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Discovery Loop

discoveryloop.com

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Re: Discovery Loop

#601

Post by ARandumGuy »

scottyah wrote: post #555
downrightmike wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburban sprawl needs to go as it is a complete waste of infrastructure

You just want all your little worker bees to be in massive towers like Hong Kong, without a chance to even grow their own vegetables or have any private space?

I'm not sure if you realize this, but there are a lot of housing options in between suburban sprawl and high-rise apartment buldings. Like townhomes, rowhouses, duplexes, low-rise apartments, or even single family homes built more closely together.

Re: Discovery Loop

#602

Post by fragmede »

aerodexis wrote: post #529
sejje wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't they? Also, wouldn't anyone with half a brain use the human-free system to produce another human-free system that was no longer controlled by the "small number of 'people'"?

So in computer science we have this thing called "distributed systems". It turns out that even if you buy the biggest and most powerful computer there is, all it takes is one problem with that one machine to make your system stop working. Instead, what people do these days is use lots of little computers to work together. That way, when one of them breaks, the system keeps going. Believe it or not, that's how google…

Pedantically, they use lots (and lots and lots) of really big systems rather than lots of small systems, but I'm nitpicking.

Re: Discovery Loop

#603

Post by fragmede »

t_mahmood wrote: post #503
beloch wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main point is that people shouldn't just swallow the noble and lofty sounding PR. These guys are the same as everyone else in the sector. Don't ignore the harmful or scummy things they'll inevitably do. Hold them accountable. If they are as noble as they sound, they should agree with me.

Yeah! This point jumped at me. And, immediately I don't trust this. This sounds same as Google's "don't be evil" enshiftification, consolidating technologies that was available in a competitive way. I prefer Scientists, and team of people working on things, instead of a corporate controlling everything with promise of automation, thank you very much.

Are these theoretical spherical scientists that work in free range habitats just doing science and nibbling on carrots? The telephone came out of a corporation's research lab and there was a lot of money and profit motive involved.

Re: Discovery Loop

#604

Post by fragmede »

grapeorangesoda wrote: post #526

Garbage in. Garbage out. I can't believe how many people on this site worship talentless managers.

Before Jeff Dean was a "manager", he got a > Ph.D. in computer science from the department that would become the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington in 1996, working under Craig Chambers on compilers[8] and whole-program optimization techniques for object-oriented programming languages.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Dean?#Early_life_and_educ...

So he's got no shortage of talent as an IC.

Re: Discovery Loop

#605

Post by analog31 »

stogot wrote: post #588
analog31 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a scientist. On the one hand I take some comfort in thinking that I will always have an advantage in the lab. On the other hand I'm not taking anything for granted. And my advantage in the lab has to translate into an employer being smart enough to keep me around until if and when the AI takes over, which kind of translates into their investors wanting to keep me around. We know what happened to manufacturing whe…

Are you suggesting outsourcing? AI produces hypothesis, a chief scientist approves, and it’s outsourced to a lab in Vietnam to execute.

That could happen today, but the chief scientist presumably comes up with the hypothesis. I still think the US has a comparative advantage in science, but it's under attack.

Beyond that, I don't know. Admittedly, I work in a smaller lab setting. There's no chief scientist that I'm aware of, or systematic production of hypotheses. That might be for the bigger labs.

Re: Discovery Loop

#606

Post by vineyardmike »

kube-system wrote: post #472
vineyardmike wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> I don’t think there’s some practical way to force existing corporations to include something in their charter

Laws are but a pen stroke away.

No existing nor new C corp and their executives shall be be considered in breach of their fiduciary duties or obligations if they take an action they deem to be in the best interests of society at large, as long as it’s not fraudulent or otherwise illegal behavior.

Re: Discovery Loop

#607

Post by analog31 »

bladeacidic wrote: post #600
WJW wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. "Monitored" is not the same as "unavailable", any chemistry lab worth its name has the means and procedures to acquire toluene in pretty much any quantity it wants. As long as you have the required licenses, keep careful administration and can produce said administration during inspections, there is nothing to worry about.

Does all that administration and licensing magically happen for free and take zero time? It's stupid extra overhead for something as fundamental as toluene that Chinese labs don't have to follow. You're right that it's not insurmountable, but it's still stupid extra work, and the threat of randomly being investigated for doing science is hardly "nothing too worry about". Just always have every one of your papers in o…

Or having to plead the fifth when asked about your work.

Re: Discovery Loop

#608

Post by alexpriyad »

michaelhoney wrote: post #485
beloch wrote: 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 think this take is too cynical. Small groups of people can do better, faster work than large groups, and it's more fun.

Exactly. The bureaucracy and slow moving nature of Google was likely one of the biggest drivers of their departure.

Re: Discovery Loop

#609

Post by octoberfranklin »

scottyah wrote: post #558
octoberfranklin wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the classic "without death, authoritarian depots will be in power forever". But it's actually the wrong way around. Hope that the despot will soon die saps peoples' will to do the difficult and dangerous job of removing them. Take away that hope and they are forced to find the courage.

People might be willing to give their known-to-be-finite lives in pursuit of the Greater Good, but the equation changes greatly when you're giving up an eternity for the chance of making things better. More of the population would be aged too, so I think it'd be a lot harder to find the kids that usually die in wars. Especially true if it is the AIs that get us the immortality- it definitely won't be equally spread,…

I don't think anybody wants to live forever in an old person's body. Frankly, I'm not interested in extending my lifespan unless I can stay young or regain youth.

Also, if you eliminate all the aging-related causes of death the average lifespan is still only like 1000 years or something. Nobody's getting eternity. And yeah, for the chance to make a big enough change of the right kind to society I would indeed give up a 1000-year lifespan. My memes have fully subjugated my genes, and I'm at peace with that.

Re: Discovery Loop

#610

Post by tokenscoper »

mrdependable wrote: post #124
cjbarber wrote: post #18

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…

Which engineering discipline touches most of these?

Policy engineering, satirically.
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