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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?

#451

Post by TuringNYC »

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.

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

Does it really matter when it comes to real life? Kids take medical advice from TikTok influencers. Half the country believes absurd news they see on Facebook. Half the country believes anything their president says.

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

#452

Post by tootie »

markus_zhang wrote: post #434
tootie wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly that it faired poorly against human doctors. Real-world medical data is too messy to feed into a machine. https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/31/machine_learning_the_...

Thanks! I wonder what is the most advanced automatic technique right now. I also think it's difficult to replace nurses -- even though basic nurse work is even easier comparing to a family doctor who needs to diagnose. I figure the reason is that to replace nurse we need a lot of automatic hardware , which needs a lot of investment, unlike ChatGPT which can really replace a service agent given enough training because…

We have a lot. But it's really the same story that we see with software. The more sophisticated the software you grab off the shelf the more that's expected from a single worker. Modern doctor's offices are overloaded with gadgets. Most are using automatic blood pressure cuffs, digital pulse ox and all sorts of machines to test for things that used to be untestable. The need for nurses and techs to operate them all only increases.

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

#453

Post by buggy6257 »

joenot443 wrote: post #398
7ewis wrote: post #11

Maybe not weird or surreal enough for HN. But I am amazed by the stability and quality of videos from my drone. It's just amazing that I could easily fly a kilometer away whilst having a live feed of the footage being streamed back to my controller. I have a sub 250g drone, so it's so light yet easily able to withstand pretty strong winds and the videos look great on a big 4K TV afterwards!

Is now a good time to get into the hobby? I remember having an interest in college but it seemed so expensive and prohibitive. Have drones reached the same cost-value consumer sweet spot that 4K tv and e-bikes are recently enjoying?

Go look up the DJI Mini 2. <700 for drone plus accessory kit. 4k video with 30min battery life all flown from your controller and phone. It’s mind blowing.

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

#454

Post by chrisco255 »

daveguy wrote: post #333
kevstev wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this way about self driving cars as well. Its like even 10 years ago, the capabilities they have today would be considered mind blowing, yet they receive so much hate because they aren't yet adapted to all situations. Its baffling to me, every time I watch a video of one I get all giddy and I am like we are living in the future! Yet even from tech circles, they get so much criticism because they aren't 100% th…

I think most of the criticism with self driving is around the over-hyped under-delivered "full self driving" from Musk -- it actually seems to be getting worse compared to 5 years ago. Apparently Cruise and Waymo are doing much more impressive things, but they only get a fraction of the press.

If they're doing more impressive things why is it not in production at scale, right now? Just earlier today there was a story of a Waymo car getting stuck in an intersection in SF. Those cars still need constant intervention and human assistance that's why.

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

#455

Post by jdmcnugent »

ubermonkey wrote: post #290

Well, this is far afield from the normal discussions here, but: 8 years ago, I had a pretty bad cycling crash and broke my hip -- which, if you're not aware, means I broke the "femoral neck", or the narrow bit of bone between the long part of the femur and the "ball" that goes into your pelvis. Post-repair, my x-ray looked like this: http://i.imgur.com/gRqg50J.png Anyway, with that much hardware in a repair, you're p…

Orthopedic surgeon here. Outpatient total joint replacements have taken off like a rocket in the last few years, in part due to advances in due to pain control (pre operative peripheral nerve blocks, etc), accelerated physical therapy, and all around better management and prevention of all the common postop complaints (nausea, opioid induced constipation, etc), but I would say the number one driver has been that insurance companies (including Medicare) will finally pay for it to be done outpatient. 3 years ago you had to keep people in the hospital at least overnight to even get reimbursed. The same phenomenon has happened with many of the spine procedures that can now be done outpatient. The actual surgical techniques have not really changed much over the last few decades other than popularizing a few approaches (anterior vs posterior) or bearing surfaces (metal on polyethylene vs ceramic on polyethylene, etc).

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

#456

Post by kragen »

adenozine wrote: post #448
adenozine wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I found it? Either way, I appreciate the tidbit. Good reading inspiration.

My bad, forgot: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9774501

pretty sure this wasn't what i read

does it mention the tx-0

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

#457

Post by gwbas1c »

dcminter wrote: post #367
gwbas1c wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furhat is a social robot: It's basically a humanoid head that sits on a desk, and people are supposed to interact with it as a person.

What part of that precludes telepresence?

I don't think it has anything to do with telepresence.

It looks like a robotic receptionist, or a robotic concierge.

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

#459

Post by fuzzfactor »

ubermonkey wrote: post #413
kirubakaran wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations! > I live in a top-tier city for this kind of medical attention What city is that, if you don't mind?

Houston. We have shitty weather in the summer, and the landscape is so flat as to make pancakes look topographically interesting, but if you have cancer or need orthopedic surgery it's hard to find a better place to go.

>Houston.

A place that has hospitals the size of skyscrapers.

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

#460

Post by kevinwang »

JackFr wrote: post #147
kevinwang wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the output is often wrong despite looking right, but in this instance I don't see anything wrong in this example.

> I don't see anything wrong in this example It's not in the style of a psalm.

Ah, interesting. I didn't notice that. I have noticed that chatgpt is really impressive at doing rhyming poems/songs, and many of its generated poems sound similar to each other. I also don't remember raw gpt-3 being so good at poems.

So I wonder if there was substantial fine-tuning for chatgpt specifically to reward it to generate poems, in a particular style.

And here, it's "over indexing" on that and still generating poems in that familiar style

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