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South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

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Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#61

Post by msbarnett »

voxic11 wrote: post #19
sedachv wrote: post #16

The Japanese government tried this exact same idea for AI in the 1980s: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/05/business/fifth-generation-... These 5 year targeted research (IMO an oxymoron) plans are always a waste of money, especially if they involve private for-profit companies. Take that money and spend it on 20 years of grants for basic computer science/robotics research in universities and then you will actually get…

They do sometimes work, see the Manhattan project for proof.

The Manhattan Project was run by the US Army Corp of Engineers, not by private for-profit companies.

The incentives in the latter case are all towards grafting maximum funds from the government.

Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#62

Post by [deleted] »

logicallee wrote: post #35
besselheim wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds unlikely. We don't yet know the structure of the human brain in full detail, nor know everything about how it grows and develops, so how can you possibly replicate it?

you can email me if you'd like my thoughts on any subject I've written about. - EDIT: in reply to your question about why I wouldn't answer here, here is an email I've received recently on another subject I've posted about: "It's a bit annoying when the HN crowd take to downvoting rather than taking the time to understand your point of view; I've been on the receiving end of that more than a few times and I know just…

[deleted]

Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#63

Post by tfgg »

1stop wrote: post #48
xianshou wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase Obi-Wan: I feel a great disturbance in the industry...it is as if a million startups cried out in supplication, and were suddenly funded. Pure injections of capital may work for basic needs in Africa, but tend to flounder in creative endeavors. From what I've seen, access to resources - a strong entrepreneurial community, top researchers, good hardware, and a flexible and customer-rich business environm…

The Apollo program would be a good counter example.

I feel comparisons to the Apollo and Manhatten projects, often brought up in this context, are misleading because they ignore the massive pure research bases they were building on. Of course they did do more pure research, but a lot of the cost and muscle/size was for solving engineering problems.

Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#64

Post by sikim »

jahpeacelove wrote: post #54
sikim wrote: post #11

As a South Korean who experienced/heard about many government-backed researches, I strongly feel that this will go nowhere. Most of the time, there's always some bribery involved and project never finishes or come even close to that of the tech companies in US. The government then realizes it can't be done even with more money and puts the money elsewhere just to repeat the same thing. The examples that I can think o…

Care to provide some examples beyond your feelings? The South Korean government did pretty well with shipbuilding: http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp?req_newsidx=69...

As you probably noticed from the article you linked, strong leadership was what made it possible. President Park is a controversial figure in Korea because of his ruthlessness and dictatorship but nevertheless contributed significantly to the country's economic growth. Under his rule, if people were caught accepting bribes from someone, they would face severe punishments for sure. Currently there is no such leadership (current president is a daughter of the President Park, ironically), and people hear news about corruption and wrong use of government budget all the time, especially in military projects where bribery and nepotism are commonplace.

Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#67

Post by SilasX »

mchahn wrote: post #21

I wonder if AI could turn into a race like the space race in the 60's.

That wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. Nick Bostrom argues in Superintelligence that an arms race over AI between nation-states could provoke fears of the other side winning (with a "decisive strategic advantage" from a general AI), and force them to go "full steam ahead", throwing caution to the wind, and not put in adequate safeguards to ensure the AI acts in accordance with our values or respects the boundaries we give it.

Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#68

Post by pm90 »

endymi0n wrote: post #56
tryitnow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, that doesn't sound like the problem with S Korea at all. The above commenter was making the point that too many South Korean projects are compromised by bribes and nepotism. The German/French collaboration just sounds like it was badly organized. The end result may be the same, but it sounds like the root causes were different.

Not at all. Every "research" effort that goes money first (and especially throwing it at already established entities), design, goals and culture second is going to end up the same way. It doesn't have anything to do with South Korea or Germany to be honest.

I agree with this sentiment. Frankly, govt. sponsored research is very hard to get right. The US Federal Govt. is probably the only instance of a government agency I know of that consistently delivers good value for all that investment (through NSF, DARPA etc.) which is why it pains me whenever Congress announces budget cuts for those agencies.

Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#69

Post by hackuser »

sikim wrote: post #64
jahpeacelove wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to provide some examples beyond your feelings? The South Korean government did pretty well with shipbuilding: http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp?req_newsidx=69...

As you probably noticed from the article you linked, strong leadership was what made it possible. President Park is a controversial figure in Korea because of his ruthlessness and dictatorship but nevertheless contributed significantly to the country's economic growth. Under his rule, if people were caught accepting bribes from someone, they would face severe punishments for sure. Currently there is no such leadershi…

I don't know much about the old dictatorship. I do know this story is told about many dictatorships.

In the others, the reality is that the dictatorship is even more corrupt but because there is no freedom of the press, nobody reports it and the dictator publishes their propaganda about how clean they are and how they are jailing people for corruption, when really they are jailing their opponents (like President Xi in China today). Who would have dared to report about corruption by the original President Park, or to defend his opponents?

Democracy produces the least corrupt governments in the world. One big reason is that people are free to report it, the leader can hose their job in the next election, and an indepedent judiciary can convict the leaders friends (and protect their enemies). The corruption is there in any government or human institution; if we aren't reading about it, that's when we have a problem.

Democracies also produce the most economically and technologically advanced economies and societies - look at any list; democracies dominate it. The 'strong leadership' approach, for all its appeal to some, doesn't deliver the goods. For all the chaos, giving input to millions rather than to just one person produces much better results.

Re: South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock'

#70

Post by 1stop »

tfgg wrote: post #63
1stop wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apollo program would be a good counter example.

I feel comparisons to the Apollo and Manhatten projects, often brought up in this context, are misleading because they ignore the massive pure research bases they were building on. Of course they did do more pure research, but a lot of the cost and muscle/size was for solving engineering problems.

Is this just a true Scotsman fallacy?
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