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Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

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Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#921

Post by ncmncm »

pnako wrote: post #891
ncmncm wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global thermonuclear war is a likely end stage, as fascists are swept into power in reaction to mass migration from the tropics. Sane governmental response is a fantastic assumption. The orange baboon, along with present counterparts in Russia, Brazil, India, China, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary are just a hint at what is to come.

You are being excessive. First, why do you assume they would migrate north and not further south? In your model do you expect people to move in or out of Australia, South Africa, Chile, etc. ?

Maybe because most of the land is in the north? This is not rocket science.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#922

Post by zelly »

m0zg wrote: post #757
zelly wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solving medical errors would be huge. The problem is that it's a long-tailed problem with no clear way to solve with software. Every error is different, and there are already lots of bureaucratic mitigations in place every step of the way. There are no algorithms capable of the general reasoning required to broadly spot all types of errors including de novo ones. The only way to truly guarantee no medical errors is t…

I bet just even solving the errors in diagnostics and/or catching stuff before it's too far gone would be huge in itself. I'm not talking AGI here, just bog standard perceptual stuff: looking at xrays, MRIs, mining medical records for patterns, handing unstructured medical records better, low hanging stuff like that.

Automating literally any automatable healthcare process with software is virtually guaranteed to eliminate errors in that process, because it wouldn't be implemented in the first place if its accuracy wasn't superhuman. It's a lot of different bog standard stuff like you said. Medical imaging, yeah this should already have been done by now. Parsing medical records--you don't even need neural networks for that. But then it's no longer a Solving Medical Errors problem but instead a Automating Medical Job X problem. The general problem per se as I envision it would watch a stream of written actions performed in a hospital (maybe even surveillance footage) and determine if an error happened or is likely to happen; that's AGI.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#923

Post by johnmorrison »

mr_overalls wrote: post #914
johnmorrison wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is much more accurate of our best predictions. Bjørn Lomborg says[1] by the end of the century, climate change left unchecked will only lower the global GDP by a 2-4 percentage points of what it would have otherwise grown to , which is going to be 300-1000% higher than today. So basically, best case scenario 980% GDP growth, worst case 288% GDP growth. This shows climate change is a problem, but it's too sl…

Bjørn Lomborg's education is in political science and statistics. His analyses, while occasionally thought-provoking, are opposed by the vast majority of actual working climate scientists. He has gotten a lot of attention by simply being a climate contrarian.

The same implication could be made about climate scientists, who are not trained in geopolitics or economics. I don't think it's fair to box people in based on their education, and also, there isn't any degree which really qualifies you fully to discuss the geopolitical and economic impacts of climate science.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#924

Post by johnmorrison »

ncmncm wrote: post #921
pnako wrote: post #891

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being excessive. First, why do you assume they would migrate north and not further south? In your model do you expect people to move in or out of Australia, South Africa, Chile, etc. ?

Maybe because most of the land is in the north? This is not rocket science.

How does that change anything? Humanity could fit into a small island with the population density of dt Tokyo. There is plenty of land up, down, left and right.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#925

Post by pm90 »

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #715
pm90 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason there seems to be so much rivalry today is because only the shitty, attention grabbing and warmongering leaders and nations get all the attention. In the meanwhile, you have most nations around the world living and making progress peacefully. Nations that can be easily convinced by some form of aid or assistance to get on the bandwagon. Don't be fooled by the news media. Most peoples of the world just want…

> anti-science racist right-wingers... is probably the biggest threat to any progress don't really know what race has to do with it, but big international banks are a bigger threat since they won't let any nation unplug from the global economy. follow the money.

Racism is a strong indicator of lack of integrity and a belief in the scientific process. If you believe that people are less intelligent because of the color of their skin (despite numerous scientific evidence failing to show any correlation between race and intelligence) it’s a good indicator that you don’t believe in the scientific method.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#926

Post by strls »

johnmorrison wrote: post #905
strls wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a former software engineer get into nuclear tech? What specific skills and positions would be required?

Well, there are engineers needed to develop new CAD / sim software to better model liquid nuclear fuels. That basically would require you to have a very good understanding of software engineering + fluid mechanics, nuclear physics, thermodynamics and chemistry

Thank you. I'm part-time studying applied maths to be able to work on something like that one day.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#927

Post by ncmncm »

johnmorrison wrote: post #876
ncmncm wrote: post #854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know how to manage involuntary migration of 100M-2B population from newly uninhabitable land to established sovereign territory without triggering global thermonuclear warfare, do speak up.

The governments in those countries have enough resources to buy enough land in colder areas for all their people. Would definitely be economically disadvantageous for the migrant nation, but there's no reason it needs to cause "global thermonuclear warfare"

I see that you have very little acquaintance with politics as it is practiced.

What we see happening in the US, with the small amount of migration occurring so far, is spending $billions on building walls.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#928

Post by ncmncm »

bitcoinbutter wrote: post #732
johnmorrison wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about those people, but I'm not talking about them. There are people living in extreme poverty today who won't even be alive anymore by the time sea level rise causes a problem. Who are we to claim that climate change is the most pressing issue facing humanity, when much of humanity faces unrelated life threatening issues?

You're looking at humanity through the lens of an individual. The reality is that the threats to people in extreme poverty are not going to threaten humanity as a whole. I am defining humanity as the progression and prosperity of the human race. Climate change could ultimately threaten the entire human race. It could even result in extinction in the worst case scenario. I disagree with the comment that because of thi…

Humanity is not facing extinction, even if we indulge in global thermonuclear war.

Comfortable civilization will vanish, for at least centuries, taking with it food security, education, and high-tech industry. We will retain iron scrapping. We might keep dentistry, in luckier pockets.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#929

Post by ncmncm »

johnmorrison wrote: post #902
ncmncm wrote: post #881

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you even looked out the window, lately?

Not all areas experience extreme weather. Where I live, there's basically no extreme weather ever.

Lucky you. That experience does not generalize.

Re: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

#930

Post by ncmncm »

aianus wrote: post #839
snowwrestler wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you fear about the rise of fascist China was far worse under the USSR in the latter 20th Century, and in fact far worse in China during that time too. I’m not intending to downplay the impact on minorities within China, or their growing global influence. It’s just that what China is doing is fundamentally the same category of human and national behavior we have seen for 100 years. Relatively speaking, it i…

What is the point of the human race surviving if it turns into some 1984-like dystopia with cameras in my house making sure I pledge allegiance to Emperor Xi's portrait every morning or my social credit score plummets? Give me the climate (or nuclear) apocalypse, instead, please.

Humanity never had a point. It just is. Humans will survive everything imaginable, in much reduced numbers.

There were once 100M people in the Amazon basin, wiped out by plagues brought by Europeans 5 centuries ago. A few survived. The trees growing in unchecked in the depopulated Americas reduced CO2 enough to cause a mini ice age.

That won't be enough to bring down temperatures in the next collapse because the CFCs and HFCs won't go away. But at least the oceans will get less acid.

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