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The Influence of Bell Labs

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Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#111

Post by JKCalhoun »

linguae wrote: post #46
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Zuck's obsession with VR isn't curiosity driven research than nothing is. 10 billion yearly losses for something that by all accounts isn't close to magically becoming profitable. It honestly just seems like something he thinks is cool and therefore dumps money in.

It's an example of Zuck's curiosity. When I refer to curiosity-driven research, I mean curiosity driven by the researchers, where the researchers themselves drive the research agenda, not management. To be fair, though; Facebook, I mean, Meta is a publicly-traded company and if the shareholders get tired of not seeing any ROI from Meta's VR initiatives, then this could compel Zuck to stop. Even Zuck isn't free from b…

That's right. Research needs to be bottom-up.

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#112

Post by leoc »

gwervc wrote: post #36
linguae wrote: post #10

During my teenage and college years in the 2000s, I was inspired by what I’ve read about Bell Labs, and I wanted to work as a computer science researcher in industry. I’ve also been inspired by Xerox PARC’s 1970s and 1980s researchers. I pursued that goal, and I’ve worked for a few industrial research labs before I switched careers to full-time community college teaching a few months ago. One thing I lament is the de…

> the only avenues I see for curiosity-driven researchers are becoming independently wealthy, living like a monk I came to the same conclusion. This is the path I'm following (trying to set up a company and lean FIRE). It's sad in a way because those efforts and years could have been directed to research but we have to adapt.

I think that this was Paul Graham's original ambition for YC, really: a hope that some at least of the successful founders would choose to take their winnings and implement the next Lisp Machine and similar projects. Unfortunately, as with other things, winning the SV VC game just seems to incline people to either keep climbing that same greasy pole, or to do unstrenuous rich-guy things, or some combination of those two.

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#113

Post by bee_rider »

twilo wrote: post #104
gwervc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only avenues I see for curiosity-driven researchers are becoming independently wealthy, living like a monk I came to the same conclusion. This is the path I'm following (trying to set up a company and lean FIRE). It's sad in a way because those efforts and years could have been directed to research but we have to adapt.

That was mostly how the big scientific breakthroughs came in the 1800-1900s .. independent wealth. That’s what a “scholar” is and Universities provided the perfect environment for that to thrive, which is no longer the case.

In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, maybe…

In post WW2 America though there was increased funding from the state, large research universities, institutes and national labs could be created. In the era where all that was really working at full speed, the “big scientific breakthrough” came at such a pace that it became hard to see what was big or not.

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#114

Post by formerly_proven »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #111
linguae wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an example of Zuck's curiosity. When I refer to curiosity-driven research, I mean curiosity driven by the researchers, where the researchers themselves drive the research agenda, not management. To be fair, though; Facebook, I mean, Meta is a publicly-traded company and if the shareholders get tired of not seeing any ROI from Meta's VR initiatives, then this could compel Zuck to stop. Even Zuck isn't free from b…

That's right. Research needs to be bottom-up.

Managers heard that too but dramatically misunderstood what that phrase means.

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#115

Post by mensetmanusman »

dartos wrote: post #43
Swizec wrote: post #15

Everyone wants Bell Labs, but not the thing that made it possible — high corporate profit taxes. They were making bucket loads of monopoly money and had to put it somewhere or taxes would it away.

I think a lot of people want high corporate profit taxes

How else will we know if seatbelts are effective in Africa?

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#116

Post by l33t7332273 »

ggm wrote: post #66
l33t7332273 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think there is room for a resurgence in linear optimization? Linear programming, and even integer linear programming are pretty well solved practically speaking.

I tried using some online systems to help formulate weighted sum decisions over unrankable choices and it's bloody hard work getting people on board. I think how the logic presents could improve. This stuff while old, is not routine for decision makers. They don't seem to grok how to formulate the questions and the choices.

I think it’s fundamentally hard to make tools like that because models can be sensitive to specifics, so dumbing them down is generally not great

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#117

Post by MaysonL »

linguae wrote: post #10

During my teenage and college years in the 2000s, I was inspired by what I’ve read about Bell Labs, and I wanted to work as a computer science researcher in industry. I’ve also been inspired by Xerox PARC’s 1970s and 1980s researchers. I pursued that goal, and I’ve worked for a few industrial research labs before I switched careers to full-time community college teaching a few months ago. One thing I lament is the de…

Back in 1963, I had the privilege of participating in a program the summer before my senior year of high school. This was at the research lab of GE in Schenectady. I was working (not very productively) on a project involving platinum catalyst of hydrocarbons – what eventually became catalytic converters. The kid who tutored me in calculus (and later won a MacArthur grant and founded his own think tank) worked on what was then called nuclear magnetic resonance or NMR. Now it’s the guts or MRI machines (they left off the “nuclear” for PR reasons. I wonder how many kids these days have the chance to do shit like that, and if there are any labs where long-term research like that is funded.

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#118

Post by dr_dshiv »

l33t7332273 wrote: post #51
dr_dshiv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once we get superintelligence — some time next year I’d say — then we will have a tool to make all those dreams come true.

What are you basing such a bold prediction on?

https://x.com/anthonynaguirre/status/1861893538532991096?s=4...

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#119

Post by dev_tty01 »

teleforce wrote: post #69
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that kind of research can only happen with a very rich monopoly. Bell labs came about when AT&T was the monopoly telephone provider in the US. PARC happened when Xerox had a very lucrative monopoly on copy machines.

That's my conclusion as well since now the closest we have to Bell Labs is the Google R&D where it has a virtual monopoly on Internet search and it's able to hire excellent well paid researchers [1]. [1] US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41784599

Bell Labs was also funded by a massive monopoly.

Re: The Influence of Bell Labs

#120

Post by [deleted] »

leoc wrote: post #112
gwervc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only avenues I see for curiosity-driven researchers are becoming independently wealthy, living like a monk I came to the same conclusion. This is the path I'm following (trying to set up a company and lean FIRE). It's sad in a way because those efforts and years could have been directed to research but we have to adapt.

I think that this was Paul Graham's original ambition for YC, really: a hope that some at least of the successful founders would choose to take their winnings and implement the next Lisp Machine and similar projects. Unfortunately, as with other things, winning the SV VC game just seems to incline people to either keep climbing that same greasy pole, or to do unstrenuous rich-guy things, or some combination of those…

[deleted]
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