41–50 of 127 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh please NO. Let's try to not insert facebook also in our supersensitive medical data, considering how shady they are even with non-sensitive data it's clear it won't end well at all.
Medical data has strong governance around it
"We still need a lot of innovation to solve problems like malaria or obesity ..." There's really no innovation needed for the latter. Just educate people and when that fails implement better controls, i.e. sugar taxes on sodas and food. Fundamentally the goal should be get rid of refined sugars in foods, especially high fructose corn syrup.
People become obese because of emotional issues.
People however like to blame other things and external factors. I'm X because of Y. It's time to take the pity cock out of the mouth and take responsbility for oneself.
That being said it's hard to rely on education for the average non-educated lazy person (i.e. the general masses) but instead we need to regulate the supply, i.e. what is already done with other poisons such as tobacco, drugs, alcohol. Sugar needs to be added to that list.
> software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down Facebook-controlled depression, what a dream
I keep spamming this link, but it's important to be repeated: Facebook already intentionally manipulated emotions of a "small number of users" (700k), proved it was possible, and released a paper on it almost half a decade ago. https://slate.com/technology/2014/06/facebook-unethical-expe...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mere sentences later he says that they would like to do a pilot in the US but regulatory constraints make it impossible.
The whole section is kind of strange. First he says that he believes only technology breakthroughs can solve the climate crisis, despite the expert consensus that the technology is mostly there if the political will can be found to disruptively deploy it. So, presumably, he thinks that mustering the political will is intractable. Then, a few paragraphs later, he admits that his preferred fix of nuclear energy is also…
The details are:
* Bill believes in a new nuclear fission technology that addresses the concern of nuclear waste, traveling wave reactor [1].
* He financed a startup called TerraPower [2] to demonstrate and then to put in use this technology
* Being aware of the strong anti-nuclear sentiment in the US and of the more friendly attitude in China, he signed an agreement with China National Nuclear Corporation to build a 600MW reactor in China
* With the new US administration more hawkish approach towards China, some new restrictions on nuclear deals were announced by the Department of Energy in October [3]
* Gates' TerraPower venture found itself in the crosshairs of these restrictions, so the deal with the CNNC became for all practical purposes void [4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
[3] https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-measures-preve...
[4] https://www.rt.com/business/447910-bill-gates-nuclear-china/
"We still need a lot of innovation to solve problems like malaria or obesity ..." There's really no innovation needed for the latter. Just educate people and when that fails implement better controls, i.e. sugar taxes on sodas and food. Fundamentally the goal should be get rid of refined sugars in foods, especially high fructose corn syrup.
People become obese because of emotional issues.
IMHO, what he thought at 25 is more useful than what he thinks now.
> [...] we are also going to be focusing more on improving the quality of life. I think this will be the thrust of many big breakthroughs of the future. For example, software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down, connect you with your friends, give you personalized tips for sleeping and eating better, and help you use your time more efficiently. Seems like a retrofitted use case that is more of an answer t…
Anyway, it feels to me Gates is fixing a real problem but with very 1st world solutions?
> For example, software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down, connect you with your friends, give you personalized tips for sleeping and eating better, and help you use your time more efficiently.
Maybe it is just the skeptic in me but it is a lil captain obvious that more of those activities will give you a better quality of life. In fact, I will say that most people are very aware that they should sleep or eat better or even use their time efficiently and probably wouldn't need any form of software to tell them that. I will even wager that the overwhelming number of people that are feeling down, need more sleep or need to eat better can't do so easily and is possibly due to their personal circumstances such as having to work insanely hours due to (almost uncontrollable) working conditions and/or have a low to middle wage job that won't allow them to have any spare income to eat healthy/organic food.
This feels like a stereotypical 1st world solution to me that will only apply to certain type of people and I say this as someone in the privilege position to do so.
I know I sound dystopian but could someone refute my view? Am I missing something?
If this is Bill Gates blog, I do wonder the following: On first visit, it pops up a modal subscribe email dialog. On a second visit, a distracting large survey thing slid in from the bottom. Why would Bill Gates need spammy patterns that detract from reading the text on his personal blog?
He's still a brand that needs to be marketed
As a bonus, that doesn't get blocked by adblockers, and doesn't annoy those who aren't interested. I might be bored and see what the questions of a survey are, and maybe take it if they're interesting, but not if it's a pop-up.
> If you’ve never been exposed to the flu, it’s possible to make a vaccine that teaches your immune system to look for those structures and attack them. But once you’ve had the flu, your body obsesses over the strain that got you sick. That makes it really hard to get your immune system to look for the common structures. Very interesting, I did not know that.
Ah, so the body is basically overfitting the training data.
> [...] we are also going to be focusing more on improving the quality of life. I think this will be the thrust of many big breakthroughs of the future. For example, software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down, connect you with your friends, give you personalized tips for sleeping and eating better, and help you use your time more efficiently. Seems like a retrofitted use case that is more of an answer t…
I preface my statement below with a disclaimer that I live in a "developed" or "1st-world" country but have previously lived and experienced other less developed economies. Anyway, it feels to me Gates is fixing a real problem but with very 1st world solutions? > For example, software will be able to notice when you’re feeling down, connect you with your friends, give you personalized tips for sleeping and eating bet…
Maybe it is just the HN mentality of nitpicking to every mention of the word "software".