Another way to see this is: a bunch of renowned google engineers realized they can grab some of the VC pie for themselves
https://www.geekwire.com/2026/the-startup-idea-that-convince...
Discovery Loop
151–160 of 630 posts
Re: Discovery Loop
#152From Jeff's twitter post: > Our general approach is to automate the experimental loop. We think this approach is broadly applicable across many different fields of science and engineering. We’ll initially focus on ML research and engineering, but believe the approach can help with important subproblems in nearly every one of the fourteen NAE Grand Challenge problems. We think doing this well requires strong expertise…
> 9. Reverse Engineer the Brain
For what purpose? To replace humans? To make social media more addictive? To master brain manipulation?
Re: Discovery Loop
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
A public benefit corp shouldn’t be a start up. The primary goal of a start up is to grow as quickly as possible which is rarely benefits the public. Very silly to call every non start up a lifestyle business. It’s just a business. Start up are the weird thing that almost always an obscene waste of time and money, but sometime creates google.
> The primary goal of a start up is to grow as quickly as possible which is rarely benefits the public. Why is that so? Fast growth, when achieved honestly, is a result of solving user pain that others haven't. Maybe you think so because users != the public, but I think in totality the public is a collection of users who all have needs they want met.
For certain amount of fast growth: yes. Then there's continued "growth-hacking" and enshittification to keep fast revenue growing after the pain point has been solved with dark patterns and questionable tactics.
Why? Because investors poured a bunch of money in to support fast growth and now they want their money back. And incremental growth won't do. Since 9 out of 10 of the investments fail, the surviving one has to continue to growth-hacking revenues.
Re: Discovery Loop
#154Note that Jeff and crew have cleverly structured their company to avoid problematic uses of AI (e.g., weapons or tracking humans). I suspect that many top researchers will want to work there for this reason, and to work with other top researchers who have a history of delivering results.
There's this somewhere on that page: > securing cyberspace, which has clear military implications, at least in today's age.
Securing cyberspace matters to everyone. Defending critical infrastructure or design of tactical cyber-offense is reasonably in scope for military work.
However, reducing (or rather limiting the increase of) PII leakage and impact of ransomware activities is much closer to day-to-day mainstreet of most people.
Anyone committed to advancing science should care about this regardless of its potential contributions to defense.
Re: Discovery Loop
#155Is it a very hard problem to solve that jeff and the other legendary engineers have decided to quit and start on this?
Re: Discovery Loop
#156From Jeff's twitter post: > Our general approach is to automate the experimental loop. We think this approach is broadly applicable across many different fields of science and engineering. We’ll initially focus on ML research and engineering, but believe the approach can help with important subproblems in nearly every one of the fourteen NAE Grand Challenge problems. We think doing this well requires strong expertise…
The solution to most of these problems lies in policy, not in new tech advancements. Maybe if our biggest companies did something other than suck up to science denying wackos, some progress could be made in these areas.
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Re: Discovery Loop
#157From Jeff's twitter post: > Our general approach is to automate the experimental loop. We think this approach is broadly applicable across many different fields of science and engineering. We’ll initially focus on ML research and engineering, but believe the approach can help with important subproblems in nearly every one of the fourteen NAE Grand Challenge problems. We think doing this well requires strong expertise…
The solution to most of these problems lies in policy, not in new tech advancements. Maybe if our biggest companies did something other than suck up to science denying wackos, some progress could be made in these areas.
I do not see how the second sentence follows from the first.
I would think the claim in the second sentence would only be relevant in case of the inverse of the claim in the first sentence.
Re: Discovery Loop
#158From Jeff's twitter post: > Our general approach is to automate the experimental loop. We think this approach is broadly applicable across many different fields of science and engineering. We’ll initially focus on ML research and engineering, but believe the approach can help with important subproblems in nearly every one of the fourteen NAE Grand Challenge problems. We think doing this well requires strong expertise…
> 9. Reverse Engineer the Brain For what purpose? To replace humans? To make social media more addictive? To master brain manipulation?
To do human brain activities at scale.
Re: Discovery Loop
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> only works for a very narrow definition of what science is And so does academia. It's just that instead of AI and robotics, PhD students are thrown onto problems that are in large parts slightly tweaked reconfigurations of similar experiments. Especially in chemistry, biochemistry, material sciences there is a large space of discoveries that are barely "novel" in an intellectually stimulating way, but still highly…
Yep. A communications professor where I did my MS says a 200usd/mo claude sub (which ant gives for free) does as much work as 5 grad students. It's mostly like you said, trying out new ideas rapidly.
The purpose of hiring grad students isn’t to advance science, it’s to train experts.
Re: Discovery Loop
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sandbox 2.0 But also, solar power is already economical.
Many of these problems don't seem scientific at all, but rather a problem of political will. As you said, Solar power is incredibly economical. There are plenty of ideas around putting them over farms, or parking lots en-masse to provide cleaner energy. Access to clean drinking water, while certainly scientific in some situations, is also a problem of political will and money. Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure…
It is not economical compared to alternatives that is why you have to have government to force people to do things. In many places such as Pakistan where solar power is not economical on paper is actually very successful in practice because it is actually profitable.
To make solar power practical and economical you need may a square foot of solar panel being able to get enough energy to power and entire home for a week