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Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

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Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#51

Post by unclebucknasty »

curiousgal wrote: post #2

For some reason, despite him being extremely well-accomplished, I just can't take any advice he gives seriously, compared to Bill Gates or even Ray Dalio.

It may be stylistic. Cuban tends to opine a lot and sometimes comes across as a blowhard.

He's overexposed too. There's something about people like Gates who don't make a lot of public pronouncements. When they speak, you tend to think it's because they have something of value to say (and they generally do).

Probably doesn't hurt that they also let their work do most of the talking for them (e.g. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).

Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#52

Post by jondiggsit »

bdcravens wrote: post #44
dannylandau wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was around $1.4B, not $100M -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast.com

That's the sale to Yahoo. From that article: "After the IPO, the company was worth $1 billion, Mark Cuban was worth $300 million" (obviously a little more than the $100m I thought)

Cuban had some very smart bankers at Goldman

Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#53

Post by unclebucknasty »

danbruc wrote: post #19

Firstly, AI is currently massively overhyped and people are overestimating the progress we are making. What we are currently doing is curve fitting and searching on steroids enabled by the ever increasing availability of computing power, what we know about general intelligence hasn't changed much in a long time, at least as far as I know. I won't rule out that we may build an AGI by just throwing enough computing pow…

I tend to think that we'll continue to be stuck for a while, but that a fundamental breakthrough will usher in something approaching AGI. And, I don't think it will be along the lines of the relatively brute force current approaches.

So, when it finally happens, it'll move fast.

Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#54

Post by yazaddaruvala »

kabdib wrote: post #49
majos wrote: post #15

His argument seems to be that advances in AI will mean that software development itself is soon automated away, in which case a CS degree will be useless. Then, he advocates studying philosophy because this future will need "big picture" thinkers. I don't know how much substance there is to discuss here. It pretty much hinges on how you think AI will develop over the coming decades. I am skeptical that software devel…

Philosophy is great stuff, I've read my share. I've also got a few linear foot of questionable material on my bookshelf. The Carlos Castenada stuff is clearly bullshit and mostly there just as a cautionary tale. I can't make up my mind about Heidegger because I just don't understand his writing . . . he's either brilliant, or he's blowing smoke up the world's fundament; heck, maybe both. One of my cow-orkers took a b…

My computer engineering degree made us take courses in logic.

DeMorgans law was definitely a part of that.

It's also randomly useful in every day life to remember, "a implies b doesn't imply b implies a" and stuff like that.

Lol people should hear some of the debates me and my engineering friends have sometimes. It's interjected with all of this stuff.

Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#55

Post by aidaman »

curiousgal wrote: post #2

For some reason, despite him being extremely well-accomplished, I just can't take any advice he gives seriously, compared to Bill Gates or even Ray Dalio.

Yes, he's not a super genius. He's reasonably smart and good at spotting trends.

I take the advice of anyone with a huge grain of salt.

Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#56

Post by whataretensors »

stmfreak wrote: post #50

Many people think the current buzz in AI is about intelligent machines instead of highly repeatable pattern recognition. I suspect we are several major advancements away from sentient machines and in a few years the buzz over ML will die down as we realize that it isn't much more than a great at sorting inputs.

The buzz may also continue to increase. The power of even limited narrow AI is only starting to show.

Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#58

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

Hard to take anything this guy says seriously. Ever since he announced that he would be happy to run for vice president without care whether it was Clinton or Trump I lost interest in whatever he said. He said this after regularly blasting Trump as not qualified for being president. He blasted Bitcoin then he decided it was a must-have. Previously he blasted the stock market as a gambling den. And I'm sure there are more examples. He loves publicity and the press loves to print whatever BS he's saying today. I'm sure tomorrow it will be something else. Mark Cuban shut the F--- up!!

Re: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer science

#59

Post by gh02t »

danbruc wrote: post #19

Firstly, AI is currently massively overhyped and people are overestimating the progress we are making. What we are currently doing is curve fitting and searching on steroids enabled by the ever increasing availability of computing power, what we know about general intelligence hasn't changed much in a long time, at least as far as I know. I won't rule out that we may build an AGI by just throwing enough computing pow…

I think another aspect of the current boom in AI is that it is model-less curve fitting (to use your description), and that this is both revolutionary and regressive. On the one hand machine learning algorithms let us solve fuzzy problems that we don't necessarily understand deeply, but the trade off is that those solutions don't give us any real fundamental insight into the nature of the problem the same way e.g. discovering new physics would. So we are now able to solve all these problems that we couldn't before, but in a sense these solutions are unfulfilling because they reveal little else.
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