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Problems that attract smart people

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Re: Problems that attract smart people

#51

Post by michaelt »

TimPC wrote: post #20
michaelt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how you think technology relates to democracy. If you think this is the modern-day equivalent of a printing press, it's vital to avoid this being in the hands of only one or two multi-billion-dollar corporations with a history of morally questionable moves. If you think privacy rights and freedom from surveillance are critical to democracy, you want your smart speaker or video doorbell to do all its pro…

The relevant distinction isn’t being a tool it’s how it is built. If you use a bunch of copyrighted material in the design of your tool and some of the material leaks into your answers that’s very different from building Microsoft Word.

The copyright question is of course an important one.

But I was thinking of the tool-vs-platform distinction in the context of the censorship question raised by Midjourney blocking images of Xi Jinping.

'Platforms' like Facebook and Github often censor things like porn, terror recruitment, and political satire fearing reputational damage and loss of advertisers from having such content on their domain, next to their logo - whereas offline tools like MS Word aren't subject to the same fears.

So people who think political satire is a particularly important form of speech might prefer an offline tool for their greater censorship resistance, irrespective of their opinion on issues of copyright.

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#52

Post by lambic2 »

ckemere wrote: post #28

The premise of this is ridiculous. The smartest people I know personally and that I'm aware of generally are not attracted by AI. Person 1 was interested in fundamental physics (dark matter) but had to leave physics due to lack of job opportunities. Person 2 is Terrence Tao. Person 3 is Ed Witten, etc etc. This reflects the hubris of the tech world that overestimates its own intelligence....

I think by "smartest people" the article is referring to the top 1-3 percent smartest people, not the actual 1-3 smartest people in the world...

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#53

Post by bane »

ckemere wrote: post #28

The premise of this is ridiculous. The smartest people I know personally and that I'm aware of generally are not attracted by AI. Person 1 was interested in fundamental physics (dark matter) but had to leave physics due to lack of job opportunities. Person 2 is Terrence Tao. Person 3 is Ed Witten, etc etc. This reflects the hubris of the tech world that overestimates its own intelligence....

AI/ML and LLMs definitely attract a certain cadre of very smart people. I think they enjoy the way that AI/ML sort of inverts the normal programming mindset and the strategies of handling lots of data.

But I also agree that for many other smart people, what these things do is sort of an "obvious" result of doing bulk statistics on lots of data. The particulars can sometimes be surprising, but the aggregate result "thing that confidently generates false data" isn't.

In between, there seems to be a very passionate, and very excited group of people who don't get it and think the AI magic is "thinking". Some of these people may also be smart, but they sure don't have a strong complete vertical understanding of the topic. These people are numerous, and provide lots of conflicting and confusing information at about the level of through of the latest popular science breakthrough article -- setting wrong expectations all along the way.

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#54

Post by photochemsyn »

ckemere wrote: post #28

The premise of this is ridiculous. The smartest people I know personally and that I'm aware of generally are not attracted by AI. Person 1 was interested in fundamental physics (dark matter) but had to leave physics due to lack of job opportunities. Person 2 is Terrence Tao. Person 3 is Ed Witten, etc etc. This reflects the hubris of the tech world that overestimates its own intelligence....

The very premise that 'smartness' is easily quantifiable is also flawed. Attempting to rank all human minds on some hierarchical scale is going to run into the same problems as with human bodies. Is it better to be able to run the fastest, or to lift the heaviest weights, or to have the best hand-eye coordination when it comes to throwing and catching objects? Will specialization in one area of mental skill inevitably create weaknesses in other areas of mental skill (e.g. the strongest weightlifters are never the fastest runners over long distances)?

Not only that, there's the whole cult of intelligence issue, which attracts people who are very skilled at presenting themselves as uber-intelligent even if their greatest talents like in the realm of social engineering and bureaucratic manipulation (many highly successful academics fall into this category). This is a kind of 'smartness', but not necessarily the kind that helps one grasp complex maths.

What we call 'smartness', or 'actual skill' is the product of some degree of native intelligence and the amound of time and energy spent developing that intelligence in a particular area via diligent effort.

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#55

Post by cevn »

photochemsyn wrote: post #54
ckemere wrote: post #28

The premise of this is ridiculous. The smartest people I know personally and that I'm aware of generally are not attracted by AI. Person 1 was interested in fundamental physics (dark matter) but had to leave physics due to lack of job opportunities. Person 2 is Terrence Tao. Person 3 is Ed Witten, etc etc. This reflects the hubris of the tech world that overestimates its own intelligence....

The very premise that 'smartness' is easily quantifiable is also flawed. Attempting to rank all human minds on some hierarchical scale is going to run into the same problems as with human bodies. Is it better to be able to run the fastest, or to lift the heaviest weights, or to have the best hand-eye coordination when it comes to throwing and catching objects? Will specialization in one area of mental skill inevitabl…

Exactly, 'smartness' is meaningless. You can accomplish x task with y practice, applies to any task.

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#56

Post by nightpool »

kgwgk wrote: post #50
javajosh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover it's worrisome that someone who knows Witten and Tao personally doesn't have even grade-school media literacy.

Maybe I don’t have the required level of literacy but I understand « The smartest people I know personally and that I'm aware of generally » as the union of the « know personally » and « aware of generally » sets.

In most understandings of English, "and" is used as the conjunction operator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_conjunction (set intersection). If you were expressing a disjunction (a union), you'd use "or" or "as well as" or something similar. Obviously it's possible to eventually puzzle out from context what OP meant, but I made the same mistake as the person you're replying to when reading the comment quickly.

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#57

Post by oltimer »

This article reminds me of SSLeay by Eric Young which openssl is based on. Without his effort we'd all still be digging in the dirt with text in the clear. Open source is in the debt of a few gifted altruistic hard working people.

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#58

Post by sureglymop »

paulcole wrote: post #19

> Of course, my referral to Graham in this context uses “smart” in a rather limited sense Yes, limited in the sense that smart = can make computers do stuff. > if it’s scammy, it will attract the kind of people who’d play in moral grey areas for personal profit; if it’s bureaucratic-authoritarian, yup, you know who you’ll find there You don’t think smart people run scams or that only idiots want to be authoritarians?

Right. Something very important is that smart ≠ ethical or empathetic.

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#59

Post by kgwgk »

nightpool wrote: post #56
kgwgk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I don’t have the required level of literacy but I understand « The smartest people I know personally and that I'm aware of generally » as the union of the « know personally » and « aware of generally » sets.

In most understandings of English, "and" is used as the conjunction operator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_conjunction (set intersection). If you were expressing a disjunction (a union), you'd use "or" or "as well as" or something similar. Obviously it's possible to eventually puzzle out from context what OP meant, but I made the same mistake as the person you're replying to when reading the comment quickly.

Is it so?

What about “I want to thank both you and the original article author”? Should it be “or” instead of “and”?

Re: Problems that attract smart people

#60

Post by sureglymop »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #45

The single smartest person I know (an actual genius, mensa, gifted schools, etc) works in a crappy web agency and he's chronically underpaid. Tons of smart people I know are doing mediocre jobs. The fact someone is tackling hard problems doesn't make them the smartest people in the room, you need a combination of risk taking and smart in life.

Generally what's needed to climb career ladders are social skills and networking skills. Coincidentally many smart people are not neurotypical and struggle with that. The problem is the "concept" of meritocracy. Many smart people may face significant amounts of adversity or may due to their circumstances be stuck in poverty. One example of that are people with adhd, autism, asperger's etc, many of whom score high on iq tests. But due to their handicaps they still struggle significantly more than neurotypical people because they are a minority.
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