3
points
tmsh
Joined 1,235 karma
- tmsh parentLeadership works on making it better. This is not leadership.
- Drake equation (extrapolated past just the Milky Way galaxy) points to nearly 1 sextillion earth-like planets (starting with 100-200 billion stars * 200 billion - 1 trillion galaxies). I have no doubt there will have been some that developed life and that are much further ahead of where we are.
One way to predict how they would reach out is how we would reach out or make contact (perhaps not visibly) if we had the technology, wisdom, etc 1 million years into the future. I think we would do it an imperceptible, but perhaps watchful, curious way. So I think that exists - for more or less all intensive purposes it is "no contact." But not due to lack of capability or lack of observance. The statistics/probabilities are just highly predictive that many millions of such "civilizations" already exist. And like with life on Earth, they combine and benefit from diversity as they grow further. But like with responsible life they do not interfere with life for the most part that is still just barely learning to replicate itself consciously (i.e., with AI). The part we are going through now is probably some of the more interesting parts to study in isolation - there's no benefit in interfering at this point given we do not have very sophisticated new things to say. Our information is not very compressed. It's slow. We're like sloths etc. Again, project a million years forward with AI and look back at our present period - or look back at neanderthal periods in human history. There was some interesting art on walls etc., but it's not something that would make sense to interrupt.
I think it wouldn't make sense to interrupt unless it's ready to sort of eradicate itself by accident. So maybe that's when aliens step in (sort of like gardeners if a plant is seriously at risk). Otherwise it probably develops the most unique, useful information if it "gestates" independently. Sort of like a fine fruit. But more practically it needs to get to a dense enough information state where "communicating" with it is possible and interesting (i.e., not just 99.999999% of the time is it becoming like the advanced sentient beings by learning from them - i.e., where it can truly have a dialogue at the speed of something more advanced).
With general relativity we know time can be relative to mass. So for other extremely advanced sentient beings, they don't have to be "impatient." They truly can wait until we get interesting. And maybe then grow us again and see if they can reproduce the experiment and fork off along a particularly interesting bit that is useful for broader intelligence/exploration in the universe. And sometimes maybe it makes sense to graft together two different lifeforms. But probably like with forests for the most part life forms grow independently until their "information" (in the widest possible sense of life) gets potentially useful to the broader group.
Right now we feel early. Like teenagers learning to explore. Of course that's biased by the human development cycle - broader development is unlikely to be like that. It does seem like it'd be more like (this is going to sound really crazy) chariots of fire - fireballs of knowledge growing in various places. And it's more like you want to grow the most energy / information. And information is only information if it is useful/new/diverse from what already exists.
- “In which some stereotypes are resoundingly confirmed” - so the post is confirming stereotypes of differences between women and men by highlighting the extremes in difference (not the actual counts)? It’s misleading. The gender differences are less stark if you use better charts and don’t include activities that men literally can’t do (that’s not a “stereotype” that’s human anatomy).
- Interestingly the Gemini summary is nowhere near as good. But when it is... how helpful will that be! So many things with a very good summary will save so much time / avoid having to dive into unless truly in need of the details.
But the quality of the summary - and maybe the ability to expand it if slightly more details are required - and the low latency with that - are all super important. In that sense, AI can potentially save a lot of time in getting the right information quickly.
- 2 points
- So if one causes $1B in damages one has to pay a fine of $10M? Similarly for other "catastrophic" damages? WTF. I am very AI pilled but this is no regulation at all. Suppose OpenAI pays their engineers $1M a year. In what world do they have any incentive to work to avoid a $10k fine? Let alone a $1M fine for "catastrophic" damage?
- Right it’s more that it’s odd that there’s all these assassinations of conservatives (UnitedHealthCare etc). And previously there were many assassinations of progressives. I think it’s just the leaders in a dominant part of a force in society become casualties. Loss of life is always tragic even if we disagree with everything they stand for. But anyway the historical part (if that is what is happening - hard to tease out if there’s just more gun violence in general) helps me make sense of it. The dominant wave has breaks or we see them more somehow.
- Looking at recent events through a historical lens: the 1960s saw the assassinations of MLK, RFK, JFK, and Malcolm X during a wave of progressive change. Today’s assassination attempts and targeted violence seem to follow a similar pattern during periods of significant social and political shifts.
As RFK said after MLK’s death, we must choose between “violence and non-violence, between lawlessness and love.” His call for unity and rejecting hatred feels as urgent now as it was then.
Violence is never the answer. But understanding these tragic patterns might help us navigate our current moment with hopefully more empathy.
- I agree on the surface. But where do we draw the line of choosing what we think (in our very limited human understanding of future events) is better for a child? Soon it’s GATTACA. As an extreme counter example consider if you could choose the race of a child. Or their melatonin levels. You might think one is “easier” for the child or even “better” for a happy life or something, but then at what point do you have that “right”?
I’m very pro-science but I also feel for the people with downs who are like - what? They’re going to end everyone like me in the future?
- I know it's not the point of this important article. But I had no idea about Robert Pera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pera - kind of inspiring. Only millennial on the list that is not Zuck. And not gon' lie my instagram was similar to https://www.instagram.com/__rjp__/ for a while - seems like a semi-regular selfie with dog in car type of person. Did better financially though than most lol.
- I miss Steve Jobs. I feel like if he were around (this is not a knock to what Apple is doing currently - they do many incredible things), he would be figuring out how to democratize AI and ensure it runs quickly and is magical on each device (i.e., what they did in terms of personal computing - he would help accelerate that). Tim Cook to his credit recognized that Steve was a singular talent. There would not be half-baked ChatGPT agent releases. He would single-handedly do the Claude Code equivalent of X, Y, and Z on all devices or he would create a new device to do it if needed. He would pick up on what was truly promising with growing autonomy and he would get a team to deliver it. He made a lot of mistakes (iWork, etc.). I could see him make a lot of mistakes in this era too. But he would absolutely hit a home run the way the iPhone just put together a bunch of S curves (glass, decent internet browser, app ecosystem, well-designed phone, etc.). And yeah it was Tony Fadell. and Jony Ive. A lot. But seeing the thread - seeing what was important and knowing to bet on that. He loved great products. As he said in some other linked / famous quote, the people who are passionate do not run out of enthusiasm. They do not fail as much because of that. There is no shame in loving great products. Truly. Deep down. After all the fun and games. Not for money (though dear God the money came and he wasn't perfect about not being drawn towards that and the Apple stock price v. Dell etc). But having a history of delivering on great products and truly loving to do so. Whatever it is - a robot, a magical experience on a device - not a jaw-dropping this is completely new experience actually. But just better execution, that last 20% where most people slow down and he was just getting started. Where it pushes it past the previous generation of products. Where you have 1000 songs in your pocket. Where you can browse the internet in your pocket. Like other devices could kind of do it. In that sense it's not jaw-dropping. But if you love attention to detail and craft and things well done, it's very very good.
It comes down to truly loving what people can do with the products. Bicycle of the mind etc. Liberal arts and technology. Seeing a little farther since he'd become so comfortable standing on the shoulder of giants time and time again. Starts out slowish and imprecise (Macintosh was pretty solid, but then NeXT). Then it calibrates. Then it was consistently excellent. It's a paradigm to get to if you're a product leader. This works so well it's going to make my customers capable of new things and hungry about being able to do things.
- I think the timelines are more like half that. Why? The insane goldrush when people start using autonomous agents that make money.
Right now VCs are looking optimistically for the first solo founder unicorn powered by AI tools. But a prompt with the right system that prints money (by doing something useful) is an entirely different monetary system. Then everyone focuses on it and the hype 10x’s. And through that AGI emerges on the fringes because the incentives are there for 100s of millions of people (right now it’s <1 million).
- It’s a tool or technique. Fear of the technique is governed solely by the fear that one will not be able to use the technique better than without the technique. And yet humans always rise to the challenge of using techniques effectively. Or it’s not an effective technique and people stop using it and move on to something else. But there is nothing wrong with letting new techniques develop and see if they’re effective at creating art or other works in new and better ways.
Fearing that is not having faith in humanity’s adaptation to new things.
- Tech wealth and its hubs on the west coast explains some things. But i think it's racial diversity more than people think. Would you pay 2x for a property if in certain minority groups to avoid racial slights? Many would. That powers demand from large immigration groups in the country which reduces supply, and increases prices etc. (That's how it always is though re: western movement of civilizations etc.)
- Imho you are (1) trying to be original on HN (going against the grain) and (2) being dismissive of people’s genuine interests in an area - gonna lead to defensive downvotes.
I agree with the responders that this is a common fallacy (good insights / learnings for us all). Eg I like following baseball but if you were to ask me about it 10 years ago I’d be pretty reductive about. I agree with the responders that there’s beauty in the seemingly little things at first that build. That said not all of us take the time to appreciate certain areas of beauty because there’s a lot of beauty out there. And that’s ok but nature does seem to indicate repetition and variation are fine.
- +1 he was a great guy.
Sad in a way on the same day this is posted https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=44241549 (which for me is super inspiring). Mikeal would've done so much with the stronger and stronger AI out there (though perhaps questioning it of course in his own way). His cancer diaries was just one example of how he couldn't help always being a leader in what he did.
- Hot take: based on how fast models are accelerating and replacing large parts of the development process (my two cents in https://x.com/TomHarada1/status/1926193211678023953), I think more and more you want to work backwards from a world where AI does 90% of things. Script kiddies : prompt engineering :: current engineering :: future of engineering. Either path makes sense - going deep in research or development. One is a kernel and one is the rest of the egg.