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Discovery Loop

discoveryloop.com

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Re: Discovery Loop

#301

Post by atomicnumber3 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #293
beloch wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make many bold promises, but their core goal is neatly encapsulated on the website: "Imagine a future where a handful of people can conduct scientific research and engineering tasks much more rapidly, and with higher quality, than massive teams of scientists and engineers do today." This is the same goal as every other AI company out there. Automate away the human employees and let a small number of "people" (no…

Humans have proven to be incapable of making real progress in science given the effort. Especially academia. We haven't cured many diseases and cancer when we should have (and no im not an amateur and yes I do believe we can "cure cancer". Debate me). We already have a trillionaire, whats the difference? The only difference I see is that people who were previously rich, but considered themselves middle class, are now…

Let me illustrate why you are wrong:

800-400k years ago: humans intentionally create and control fire

300k years ago: humans become anatomically modern

~ now: all of astronomy, biology, medicine, vaccines, spaceflight, antibiotics, sanitization/sterilization, physics, chemistry, fission and fusion, electromagnetism.........

I think we're on a decent pace if we can manage to not exterminate our species.

Re: Discovery Loop

#302

Post by atomicnumber3 »

terryf wrote: post #287
nwienert wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life's unfair, avoiding power concentration is a decent principle. If you grow up in the right place at the right time, how much should you be in control of everyone else's life?

There is no "should" there are only "is" or "is not" The universe has no need to be fair.

This is how you get the french revolution.

Re: Discovery Loop

#303

Post by jszymborski »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #254
woeirua wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Grad students are already essentially working for free.

How many lavishly-paid deans and bureaucrats and administrators are employed for each grad student?

It's not easy to disentangle and it varies by country and institution, but those positions are not normally directly funded by public research grants.

Re: Discovery Loop

#304

Post by mytsakulo »

sejje wrote: post #247
beloch wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make many bold promises, but their core goal is neatly encapsulated on the website: "Imagine a future where a handful of people can conduct scientific research and engineering tasks much more rapidly, and with higher quality, than massive teams of scientists and engineers do today." This is the same goal as every other AI company out there. Automate away the human employees and let a small number of "people" (no…

Why shouldn't they? Also, wouldn't anyone with half a brain use the human-free system to produce another human-free system that was no longer controlled by the "small number of 'people'"?

My best research is one that is seeking funding but none is forthing and by sheer guts and whatnot makes a breakthrough that basically funds itself. No investors. No funders. Definitely not public.

Re: Discovery Loop

#306

Post by pm90 »

I think people are missing what this really is: Google giving some of its most senior engineers the best retirement home to keep them away from competitors. This isn’t in jest; I wish i could make enough money to not care for more from my job and then do research after i get old. Its honestly a brilliant move.

Re: Discovery Loop

#307

Post by lokar »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #279
cjbarber wrote: post #18

From 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…

> Provide Access to Clean Water ??? We don't need any AI for this. Start with separated sewage/wastewater and stormwater drains. Then accredited and highly scrutinised wastewater treatment and discharge into water bodies (or see below for a high-tech solution). As for clean water to the home, direct those stormwater drains to new reservoirs which sustain freshwater aquatic life. Protect aquifers from over-drainage, a…

Sure you do, go full EA:

Build a better surveillance ads system, and use (some of) that cash to pay for water projects.

Re: Discovery Loop

#308

Post by go_elmo »

cjbarber wrote: post #18

From 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…

4. Manage the Nitrogen Cycle

Easy solution - eat less products that pass an animal first - reduces nitrogen pollution by 10x intantly, low tech.

I'd re-formulate: 4. Make people more flexible to changing their mindsets & habits - this is the ultimate problem.

Re: Discovery Loop

#309

Post by AmbroseBierce »

"the benefits of science and technology to the world" just like AI has brought such benefits? Because I haven't seen them, for example it hasn't helped reduce inequality (nor poverty), or reduce climate change, or pollution, or daily stress, if anything it seems to be worsening some of these issues.

So forgive me if I'm skeptic when renowned AI scholars claim to start something for "the benefits of science and technology", because it really seems like we have very different definitions of these words.

Re: Discovery Loop

#310

Post by frollogaston »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #265
frollogaston wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on HN keep saying it is, but I'm still not seeing it. Companies are building datacenters in vast, sun-blasted deserts and still choosing to power those with natural gas. This in turn makes people complain about emissions pledges being reversed, but if it were economical, no pledge would be needed. Of course, USA has cheaper oil/gas than other countries. But if you look elsewhere, rich countries are subsidizing…

Data centers need lots of power 24/7 and regardless of cloud cover. Solar is great to reduce your daytime bills but you still need other methods to cover the downtime. I would be surprised if data centers didn't put in gas _and_ solar.

That's why I'm surprised, they're doing like 100% gas.
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