Moore's Law for Everything • Hacker News Board

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#321

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

rebelos wrote: post #305

joe_the_user wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One other thing I'd like to add. The scenario of AI mostly replacing people like doctors and lawyers involves bizarre paradoxes beyond whether deep learning "AI" works as advertised. Suppose you can train an "AI" to read legal papers or diagnose patients based on X-rays. That training is done from the data of real life lawyers and doctors actions. Suppose, best case scenario (very unrealistic imo btw), you have a com…

The only way you could be beguiled by this framing is if you don't understand just how inept most doctors and lawyers really are. A future configuration will probably look something like: far fewer highly talented doctors and lawyers remain employable while the rest are replaced by AI that's shown to be vastly more capable, and that is continually enhanced by the encoded expertise of said highly talented remaining sp…

You don't understand just how inept most doctors and lawyers really are.

It doesn't matter how competent or incompetent whatever professional might be. The only thing a deep learning application is going to do is duplicate their behavior. Deep learning involves no "thinking" at all. Just a very elaborate, brute force curve fitting. If the doctors are on average "incompetent" so will be the deep learning app (ie, you kind fall for the sort of "since it's a machine, it will be accurate" fallacy that makes people want to trust self-driving cars)

A future configuration will probably look something like: far fewer highly talented doctors and lawyers.

If you really automated the work of lawyers and doctors with explicit, maybe. BUT that isn't how "deep learning" work. Deep learning just uses data and the problem is you need sufficient data, a sufficiently large corpus of data to show by many, many examples what the thing should do.

Oddly enough, your scenario of high expert adding their expertise to the system is much more like the original Gofai model where a few experts would hypothetically program in their expertise. That scenario fell with difficulty of expertise programming. The present systems can't work that way.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#322

Post by themacguffinman » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #291

themacguffinman wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things only have economic value because humans want those things. Capital doesn't have any desires or drives on its own, owners of capital do. Capital owners are humans. Whatever you might say about capitalism, the idea that it doesn't serve humans or can somehow function without humans is just totally wrong. Capitalist economies aren't just human-centric, they are literally collections of human wants and needs.

>they are literally collections of human wants and needs. And humans are literally just collections of cells, does that mean you have no wants and that your pancreas is running the show? It's very arrogant to think that only humans have desires. Nations have desires, institutions have desires, and capital itself has a lot of desires. Lots of scary entities out there that have desires. When capital is unhappy with cap…

Nation-state desires & institutional desires are human desires. Capital can't "fire" capital owners, that's just a non-sequitur, the very concept of capital ownership is both defined and enforced by human beings. Other capital owners and consumers, ie. humans, fire them. Yes, entire industries are reconfigured and nation-states are redrawn because some humans want them to be reconfigured.

This seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of what people mean when they refer to organizations as entities. One might group together the common interests of an organization as a whole for the sake of simplifying discussion, but that in no way implies that an organization is actually some kind of inhuman entity that functions without humans. When people say "the government wants X" or "Britain doesn't like Y", they don't mean it literally. Government is nothing without the human politicians and officials it's comprised of and/or the human citizens that recognize its authority. A hundred dollar bill is worth nothing without humans to want it and the things it can buy. Suggesting that capitalism can produce non-human economic value contradicts the most basic definition of economic value.

And no, I don't think only humans have desires, but the capitalist economy we have created is based on human desires. Horses clearly have desires too, but thus far they have not invented an economy to serve horse desires. It wasn't non-existent horse capitalism that replaced horses, it was human capitalism.

> Of all the firms in human existence maybe a fraction of a percent are still around. You think the 'owners' of capital wanted that to happen?

Yes actually, I don't know why you think that's somehow undesirable. A lot of firms fail to adapt to human desires & needs so humans drop them. I'm honestly confused at the implication that capital owners want a lot of "firms" to exist when they're only a means to an end.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#323

Post by statstutor » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

scatters wrote: post #300

statstutor wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's what the video is arguing, but it won't be the case unless we've fully satisfied all of our desires. If we haven't, there are, by definition, still things to do. If wealth continues to become increasingly centralised, the wealthy might be able to have all their desires fully satisfied, while the poor won't have enough power to demand that - which potentially creates a vicious cycle. Then the existence of suf…

Continues? The world is more equal than it ever has been, at least since the invention of agriculture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...

World Gini coefficient for wealth has increased from 0.804 to 0.904 between 2008 and 2018, where 1 means that a single person holds all the wealth.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#324

Post by wmf » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

AndrewBissell wrote: post #210

wmf wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main thought after seeing Elysium was "if the robots are so advanced, why not use them to help people?" Healthcare is just a big as the military, so why would the robot makers turn down that opportunity?

Who owns the robots, and what are their motivations?

I thought ruthless capitalists were in it for the money but maybe the cruelty was the point all along.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#325

Post by wait_a_minute » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

pgsimp wrote: post #240

I live in a city with high rents. What would it look like if everybody had a shot at fulfilling their economic dreams? Let's say their dream is to live in the center of the city, in one of those flats that now cost 2 million dollars. So society is obliged to give everybody a shot at that 2 million dollar flat, no matter what their line of work or their qualifications are. How is that supposed to work? Some things sti…

Build more 2 million dollar flats. How high can we build these days? 2 million dollar flats are nice flats. Have robots and AI build as many nice flats as people want.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#326

Post by NortySpock » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

aksss wrote: post #285

NortySpock wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would we not see "those who desire to have kids" out-reproduce those who don't have kids, within a few generations?

Maybe I don't understand the question, but you can see that in population statistics - certain populations reproduce at an above replacement rate, some below. In a lot of the developing world, however, and no different 150 years ago in the developed world, you'd have a lot of kids because you'd expect several to die early. Once a certain level of prosperity and peace is reached, this doesn't become as much of a biolo…

I am aware that some countries reproduce above replacement rate and some below, and that this rate is normally tied with country economic prosperity.

My point was an evolutionary one: wouldn't those couples who choose to reproduce more (assuming you can afford to raise your kids) be selected for, evolutionarily, vs couples who chose to remain childfree?

Thus, even in a few generations, I would assume a moderate cultural shift towards having kids, since now only those who want kids, have them.

The first hormonal birth control method (The Pill) was invented in 1960; we're 60 years beyond that (~3 generations). Maybe my theory isn't panning out as fast as I assumed.

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#327

Post by chordalkeyboard » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:41 AM UTC

tomgp wrote: post #189

tobmlt wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human wants for things are endless. Human desire for extra time, even more so. Human needs are subjective to each and every human. Why does Bezos get up in the morning?, if you’d like something aphoristic you may reply to in many creative ways. There is a lot of hubris in saying we’re pretty much maxed out now, thanks and time to stop. I’d suggest instead we need to make smart choices, and that usually smart answers…

>Human needs are subjective to each and every human After a certain point that's true but I think you miss the point of the parent. There are many, many hungry people in the world, many people without shelter and further millions who have no access to healthcare education or even clean water. These are not subjective needs. Those people are in that position inspite of the fact that we could, with the wealth we have,…

> Those people are in that position inspite of the fact that we could, with the wealth we have, feed, house and provide health care and education for each and every one of them.

I don’t think this is really true, part of the problem is that the wealth that you think could be allocated to this problem was only generated by incentivizing people to build it with compensation, if you turned around and took it away from the people who built it and gave it to people who did not build it, you would disincentivize creation of more wealth, and the wealth you reappropriated would deteriorate, because you neglected to create an incentive and maintenance infrastructure to keep it working. This is exactly what happened when we tried this, starting with poor people in our own communities.

Public housing projects and welfare programs are money sinks that are notoriously counterproductive at meeting their stated needs; and we can’t get people to consider the structural imbalances that result because the need for these programs is an article of faith and among the believers the only acceptable reasons for their failure are “people who don’t agree with the program” and “lack of funding.”

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#328

Post by daxfohl » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:41 AM UTC

Unfortunately I don't see price of healthcare coming down, just more doctors out of work. AI in healthcare will be highly regulated, probably monopolized, and tons of artificial barriers to entry created by corporate lobbyists. The AI quality won't make much of a difference: the winners will be the stodgy bureaucratic companies with political influence and just enough "AI" to be useful. WebMD will probably go offline and things like it will become illegal, "for the public good." Medicine isn't expensive because doctors have gotten more expensive; it's expensive because the industry as a whole needs to maximize its revenue, and AI changes nothing in that respect.

Entertainment will keep getting cheaper and cheaper, but for services people actually need: education, healthcare, and soon food, it's going to continue to be "how much can you afford to pay?" Or worse, "how much can the government afford to pay on your behalf after we've milked you for everything."

(I hope I'm wrong.)

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#329

Post by chordalkeyboard » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #186

DenisM wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Status is a big deal. A wealth differential allows one to order other people around, building up status. Those others then feel the need to get out from under the yoke, or at least to be in the position to order around other-other people. All of this requires continuous wealth accumulation to which there is no limit. You would have to redefine status to end this game.

"A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain."

We’ve shifted the goalposts from “providing every human the dignity of a home” to “providing every human a home that doesn’t look too shabby when compared to the highest bar in society”

Re: Moore's Law for Everything

#330

Post by bick_nyers » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #200

msikora wrote: post #130

> technological progress follows an exponential curve This is a mantra that I keep hearing, but if I compare the progress from 1900 to 1960 and then from 1960 to 2020, it almost seems like it has been flattening... Sure, we have internet and fancy computers, but the progress from 1900 to 1960 was immense: air travel, electrification, proliferation of automobiles, immense progress in medicine, space exploration, nucle…

He’s rehashing Kurzweil’s analysis of history, which is to broadly fit a few data points to show that exponential growth is baked into the universe. And then go in to claim that the next 100 years is going to be something 20,000 years of 20th century progress. But I don’t see that the 2000s are progressing any faster than the 80s and 90s. It looks fairly linear since the 50s or 60s overall. smartphones and Deep Learn…

Well, it's hard to view an exponential when you are on it, because the time steps are so small, it can feel linear. As a 24 year old, I can see the effects of internet+smartphones has on people my age. We navigate information so much more efficiently than older generations, not just from technical skill, but from the standpoint of how we frame mental models, ask questions, etc. The early 1900's were a revolution on atoms, and the past couple decades were a revolution on information. It is harder to see and measure in general, especially when we are still in the thick of it.