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What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

timharford.com

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Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#11

Post by pjc50 »

eru wrote: post #3
cdancette wrote: post #2

A simple solution would be for the government to fund more fundamental research. Research results should be public goods. It seems hard to encourage companies to do public research, as they have no short / middle term interest to do so

Companies have at least as much interest to do research as they have to do any other charitable activity. The private sector does plenty of charity. Not sure the government should be involved. Not because basic research ain't great---in an ideal world we'd all get ponies from the government---but because budgets are finite and there are other opportunities some of them with more definite benefits. (Like eg funding ed…

> The private sector does plenty of charity

Plenty? How would you quantify that? Certainly in the scientific area it's a tiny part of total funding.

> in the counterfactual with less government expenditures

In this counterfactual the Axis would have outspent the Allies and perhaps won the war.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#12

Post by eru »

pjc50 wrote: post #11
eru wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies have at least as much interest to do research as they have to do any other charitable activity. The private sector does plenty of charity. Not sure the government should be involved. Not because basic research ain't great---in an ideal world we'd all get ponies from the government---but because budgets are finite and there are other opportunities some of them with more definite benefits. (Like eg funding ed…

> The private sector does plenty of charity Plenty? How would you quantify that? Certainly in the scientific area it's a tiny part of total funding. > in the counterfactual with less government expenditures In this counterfactual the Axis would have outspent the Allies and perhaps won the war.

To avoid controversy, take the counterfactual were spending changes after the surrender.

Also I'm talking about basic research funded by the government with no concrete short-term plan for its use. Applied research and development for identified military needs is a different beast. (And might or might not be good, but it's a different argument.)

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#13

Post by pjc50 »

cdancette wrote: post #6
eru wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies have at least as much interest to do research as they have to do any other charitable activity. The private sector does plenty of charity. Not sure the government should be involved. Not because basic research ain't great---in an ideal world we'd all get ponies from the government---but because budgets are finite and there are other opportunities some of them with more definite benefits. (Like eg funding ed…

I think charity improves their public image more than fundamental research, that will be known only by specialists. Moreover, they have large tax incentives for charitable activities (not sure if they have for research too) For the military computers, they had a clear interest in doing so, and the military keeps most of their research hidden, so I think it's not really comparable to public research

> large tax incentives for charitable activities

People misunderstand how these work. You don't get money by giving away money. What happens is that the charity gets the money as if it were pre-tax, that's all.

(Trying to get the money back into the company from the charity after you've got the tax break is fraud)

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#14

Post by d--b »

dandare wrote: post #8

This article implies a positive corelation between technology, research and employment, which is unsubstantiated. Employment rate is a function of politics.

While I agree that the article is not very convincing, it's not far fetched that automating technologies may have an impact on employment rate.

Self-driving trucks and cars are likely to completely change the job landscape, and truck drivers are not going to switch job overnight.

But yes, you're right, politics play a big part, so do monetary policies, and culture (as in: it's more acceptable to be jobless in some cultures than in others).

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#16

Post by dingo_bat »

I don't think there is a very sharp distinction between results oriented R&D and "basic research". In the article, IBM's deep blue is dismissed as a dead-end victory but apparently alphago is not? Why? They both seem identical to me in goals and research methodology.

On a side note, I cannot wait for general super intelligence. It cannot come soon enough. I'm tired of being poor and stuck in a fucking rut, and contemplating my death in a few short decades.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#17

Post by payne92 »

This article is off in so many dimensions.

Fundamental research is not less active, but it's happening in different places (e.g. the Google Brain team). Find the most profitable companies and you'll find the research.

And to suggest a computer Go player, taught in a few days, is a "marginal improvement" over decades of "AI research": as my kids say, "wut?"

If anything, today's deep learning driven AI is a prime example of how fundamental research can work (neural networks were considered research "fringy" by many until about 10 years ago).

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#18

Post by ThomPete »

eru wrote: post #3
cdancette wrote: post #2

A simple solution would be for the government to fund more fundamental research. Research results should be public goods. It seems hard to encourage companies to do public research, as they have no short / middle term interest to do so

Companies have at least as much interest to do research as they have to do any other charitable activity. The private sector does plenty of charity. Not sure the government should be involved. Not because basic research ain't great---in an ideal world we'd all get ponies from the government---but because budgets are finite and there are other opportunities some of them with more definite benefits. (Like eg funding ed…

They actually dont since a lit of fundamental research has no market application. Its knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Interval Tesearch cut their "to market realization" from 10 down to 3 years. Fundamental researchbis not the same as r&d. Countries and civilizations have an interest in those.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#19

Post by watwut »

eru wrote: post #10
cdancette wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think charity improves their public image more than fundamental research, that will be known only by specialists. Moreover, they have large tax incentives for charitable activities (not sure if they have for research too) For the military computers, they had a clear interest in doing so, and the military keeps most of their research hidden, so I think it's not really comparable to public research

I think it's relatively easy to set up a charity to do your basic research for you, and reap the tax benefits? (I'm not an American, and I assume you are talking about American tax system? Other countries are different.) Universities are notorious for spinning their basic research into good PR (and often overblown press releases), even if it would only be interesting to specialists normally. I think companies like Go…

"I think it's relatively easy to set up a charity to do your basic research for you, and reap the tax benefits?"

That would likely qualify as tax fraud.

Re: What AlphaGo Zero teaches us about what’s going wrong with innovation

#20

Post by dagw »

dingo_bat wrote: post #16

I don't think there is a very sharp distinction between results oriented R&D and "basic research". In the article, IBM's deep blue is dismissed as a dead-end victory but apparently alphago is not? Why? They both seem identical to me in goals and research methodology. On a side note, I cannot wait for general super intelligence. It cannot come soon enough. I'm tired of being poor and stuck in a fucking rut, and contem…

Why? They both seem identical to me in goals and research methodology.

In theory taking the work done on AlphaGo (and more importantly AlphaGo Zero) and generalizing it to non-Go related problems should be a lot easier than taking the work done on deep blue and generalizing to non chess related problem.

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