61–70 of 499 posts
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You could just edit your first comment instead of replying to yourself multiple times. I haven't read RFK's book and even if every single fact in that particular book was true (which I very highly doubt), it wouldn't change anything he's done in the last year that involved gutting American medical research, spreading misinformation about vaccines that's debunked within their own "research" , and coming up with the ab…
Sergey unretires, Gemini suddenly becomes the top LLM (for a week or two at least) Google has made some subtle moves that a lot of folks missed, possibly with Sergey's influence. Like hiring back Noam Shazeer, who practically invented the backbone of the technology. It's good to have folks with presumptions of being scientists actually run companies for once. That being said, I wish his ex-wife hadn't spent her milli…
Today's unscientific gutting of the CDC's childhood vaccine schedule is what is being accomplished with all that $GOOG money.
It's honestly very disturbing and rather than discuss it as a matter of politics, I'll just say that as a parent I'll be following the AAP's vaccination recommendations (even if their recommendations on baby sleep are impossible :)
It's interesting to hear about his experience, but I'm not sure if it's typical. There are millions of people retiring each year, presumably many are happy to be done with the drudgery of work and excited to spend time on hobbies and projects they enjoy. I'm curious to know how many retirees end up like Sergey and how many you don't hear about because they're too busy enjoying their retirement.
The article actually includes some of these examples, but I get the feeling that a lot of readers did not make it past the Brin part.
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You could just edit your first comment instead of replying to yourself multiple times. I haven't read RFK's book and even if every single fact in that particular book was true (which I very highly doubt), it wouldn't change anything he's done in the last year that involved gutting American medical research, spreading misinformation about vaccines that's debunked within their own "research" , and coming up with the ab…
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So even if you were right about COVID, what you just wrote isn't a rebuttable to anything I said. Though I suspect you know that.
It's almost like your response is dishonestly trying to muddy the waters.
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I don't think this is really accurate because the traditional state of society, and one that remains in the 'developing world' which is almost certainly still the wide majority of the world at this point, is families living in multi generational housing with many people contributing. This enables older to generations to comfortably 'retire' when they see fit, and provides financial comfort and security. It's basicall…
I think you might be romanticizing multi-generational households a bit. We introduced social security systems precisely because the family systems failed so frequently. In all but the richest families no retirement as we understand it today was possible. Illness or death of the main bread winners was fatal to the whole household and children were expected to work as soon as possible.
Pre-1960s, the elderly were living in SROs, often windowless, with family (without aid or care), in county poorhouses, or marked as senile and sent to a mental hospital.
Retirement and living with family was viable for many as long as they remained healthy. People imagine Norman Rockwell. Reality was very different.
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Sergey might have some positive influence on Gemini, but given that he isn't an AI scientist ( AKA no technical background), I really do wonder what sort of influence that (only) he could have had, beyond just bringing in key people.
I assume by "no technical background" you mean he doesn't have a PHD in AI. He's probably not developing the low-level algorithms but he can probably do everything else and has years of experience doing so. He's also perfectly able to spend 60 hours a week improving his AI skills using the best teachers in the world.
Retirement wasn't as interesting as a role at the company you founded where everyone looks up to you, doing whatever you feel like with no expectations or defined responsibilities? Shocker Seriously, I'm glad he came back and found something he's interested in. I bet his role has grown some responsibilities, too.
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I don't think this is really accurate because the traditional state of society, and one that remains in the 'developing world' which is almost certainly still the wide majority of the world at this point, is families living in multi generational housing with many people contributing. This enables older to generations to comfortably 'retire' when they see fit, and provides financial comfort and security. It's basicall…
I think you might be romanticizing multi-generational households a bit. We introduced social security systems precisely because the family systems failed so frequently. In all but the richest families no retirement as we understand it today was possible. Illness or death of the main bread winners was fatal to the whole household and children were expected to work as soon as possible.
It was not because family systems were failing. It came about in the era of the great depression, and the idea was rather unpopular at first, particularly among groups like farmers who had no interest in the new taxes that would come alongside it. Some of the arguments in favor of it were it being a way to get older individuals out of the work force in order to make room for younger workers. You have to keep in mind it was introduced at a time when unemployment rates were upwards of 20%. And retirement was and is absolutely possible. When people own their land and house and have basic maintenance skills, your overhead costs become extremely low.
Of course there's also no reason these things must be mutually exclusive. I think the ideal is to learn from the past, which proved its sustainability over millennia, and work to improve it. In modern times we've instead set out to completely replace it - or at least build up something from scratch, and what we've created just doesn't seem particularly sustainable.
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I assume by "no technical background" you mean he doesn't have a PHD in AI. He's probably not developing the low-level algorithms but he can probably do everything else and has years of experience doing so. He's also perfectly able to spend 60 hours a week improving his AI skills using the best teachers in the world.
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Exactly what do you think he can't do?
Certainly he's well qualified to manage a team of a few thousand (?) AI people and understand what they are talking about and get the best out of them.
Like Batman he has the superpower of money. If he has gaps he can pay (or otherwise arrange) for someone with those skills to 1-1 coach him in them.
He's not trying to become a top researcher, he's trying to learn enough to understand what they are talking about and be able to make decisions around say what areas should be pursued.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "he literally can't and he literally doesn't" but he's got PHD in CompSci and did everything at Google in the past from writing complex code himself to managing small teams to managing huge teams. Exactly what do you think he can't do? Certainly he's well qualified to manage a team of a few thousand (?) AI people and understand what they are talking about and get the best out of them. Li…