I don't know much about robotics engineering, so I just wanted to give kudos to the Robocurve team on this write-up.
Even for an absolute robotics newbie such as myself, the article was interesting to read, and easy to understand. Plus it was straight to the point, with no unnecessary waffle.
> He sees these scientists as strong men, willing to wrestle with the tragedy of existence by increasing the amount of happiness in the world. That struggle makes them optimists.
He points out the value of introspection, which the literary culture has in spades, but the scientific culture utterly lacks.
If we get the worst outcomes from AGI, the scientists who worked so hard to enable it are unlikely to reflect deeply about it. If they had that capacity, they might do it ahead of time. And some do…but not enough to stop the inevitable tide.
Ironic, given the role that chance and statistical prediction plays in the mechanisms of AI. Free will is in fact a thing, and moral choices have moral consequences.
> He points out the value of introspection, which the literary culture has in spades, but the scientific culture utterly lacks.
Maybe this was true at one point but I don't think modern literary culture has much capacity to be introspective. The politicization of academia hit the liberal arts harder than anywhere else[1], and when it comes to politically charged topics there's little room for disagreement left. Introspection is not possible if questioning the status quo can be a career-ender[2].
The scientific method is inherently introspective. Studies seek to affirm or falsify the null hypothesis. Those studies are subject to peer review. Verification and falsifiability are baked into every step.
There are numerous examples of fraud in science. When this occurs it is a scandal. There will certainly continue to be fraudulent papers being published. Hopefully these will be caught and retracted.
This comment is probably not talking about peer review and verification, however. The notion is likely that scientists are progress-oriented and not thinking whether an advancement should be done, not whether it can be done.
However, for virtually every scientific advancement, the leading scientists write extensively about the implications of the technology! Specifically to the commenter's example of AI research, it's trivial to find long essays by the leading AI researchers, company leaders, and venture capitalists. It's more uncommon for an accomplished AI researcher to not have a series of essays about their work.
Contrary to the assertion that AGI scientists are not introspecting, their introspection dominates discussion on this website.
The only important question in this space is how to balance the speed of development of this technology with safety. And globally, as a human race, our answer is: speed. Yes, lots of AI scientists spend lots of time and energy on safety. But all the incentives (economic, reputational, professional, geopolitical) are on the side of speed.
So sure, there are introspective AI scientists. I fear their role in the history of this period will be a footnote about cautionary voices.
> He points out the value of introspection, which the literary culture has in spades, but the scientific culture utterly lacks.
I think you're drastically overgeneralizing. There exist many scientists who think about the impact and ethics of their work, and choose what to work on accordingly, as well as trying to discourage or mitigate harms.
There aren't necessarily enough, but I wonder how much of that is actually lack of introspection, rather than lack of being in a position where their reflections are able to amount to much. I wish everyone were empowered to follow their ethics without worrying about their next paycheck.
> If we get the worst outcomes from AGI, the scientists who worked so hard to enable it are unlikely to reflect deeply about it.
If we get the worst outcomes from AGI, which are also the modal outcomes from AGI if we don't thread the needle, there won't be anyone left to reflect.
There are many paywalls that send all the content in the html and then hide it with a script.
However there are many more properly implemented paywalls that send only a few lines of content and you don't find the content even on the archive sites.
There are several variations of those schemes. Sometimes there is text but not images. Sometimes the first party js is fine and you have to block some of the third party js.
Sometimes the content is in a JSON blob.
Sometimes the reader mode trick works but only for a short while before the js paywall removes it (the sibling comment hints about it.)
In Safari (on iOS and macOS), you can go into site settings and choose "use reader mode when available" and it automatically opens straight into it. After doing that for a while, you'll have it on for the most common news sites you get linked to.
Please don't post snarky comments like this on HN. We've wrestled with this for a long time and have settled on the least worst solution: paywalled articles are only allowable if there's an easy workaround that everyone access, like Archive.is, which you've helpfully shared. It's annoying that we have to deal with this issue but we're still better off with the articles than not.
We can do without mean words like “obnoxious” for people contributing interesting articles for the community to read.
Every room with torches was max 9FPS on 320x200 on DX2 OCed to 3x50MHz, literally 50% performance over your PC.
Turnig off all objects through console made torches vanished and FPS doubled.
> In the US, if a meteorite lands on your property, it's yours and you can sell or donate it as you please.
Does this happen often in the US?
I mean often enough that folks happen to know the legality of it?
In which case I find it extremely frightening that one could be sitting on their porch, minding their own business, browsing HN, and then get unexpectedly head-shotted by a meteorite.
Apologies for the ambiguity, I was referring to the selling or donating of meteorites - and only because I've never heard of such a thing in my part of the world.
thanks for taking the time to research my background everyone and sharing your impressions! love that free speech from all the esteemed writers in these comments
You'd do well to listen to the song Vienna a few times, lol.
Intellect and prestige will only get you so far; but being an egotistical, passive-aggressive antagonist will stunt your development professionally and personally. Quoting egotistical tech titans doesn't justify it, and using cutesy internet-speak cadence doesn't mask it.
You're also writing erratically in the blog since I've logged back in, and it looks like you're admist a manic episode. You'll vehemently deny so - no fault of your own, that's a core tenet of a manic episode in the first place. But I have close experience with it from those close to me, and more than anything - I suggest you take care. Don't be hard on yourself during the post-reflection and introspection period, doing so is often far more debilitating than the episode itself. Be well.
In humans this is often called impulsivity, the preference for smaller sooner outcomes. This is often seen in children and animals and in some adult human behavior.
An impulsive choice is not optimal. You can buy a cheaper pack of gum at Costco in a week or get one for three times the cost right now.
For those of you that are wondering, Mitch Hedburg was a relatively famous stand-up comedian whose special went viral.
In said special was this classic:
“I like an escalator because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. There would never be an 'escalator temporarily out of order' sign, only 'escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.’”
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