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A new biography of John von Neumann

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Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#111

Post by misbyrming »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #99
misbyrming wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My "coziness" with the military industrial complex would be to help design weapons using AI. I'm simply fine with that. I wouldn't be advocating for the extermination of a population! So you'd be fine helping them design weapons that could exterminate a populace but you wouldn't advocate actually using them?

I’ve thought carefully about it for a long time. I still change my mind from time to time, but currently, the view is that we need to own the space before others do. Suppose you had the option to help discover and design the first nukes. Would it have been better to refuse, and wait for Russia to design them? The early efforts were crucial. If it were possible to ban AI weapons across all countries for the rest of et…

OK, but let's be serious, I don't think anyone's asking you to design AI-powered weapons ("hey, this guy has trained GPT-2, he must have the skillz to design smart cluster munitions!").

So let's see something more realistic. Have you ever, I don't know, stolen your buddy's new bike because if you don't, somebody else will? Or taken an upskirt picture because people do that kind of thing? Or thrown a burger wrapper out a car window because everybody does it? Are there things you simply find disagreeable or repulsive and you won't do them because you simply don't want to?

Or do you really go around in life trying to maximise your asshole potential, just because you assume everyone else will, too? I am genuinely curious because I certainly don't, I try to minimise my asshole potential, first of all because I don't want to be an asshole. I don't care if other people are assholes. The world is full of assholes. But I am me, not them. YMMV.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#112

Post by AndyMcConachie »

photochemsyn wrote: post #24

John von Neumann was certainly involved in a lot of scientific discoveries, but from the review this looks more like a hagiography with a goal of rehabilitating the reputation of an incredibly gifted scientist/mathematician whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day. 'John von Neumann, the theorist of mutual assured destruction', is how many still view his record. John von N…

Here is the blurb from Amazon on it:

An exhilarating new biography of John von Neumann: the lost genius who invented our world.

The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Self-replicating moon bases and nuclear weapons. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable man: John von Neumann.

Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. His colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet - bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory. He created the first ever programmable digital computer. He prophesied the potential of nanotechnology and, from his deathbed, expounded on the limits of brains and computers - and how they might be overcome.

---

It does sound like a Great Man history, and as someone who reads a lot of histories I usually don't waste my time on Great Man histories. I'll read the reviews when it actually comes out, but you're probably right. It does not look promising.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#113

Post by Mandelmus »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #112
photochemsyn wrote: post #24

John von Neumann was certainly involved in a lot of scientific discoveries, but from the review this looks more like a hagiography with a goal of rehabilitating the reputation of an incredibly gifted scientist/mathematician whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day. 'John von Neumann, the theorist of mutual assured destruction', is how many still view his record. John von N…

Here is the blurb from Amazon on it: An exhilarating new biography of John von Neumann: the lost genius who invented our world. The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Self-replicating moon bases and nuclear weapons. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable man: John von Neumann. Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one…

Could you recommend some notable history books related to computer science that don't fall into the Great Man history genre?

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#114

Post by noiseman »

misbyrming wrote: post #111
sillysaurusx wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve thought carefully about it for a long time. I still change my mind from time to time, but currently, the view is that we need to own the space before others do. Suppose you had the option to help discover and design the first nukes. Would it have been better to refuse, and wait for Russia to design them? The early efforts were crucial. If it were possible to ban AI weapons across all countries for the rest of et…

OK, but let's be serious, I don't think anyone's asking you to design AI-powered weapons ("hey, this guy has trained GPT-2, he must have the skillz to design smart cluster munitions!"). So let's see something more realistic. Have you ever, I don't know, stolen your buddy's new bike because if you don't, somebody else will? Or taken an upskirt picture because people do that kind of thing? Or thrown a burger wrapper ou…

There would be no negative consequences for you if you failed to take an upskirt picture. But if a country falls behind in weapons technology, then its very existence is imperilled.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#115

Post by sudosysgen »

kaba0 wrote: post #106
sudosysgen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ended up not being the decisive factor, but as the above said, he advocated for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union, and was already part of the nuclear decision-making process - he was invited to participate in the decision for which cities to strike in Japan but was ultimately overruled because he suggested to hit target with no military importance and high concentrations of civilians. He thought (very wr…

It’s easy to determine a “good decision” retroactively. On what basis would one assume that the Soviets would not initiate an attack as soon as they could? In an extreme, but very much possible at the time view of the world, it was a either-or question which power remains - in that context it very much makes sense to preemptively strike them, even if that is a hard and brutal decision.

I'd suggest you look over the distance from the USSR to the USA to see how such an attack would have played out. There was no such possibility u til ICBMs at which time MAD was a thing.

It makes no sense to preemptively strike them. It's a monstrous instinct.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#116

Post by sudosysgen »

erosenbe0 wrote: post #103
sillysaurusx wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the Nazis won WWII, don’t you think it would be worth at least considering using nuclear weapons in a war to destroy their regime before they developed a competitive nuclear arsenal of their own? Or would you have argued for coexistence with them? That's a fascinating question. I'm not sure what to say. EDIT: Ah, my response is "That's an unfair comparison." The context was that Von Neumann was advocating the ex…

Von Neumann was ethnically Jewish and his relatives or friends literally went from respected citizens to extermination in unfathomably short order; so one would not be surprised if his calculus pertaining to collateral damage in decimating the Nazis would be rather unforgiving.

That's an explanation, but it's still wrong. It's a very dangerous thing to justify ethnic revanchism.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#117

Post by sudosysgen »

kaba0 wrote: post #108
sudosysgen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't point it out as the first thing when his name was brought up. But apparently being Von Neumann is sufficient for your upbringing not to matter, hence why I replied. There are no shortages of people in these threads who genuinely believe that Neumann was supremely intelligent, beyond the conception of regular people. I'm sure you'll find them. It's not even unique to Neumann.

> Neumann was supremely intelligent, beyond the conception of regular people And they would be right. This sort of genius is not only nurture and hard work, but nature as well. Like no matter what I do in my life, I will never even approach that level. Of course he is still human, and someone will born (rarely though) that will achieve similar feats, but let’s be honest and just say that what he did is well beyond th…

You may not, but hundreds if not thousands of people were able to push his work farther than he could. It's not beyond the ability of a regular person with enough work to understand what he understood. Really the biggest difference is speed.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#118

Post by sudosysgen »

CheezeIt wrote: post #98
sudosysgen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't point it out as the first thing when his name was brought up. But apparently being Von Neumann is sufficient for your upbringing not to matter, hence why I replied. There are no shortages of people in these threads who genuinely believe that Neumann was supremely intelligent, beyond the conception of regular people. I'm sure you'll find them. It's not even unique to Neumann.

What about his upbringing gave him the ability to recall pages from books he’d read decades later? Nothing. They put effort into his education because of his brilliancy, and your standard Jewish-American household could do the same thing.

They gave him multiple private teachers by the age of 6 - at that time people would normally not even be thought arithmetic.

People can recall pages from books if they put the effort, and regular people routinely do - an average person can memorize thousands of pages. Again it's that he could do it faster that's exceptional.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#119

Post by misbyrming »

noiseman wrote: post #114
misbyrming wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but let's be serious, I don't think anyone's asking you to design AI-powered weapons ("hey, this guy has trained GPT-2, he must have the skillz to design smart cluster munitions!"). So let's see something more realistic. Have you ever, I don't know, stolen your buddy's new bike because if you don't, somebody else will? Or taken an upskirt picture because people do that kind of thing? Or thrown a burger wrapper ou…

There would be no negative consequences for you if you failed to take an upskirt picture. But if a country falls behind in weapons technology, then its very existence is imperilled.

On that, please see my point in my second comment above about considering a realistic scenario.

Additionally, I believe that being an asshole is a negative consequence (of one's choices in life?) in and of itself. In a sense, I think it's the worse thing that can possibly happen to a person, to be an asshole.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#120

Post by salviohexia »

photochemsyn wrote: post #24

John von Neumann was certainly involved in a lot of scientific discoveries, but from the review this looks more like a hagiography with a goal of rehabilitating the reputation of an incredibly gifted scientist/mathematician whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day. 'John von Neumann, the theorist of mutual assured destruction', is how many still view his record. John von N…

Completely agree about the Richard Rhodes book being much better, and infinitely more interesting, than the 'lone genius trope that seems to feature heavily in the new von Neumann biog. Von Neumann may have been a 'genius', but he was a deeply flawed (and in many ways unsympathetic) character by all accounts.

I'm currently working on a book/photobook that’s being published in spring next year about his second wife, Klara Dán von Neumann. Klara’s a very interesting figure, but has remained very much in the shadow of her more famous husband. Despite having had little formal education, she taught herself how to programme, and wrote code for Monte Carlo simulations of various hydrogen bomb models on the ENIAC as a consultant for Los Alamos in the late 1940s and early ‘50s.

The book is also about other women programmers and the relationship between early computers, simulation tools like Monte Carlo, and the impact of hydrogen bomb testing in the Marshal Islands. For anyone interested in Klara’s story or the other inter-connected subjects, the book is currently available for pre-order via a Kickstarter campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/632375787/klara-and-the...

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