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Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#91

Post by jcims »

agumonkey wrote: post #50

not sure if it qualifies as technology: - nicolas schabanel team works on molecular DNA programming, they had game of life capable structures made of DNA tiles. The mentioned being capable of transpiling tiny lambda calculus expressions but were stuck (this was in 2013~) due to thermal degradation on long programs. His courses are on dailymotion. - michael levin morphogenesis / developmental biology research: dude re…

I truly feel there’s going to be some kind of industrial revolution with DNA or derivative based manufacturing.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#92

Post by O__________O »

alamortsubite wrote: post #44

This video on Helion impressed me, though admittedly I know very little about nuclear fusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38

Worth nothing Helion has raised $577.8M of which $375M was provided by Sam Altman.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#93

Post by jcims »

Ftuuky wrote: post #35

Seeing a dude grow human neurons directly connected to a computer chip to make a "human AI", all from his garage [0]. It showed me what is possible with science these days if you have enough dedication and know-how. Made me feel deeply excited and scared for the incoming future. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2YDApNRK3g

One of the few YouTube channels that i can identify by the experiment alone.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#94

Post by jcims »

guerrilla wrote: post #81
Ftuuky wrote: post #35

Seeing a dude grow human neurons directly connected to a computer chip to make a "human AI", all from his garage [0]. It showed me what is possible with science these days if you have enough dedication and know-how. Made me feel deeply excited and scared for the incoming future. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2YDApNRK3g

Oh yeah this one... This really disturbs me. I can't shake the feeling that it might be conscious somehow; trapped, enslaved and tortured like some kind of Black Mirror episode.

This is why I give that engineer at Google a lot of slack for his concerns that Lambda was conscious.

There’s a bit of an imperative, in my opinion, to over-index on that concern, because we could be building and torturing things for decades because people are afraid of losing their jobs.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#95

Post by eitland »

nstart wrote: post #29
smallerfish wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - they raised $100 million. They're expecting people to pay $33/mo for the service, which includes the grinder/dehydrator bin, plus the cost of mailing the dense milled organics back to their processing facility. Figure that actual physical expenses cost $18/mo, leaving $15/mo profit per household; on top of that, they'll have extensive marketing costs - let's say marketing & employee costs take another $10/mo, l…

There is the part where they expect to earn back from reselling the compost. > Mill has partnered with two processing facilities that purchase and turn all this dried food into a chicken feed ingredient, filtering out any errant forks or inorganic materials that accidentally get tossed in the bin. The bit about filtering out inorganic material seems a little too convenient to gloss over though.

As a kid who grew up on a small (by Norwegian standards) dairy farm I remember it confused me that food waste couldn't be sold to farms.

As a grown up, seeing all the stuff people put into food waste I can understand it.

What I still can't understand though is how many people mistake food wrapping for food..!

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#96

Post by adlpz »

Havoc wrote: post #9

The motions on the recent Boston dynamics demo video were eerily realistic and humanlike. Sure preprogrammed but still that smoothness stood out to me as something new

I believe this is the video, for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1_QhJ1EhQ

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#97

Post by vijayr02 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #48
lqet wrote: post #42

ChatGPT. This is the only technology that truly freaked me out in my lifetime (I am 35). It competently explained to me the difference between Dijkstra's algorithm and A* in a psalm-like poem [0]. It was able to find misspelled words in a long text I just made up, list them in alphabetical order, and explain to me why I misspelled them. It correctly simulated a ChatGPT instance which was accessible via a HTTP API, an…

That's wrong. It's poetic, but incorrect. These tools are about as good as a non specialist with time to undertake some bullshitting.

So perfectly suited for a management role? :)

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#98

Post by aj_icracked »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #36
klntsky wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should normalize having chickens in the office.

No. Have you ever raised chickens, or cleaned out a coop?

Ha! I actually run a company that does Coop cleaning, babysitting, coop set up, day old chick delivery, etc. We're launching the world's best Coop in 45 days, stay tuned :)

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#99

Post by nradov »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #76
jvanderbot wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's wrong. It's poetic, but incorrect. These tools are about as good as a non specialist with time to undertake some bullshitting.

It is passing medical exams and will be used to help diagnose issues with similar reliability as humans.

That can only be possible in a limited set of cases where the inputs necessary to make a diagnosis are all present in the patient chart. Human clinicians rely on other inputs to make most diagnoses including visually looking at the patient from multiple angles, asking them questions, manipulating and feeling the patient's body, listening (with or without stethoscope), and even smell. We are a long way from the robotics and sensor integration technology necessary to automate those steps in the diagnostic process.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#100

Post by leesec »

agumonkey wrote: post #50

not sure if it qualifies as technology: - nicolas schabanel team works on molecular DNA programming, they had game of life capable structures made of DNA tiles. The mentioned being capable of transpiling tiny lambda calculus expressions but were stuck (this was in 2013~) due to thermal degradation on long programs. His courses are on dailymotion. - michael levin morphogenesis / developmental biology research: dude re…

Seconding Michael Levin, that guy is doing some incredible stuff
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