of 200mph average speeds is to be taken. When a mistake or malfunction happens at that speed, safety mechanisms will be imperative. Furthermore, having a mechanical car does not prevent: someone else running into you, a deer running in front o…

You're not being fair to the GP. The things mentioned are just contemporary common sense about the obstactles. If you want to predict the future, I'd say the onus is on you to refute those points rather than the GP providing specific reasoning why all his points won't be overcome.

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#133

Post by asnyder » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 1:58 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #129

asnyder wrote: post #127

After reading through much of the discussion regarding Matt's many interesting points, it's somewhat troubling that nobody addresses the most obvious problem with the realization of sufficiently good AI. In both cases mentioned, in regards to cars, taxis, buses, and call centers, you displace thousands to millions of human workers. While this is all very nice in our tech fantasy lands if these scenarios come to pass…

I don't see the problem; lowering scarcity lowers the need for employment. A king's feast from the 1800s can be bought today with welfare money. When we eliminate the need for all jobs, we can just relabel ourselves "socialist" and call it a day.

Sure, in an ideal world, but I find it very hard to believe that this will come to pass peacefully and in any just matter.

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#134

Post by derefr » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 1:59 AM UTC

nowarninglabel wrote: post #107

[deleted] wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Contrary to what you may think, I was being thoughtful of this but did not think it required rehashing. You however, exactly reiterate my point, you didn't do any due diligence, just put certainly in italics. How about some facts instead? Simply go to maps.google.com and search for Chicago, IL to New York, NY. Ok, 14 hours trip currently. Now, let's take a premise of 200 miles per hour. Now, tell me, can you travel 2…

Just want to point out, regarding gas mileage: If the cars have a dedicated lane, that lane can have a power line running through it. You're basically talking about personal light-rail at that point, for which going 200mph is a solved problem.

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#135

Post by dasil003 » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 2:12 AM UTC

I find it interesting that the responses on plausibility seem to be based on technical or social feasibility. My gut instinct is that resource shortages are going to change the world in unanticipated ways, and what is currently imaginable due to the inexorable march of "progress" will no longer be economical. Hopefully the transition is smooth so we can keep the best of technology (such as the internet) without the waste and depletion of the environment that capitalism so far has failed to account for. Maybe after we figure out the sustainability thing, fully automated ad-hoc transportation could be worked out in the far future.

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#136

Post by nowarninglabel » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 2:29 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #124

nowarninglabel wrote: post #73

Did no one stop to think about this? It is extremely far-fetched at best. >safety regulations could be greatly relaxed. No, at least not if the author's vision of 200mph average speeds is to be taken. When a mistake or malfunction happens at that speed, safety mechanisms will be imperative. Furthermore, having a mechanical car does not prevent: someone else running into you, a deer running in front of the car, etc. >…

You really shouldn't complain about someone not having any facts and then fail to provide them yourself. Watch, I'll do the same thing: >No, at least not if the author's vision of 200mph average speeds is to be taken. When a mistake or malfunction happens at that speed, safety mechanisms will be imperative. Furthermore, having a mechanical car does not prevent: someone else running into you, a deer running in front o…

This all basically comes down to, if one assumes all these things about the future, then the author's claims hold merit. The author should have made that disclaimer if that were the case. Throwing everything into assumptions isn't the way to go. As for facts, especially regarding the idea of 200mph door-to-door I do some in another reply: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2065066

However, the refuting facts should really come from a scientific study, not from me. I'm sure Google is studying such things right now. I'd of course be glad to do some research for some more factual assertations and put it into a blog post if I thought I was going to have a top-voted HN link to it.

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#137

Post by codebaobab » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 3:03 AM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #126

codebaobab wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that seems like a low estimate. I think I remember him already having coined that term when I was buying his books 20 years ago... ...And Don was already Old School then...

...so how long did it take before your copy of The Incredible Secret Money Machine was ripped off :-)

I proactively bought gift copies...

Seriously, it is amazing how way ahead of the curve he was. ISMM was originally published when Tim Ferriss was only 1 year old, but the only real difference between it and 4 Hour Work Week is the scale that the Internet makes available. Every time some hungry hacker blogs about supplementing his income by selling photos on some stock photography site--man, it's deja vu all over again.

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#138

Post by inboulder » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 4:08 AM UTC

jonmc12 wrote: post #35

alex_c wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not that familiar with Wave (other than using it for a bit), but can you expand on the connection between Wave and AI?

Basically the Wave protocol modeled real-time communication in a way that Google Wave Bots & Gadgets could be deployed to add value to conversations among groups. Google Wave was intended to be a playground where humans and AI algorithms could meaningfully share information.

Can you point out the way in which the "Google Wave Bots & Gadgets" had meaningful elements of AI?

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#139

Post by erikpukinskis » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 4:22 AM UTC

nihilocrat wrote: post #83

2. Children could own cars. Don’t feel like schlepping your kid to soccer practice? Just buy them a car 6. ... Make my car driverless (freeing me up to watch TV, read a book, catch up on emails, etc.) and able to travel at twice the speed, and spend the entire trip at top speed (rather than slowing down and speeding up on the highway) and I could feasibly live as far as 100 mph away. 7. Urbanization will reverse. Why…

I think this is an extremely intelligent concern, and I agree with you that we should be moving away from cars.

I'm not sure what the repercussions of the self driving car will be though. SDC's, along with robotics, will eliminate the need to drive to the grocery store, or any store at all. And telecommunications surely will be pushing back against the need for central offices.

My hope is that SDCs will allow us to form more human-scale communities outside of the city, where we can live largely on foot, with local necessities (restaurants, bars, parks) within walking distance. All the crap that clogs up our cities and forces us to drive (stores, mostly) will be distributed to a network of warehouses that we will never visit.

We may take cabs more often from place to place, but I think overall SDCs could help us drive less.

It's all wild speculation at this point, but I think it's very interesting to see what will happen.

Re: Google Will Become an AI Company

#140

Post by erikpukinskis » Tue, Jan 04, 2011, 4:28 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #103

andrewljohnson wrote: post #82

Saying Google is poor at product development is just trolling. List of well-designed, dominant Google products include: * Search * Gmail * Docs * Reader * Images * News * Maps If only other companies failed at product development so well...

Gmail, Docs, and News are not dominant in their category, Images is just another form of search, while Reader is dominant but increasingly irrelevant. You forgot Android, which in the long run will probably prove to be their only really big hit other than search, at least that they've released so far. The others just don't matter that much.

Android is also an acquisition, FWIW.