what's going to happen with the comma bodies? when i saw the yt video of him explaining how the next challenge is to solve AGI and for that you need on device learning it really made sense to me. Is he stepping out of that path completely?
I’m taking some time away from Comma
161–170 of 437 posts
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#162George’s insights on self-driving cars remind me of when you get the rare exceptional engineer in your company who knows 100% what he or she is talking about down to the exact implementation level and all of the alternatives, and leadership totally ignores them because they foolhardily believe this kid can’t possibly be right—without asking engineering questions to test to see if they’re right about the engineer bein…
His insights on self driving cars are total fluff once you realize he was only working on problems several orders of magnitude smaller in scope than the ones spending billions are attempting to solve. Autonomous driving is more than just making lane-keep on highways work with a camera mounted to the windshield and requires more than just "hacking". His insights do indicate one thing: that he doesn't understand the ri…
> he was only working on problems several orders of magnitude smaller in scope
Isn't that kind of the point? Tesla would have L4 if the architecture was built right, but it wasn't, and now they're scrambling.
I think George made it very clear that the architecture is what these companies spending billions are getting wrong. Tech debt is more expensive than you think at the cutting edge.
You know what is total fluff? Tesla FSD. Disgusting. At least comma is honest about their hardware, and that's about all it comes down to.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…
I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses thei…
Right, but humility is crucial in machine learning (and particularly in the area of self driving cars) where you're constantly calibrating uncertainty and risk with lives on the line.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…
I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses thei…
You are onto something.
For hard tasks like engineering, you need a balance of ego (I can do this) and humility (this is hard, I need to work as a team and study the problem). Too much of either results in negative outcomes.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
>autonomous cars are no closer to reality today than they were 5 years ago Why do people keep printing things like this, which are objectively wrong? I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location. That didn't exist five years ago, it does exist now. How is this not "closer" than it was 5 years ago when it literally exists now, and didn't exist then?
The situation you're describing is no different to 5 years ago: autonomous vehicles exist but can only operate in a limited environment. That's where Waymo was 5 years ago, it was just an even more limited environment. Read the "Road Testing" section on Wikipedia, specifically, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo
The scope is larger.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#166Can't say I care much about what "George Hotz" is doing, but this line struck me as particularly silly: > And even if you are an atheist, you probably still accept the bible is the closest thing we have to a human origin story. I can't imagine why he believes so. Apart from the modern materialist origin story, what about all the mythical ones from other cultures? Of all of them, this is my favorite: https://www.youtu…
So, people aren't really understanding the motivations that Geohotz has for looking into this stuff. He is being a bit cryptic about it. Here is a basic summary though. The atheist world, of no life after death, is scary. We have not invented immortality. And even if we do, well there is an even scarier thing called entropy, that will end the universe anyway. There is no escape from death, as far as we know, and this…
> But what other options do we have?
Well, most of modern society has decided that once you've satisfied your basic needs, hedonism is the answer. Travel, good food, good times with friends, etc. That's what most people are living like and what the culture creates. No need to find hidden portals.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
"recent years"? This guy has always been like this, going all the way back to ios hacking days or even wii hacking days.
I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…
> but the fact it’s not far more pervasive in our every day
The joke I heard was that AI only refers to technology in the future, and not the past. We use plenty of machine learning models every day:
- Every time you use dictation
- Every time you use biometrics, like face scanning, to unlock your phone
- Every time you use any sort of search engine, news feed, or see an ad
- It is an integral part of the field of computer vision now, so anything to do with scanning documents, using AR, taking photos, etc uses AI
It’s only getting better and more integral to more fields over time.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#168Can't say I care much about what "George Hotz" is doing, but this line struck me as particularly silly: > And even if you are an atheist, you probably still accept the bible is the closest thing we have to a human origin story. I can't imagine why he believes so. Apart from the modern materialist origin story, what about all the mythical ones from other cultures? Of all of them, this is my favorite: https://www.youtu…
I stopped reading when he brought the Bible into things. I have no time to waste on that sort of thing.
It must take a certain level of arrogance to believe that the most famous and widely referenced text in all of human history is a waste of time to a mind like yours.
I'm agnostic as well, but I think it's an ignorant position to take to pretend that the Bible hasn't had an enormous influence in the continued story of humanity.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#169An existentialist Christian engineer? There are dozens of us - dozens! > If it turns out we are automata, then the whole struggle is and always was pointless. The empty godless machines will take their rightful place as the rulers of Earth. All existentialists need to give ol' Darwin a read. The only truth is survival. If machines survive, you can bet it will only be a matter of time before one of them progresses eno…
> All existentialists need to give ol' Darwin a read. The only truth is survival.
You're saying that all existentialists should just be nihilists.
All nihilists need to give the ol' The Myth of Sisyphus a read. Actually read it, not some excerpt summarizing the arguments on Wikipedia.
Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma
#170Quoted post unavailable.
> As it stands, most of this as of the posting time stamp amounts to nothing more than “I don’t like Geohotz.” (This is a running theme with Hotz that’s at least a decade old).
Well… duh? This is sort of a defining part of his personality. Of course it’s going to be brought up every time he comes up.
It’s just like nobody is going to discuss Terry A. Davis and only speak of his work on TempleOS.
> someone who is, by all standards, very successful in their field,
What field is that? Not self-driving cars, anyway.