Elon Musk AMA • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#151

Post by lukeqsee » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 10:32 PM UTC

ksk wrote: post #133

lukeqsee wrote: post #25

I found his comment regarding learning to be the most insightful. It is a more developed explanation of what I have found to be an effective strategy for me: > One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. Without th…

>when I've had the time to develop that "first principles" knowledge, I can usually grasp and understand the significance of minutiae. Well, the fact that you've found what works for you is a good thing. However, 'first principles' is subject to subjective interpretation. You can 'go down the rabbit hole' as it were, to any level. Should you have deep knowledge of electronics before learning computer science? Should…

> In my opinion after a certain level, all knowledge is multi-disciplinary, and the boundaries of what constitutes roots, branches, leaves is extremely fuzzy. Also the distinction between theory and practice makes the boundaries even fuzzier.

Of course. I think this is the point of this learning style. After learning the first principles of various topics, the broad web that is higher knowledge is available to you.

Suppose, for instance, I wanted to learn how computer science worked from first principles. This study involves math, electronics, physics, and many, many more subjects. To accomplish this, I would pick one of the key, pure tenets and learn it. Let's say I choose math. I would then learn the key things I need to know about math and then move to electronics and physics, and etc. After knowing these, I could confidently approach the "web" of computer science because I have anchorpoints.

I think it's safe to view higher knowledge as a web supported by the anchors of "pure" subjects. After a while, these higher subjects are built upon and become pure topics themselves. Epistemology and the classification of knowledge is really a fascinating topic.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#152

Post by graycat » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 1:41 AM UTC

JeremyMorgan wrote: post #137

graycat wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may find that, for some popular software technologies now, so far no one has organized the material into a solid tree with a trunk and a few large branches that quickly provide good paths to any of the leaves. Instead you may be looking at a noxious vine or even a patch of jungle with some poisonous plants and reptiles.

I have definitely noticed this, which is part of the reason I haven't "dug deep" with them, and instead learn enough of it to get a job done.

It takes good effort to organize a significant body of knowledge into a tree with a few big, short branches.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#153

Post by read » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 6:29 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #150

read wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to believe there's an odd property to curiosity. Unique observations are threatening to people's identity. Those were two actual questions asked to Elon along with his responses, and the two that stood out for me the most. Did he mention showering because that's the time he gets most of his ideas[1]? Did he say no to politics because it's more likely to change the world through innovation[2]? Result: 8 d…

Your first post got downvotes because it is devoid of content. It just quotes, with no comment or context, two questions and answers. I'm not sure how you get the idea that you're somehow provoking people with dangerous ideas.

Quotes are content, or at least a specific aggregation of them. The article's title is context.

What I found as a dangerous idea was pointing out things you notice when you are not sure why you notice them. Which is how the subconscious operates. Not everything that makes you pause should initially have an explanation. The majority of people's decisions occur without their awareness.

One thing I learned from this exercise was something I hadn't consciously noticed before. That I feel pressured on HN to comment. I don't like that. I want to do something about that.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#154

Post by mkhpalm » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 7:45 AM UTC

bushido wrote: post #39

mkhpalm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk attributes it to Churchill though I don't think anybody has found any evidence that the prime minister ever said it. The earliest evidence anybody can find of the phrase came from the 90s.

Forbes has an article on Churchill using these words.[0] [0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffloftus/2012/05/09/if-youre-...

Maybe Geoff Loftus can provide a reference so the world can stop looking. Just because its in an article from a contributor to Forbes doesn't make it factual. It just means he thought Churchill said it when he wrote his article. Musk did the very same thing.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#155

Post by jebus989 » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 8:21 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #141

jebus989 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Murdered" Wikipedia whose fifth pillar is "ignore all rules"?

> fifth pillar is "ignore all rules"? Go and make some useful edits and see how that works out for you. Rules are strictly enforced above all else.

Unsure of how much editing you've done but I've made over 10,000 edits over the past 9 years and that's not been my experience (google my HN username + wikipedia).

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#156

Post by simonh » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 9:13 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #135

simonh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, but if we can make an AI even slightly smarter than a human, then it will be better at designing AIs than we are. It then designs an AI even smarter than it, and so on. That is the progresion that leads to the singularity. How smart could AIs go? There may be no practical upper limit. If you have a super-genius AI, massively more intelligent than any human, how do you know you are not being manipulated…

"ed - Don't quite understand the downvotes." With the full power of humanity you design the first AI which is smarter than a person. It's then able to out do all of humanity and instantly design an even better AI. mind the gap. Further intelegence is not a linear quantity as trading ex: improved poker skills for insanity is not a net gain. And insanity is a real option which is likely to plage most early AI attempts.

Voting on HN isn't about agreeing or disagreeing. It's about whether a post is contributing to the debate or not.

Anyway, all of humanity isn't engaged in AI research and AIs are likely to be duplicable so I think your first point is beside the point. As for Insanity, yes that's quite possible. Developing high-functioning sentient AIs is likely to be a long term endeavour. But still, I think it is one that will ultimately be successful and this debate is about the consequences of that.

+1 for your engaging contribution. (see, that's how voting is supposed to work)

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#157

Post by ColinWright » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 9:54 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #156

Retric wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ed - Don't quite understand the downvotes." With the full power of humanity you design the first AI which is smarter than a person. It's then able to out do all of humanity and instantly design an even better AI. mind the gap. Further intelegence is not a linear quantity as trading ex: improved poker skills for insanity is not a net gain. And insanity is a real option which is likely to plage most early AI attempts.

Voting on HN isn't about agreeing or disagreeing. It's about whether a post is contributing to the debate or not. Anyway, all of humanity isn't engaged in AI research and AIs are likely to be duplicable so I think your first point is beside the point. As for Insanity, yes that's quite possible. Developing high-functioning sentient AIs is likely to be a long term endeavour. But still, I think it is one that will ultim…

  > Voting on HN isn't about agreeing
  > or disagreeing.  It's about whether
  > a post is contributing to the debate
  > or not.

That turns out not to be the case. It once was true, but as the community has grown, so people have not been enculturated with those early ideas and principles, and now many times people read something, disagree, downvote, and move on, without ever providing counter-points, or engaging in the discussion. It's a way to punish people you don't agree with, while avoiding having to think.

Elsewhere[0] you commented about an item reappearing and having its votes ages apparently reset. I hazard a guess that it was the mods playing with a mechanism to prevent "item overload." There were about a dozen submissions of the SpaceX launch, and each would fall a little way, the next would be submittted, gain a few votes and comments, then fall away to be replaced by another. One way of preventing the splitting of conversation might be to pick a canonical submission, and then prevent it from falling too far, and thus encouraging conversation only to happen in one place. Pure speculation, but it would be a mechanism I would consider were I running a site like this. Certainly there have been fewer instances lately of the "new" page being overrun by breaking news that everyone wants to submit.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844078

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#158

Post by jonpress » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

JesseObrien wrote: post #92

jonpress wrote: post #68

This guy has everything. Why is it that people feel an urge to praise him right to his face? His ego is going to start leaking out of his eyeballs.

Check out this video, he's very humble and down to earth. He's worthy of the praise he gets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOpmaLY9XdI

I didn't mean to say that he has a big ego. What I meant was that he probably has to put some effort into not letting it 'get to his head'.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#159

Post by grecy » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

jebus989 wrote: post #155

grecy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fifth pillar is "ignore all rules"? Go and make some useful edits and see how that works out for you. Rules are strictly enforced above all else.

Unsure of how much editing you've done but I've made over 10,000 edits over the past 9 years and that's not been my experience (google my HN username + wikipedia).

I wonder if it's an experienced editor vs. newbie thing.

Everything I try to do is immediately reverted and sixteen rules are cited. Extremely frustrating, and it happens to many others in the community I'm in (Driving around the world) to the point I setup our own wiki so we don't have to deal with the BS bureaucracy of Wikipedia.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#160

Post by tonyarkles » Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 12:51 AM UTC

chubot wrote: post #45

lukeqsee wrote: post #25

I found his comment regarding learning to be the most insightful. It is a more developed explanation of what I have found to be an effective strategy for me: > One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. Without th…

Yeah I agree this is an important idea. I would suggest a couple tests for whether your knowledge is sufficiently connected in way that Musk advocates: - (if you went to college) Did you have moments when the different courses connected? I think when people are poorly educated in college, it's because of this unfortunately common experience: they learn a bunch of specialized and disconnected subjects, never relate th…

There was a moment in, I believe, my diff eq course where the relationship between derivatives/integrals and the Laplace & Fourier transforms suddenly became crystal clear. That wasn't what the lecture was even about, but from that point on everything got a lot easier to understand. I'd taken two or three EE courses where we bounced back and forth between the time domain and frequency domain, and diff eq was my fourth calculus class, so both topics were already quite familiar to me, but groking the relationship between them made everything so clear.