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Discovery Loop

discoveryloop.com

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Re: Discovery Loop

#471

This is one of the interesting aspects the 'AI job loss' community doesn't account for. As the technology unlocks things, more startups are created. And even at a lower nominal engineer-to-work ratio, overall demand for talent still goes up. Ultimately, we are not a single group trying to achieve a common outcome, we are a collection of many groups trying to compete against each other.

They kind of touch on this:

> 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. By automating the loops of discovery, the world will be able to make much more rapid advances across countless fields of science.

The problem is that for this to actually become true, compute needs to become commodity again, otherwise this capability will select for people and environments with oversized pockets.

Re: Discovery Loop

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A PBC is not a charity or a non-profit. PBCs are for-profit businesses with the goal of making money. In day-to-day business they're indistinguishable with other for-profit corporations, including fundraising and investment. The only real practical difference is that they give directors a little more leeway in their fiduciary duties to say "no" to doing evil things. The advantage to a PBC is protecting founders from…

> a serious problem with standard corporations... immoral activities for profit A politician could trivially write a law to end this "problem", at any point. Or courts could start rejecting suits where investors sue. There is nothing inherent in nature that requires this outcome to exist. This is an entirely self-made problem that society tolerates when it doesn't have to. Corporations used to need a blessing from th…

They did, they’re called benefit corporation laws, and here’s a map of the states that have passed them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation#/media/Fil...

I don’t think there’s some practical way to force existing corporations to include something in their charter, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Business organization is something that a business chooses to do.

Re: Discovery Loop

#474
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…

I don’t understand why all of these companies need to frame it like this. Why not a large amount of people doing an even larger amount of science?

One reason is because they're currently a small team and are their own first customer. Their product wouldn't be much good if it only worked for a large amount of people.

Re: Discovery Loop

#475
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…

I don’t understand why all of these companies need to frame it like this. Why not a large amount of people doing an even larger amount of science?

Large groups suffer communication bottlenecks, so by Amdahl’s law will only be as fast as a smaller group.

You can of course have many independent small groups, but this is trivial and best left unsaid in the context of this comparison.

Re: Discovery Loop

#476
2 things Jeff Dean has mentioned in talks as interesting areas for research:

* Is there a better way to do matrix multiplication?

* Could less reliable chips perform better in aggregate?

Re: Discovery Loop

#477

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…

What solving these challenges benefit us? Some of them make sense, but enhance virtual reality? Reverse engineer the brain? Yeah, good luck with that.

Re: Discovery Loop

#478
I keep being reminded of Eisenhower’s “plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”.

While “useless” might be a harsh term, surely he is onto something in attaching a higher value to the process that produced a result than the result itself.

What if “science” wasn’t about the results? What happens if you keep the “plans” but drop the “planning”?

I deeply wonder how AI will impact our personal ability to remain cognitively agile and adaptable.

Personally I notice myself becoming more abstract and being less interested in details. The cognitive movements I make cover more surface area so to speak, but I wonder how long that’ll last and what happens to a mind if it never was allowed to wade in “useless” details for a decade or more.

Re: Discovery Loop

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that directionally what OpenAI's core message was for a while? A large amount of people building their own customized apps for themselves. Similarily, everyone becoming their own accountant / lawyer / other professional services.

> Similarily, everyone becoming their own accountant / lawyer / other professional services. These professional services will defend themselves with gatekeeping. Suddenly it doesn't depend anymore on the quality of your legal advice, but whether it has been stamped by a qualified Lawyer. It doesn't matter that your taxes are correct, but whether they are submitted by an approved accountant. Etc.

It's not just gatekeeping though. The reason you get a qualified, credentialed structural engineer to sign off on your house instead of just YOLOing the build is so that you (and your insurance company) can sue their pants off if it collapses.
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