We have moved quite a long way down the "believe the science" road already, and for good reason. Belief is much (!) faster and cheaper than proof, so those who are fed good science(math) and believe it tend to outcompete people who get stuck trying to prove things all the time.

But fraud is fraud regardless of the platform (meat or silicon) committing it. People who believe in frauds often end up worse off for it, though it hard to know which piece of BS has led you astray or who's to blame for it or how to deal with the fall out.

Obviously, we shouldn't believe AI any more than we believe humans. That said, the world was already suffering greatly under the weight of human generated BS long before useful AI came on the scene. Now that AI has reduced the cost of producing plausible BS by orders of magnitude, we may need some new methods for BS detection.

What's the tldr;?

What are the mathematicians arguing for exactly? And against? Totally unclear to me even after chomping through that massive word salad.

This all feels very John Henry to me. Why is it not a good thing that we have new tools that can accelerate discovery? Because it disrupts the current order?

If you can't make the argument in 100 words, you probably don't have one.

On the bright side, you are clearly smart, literate, capable, thoughtful, high-functioning, analytical, caring and alive! You've got a lot to work with!

Adaptation is almost always driven by discomfort. It is sad to see the things and the life we love going away.

Keep your chin up, be good to yourself and the people around you, stay flexible, and just keep landing on your feet... over and over... and don't stop.

25 years ago I woke up from the sound of the first plane hitting. I watched people jump to their deaths. I watched, heard, felt, smelled the towers fall. I lost very good friends. One was an SWE working in tower 1. It sucked. It made me realize that each day is a gift. Even the days that don't go your way.

One foot in front of the other. Just keep working to bring your light to the world and you will be fine.

McSorley's Old Ale House on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was definitely fully operational during prohibition. You can read about it on Wikipedia, but my preferred reference is Joseph Mitchel's "McSorley's Wonderful Saloon"

The original author points to the consolidation of military suppliers as a major issue, but the truth is that the economies of the western world have been massively dependent on this sort of consolidation and outsourcing for a large portion of the "growth" that they have achieved for a generation.

It would be convenient to think that the real question is "how do we climb back out of this hole?" but I feel the more pressing question is actually, "when and why will we start trying?"

The profit motive simply does not drive society in this direction.

The crises are catastrophic and perhaps even existential, but they are not profitable. You have to be a really lucky market timer to bet on crisis and win.

Avoiding crisis over the longer term is simply not investable.

"Fair" is not a relevant or useful conception in this context.

Clearly if the opponent had wanted to defeat this vehicle and take this ground, they could have.

That said, it seems likely that this vehicle substantially increased the expected cost of taking this ground, and it did so at very little cost/risk to the defenders.

This sort of device dramatically changes the equation of conflict. It seems this article does a pretty good (though unverified) job of making that case.

I also find that firefox crashes much more than chrome based browsers, but it is likely that chrome's superior stability is better handing of the other 90% of crashes.

If 50% of chrome crashes were due to bit flips, and bit flips effect the two browsers at basically the same rate, that would indicate that chrome experiences 1/5th the total crashes of firefox... even though the bit flip crashes happen at the same rate on both browsers.

It would have been better news for firefox if the number of crashes due to faulty hardware were actually much higher! These numbers indicate the vast majority of firefox crashes are actually from buggy software : (

"The abuse of entrusted power for private gain"

Jaywalking is breaking the law, but it is not corruption.

Civil disobedience is also typically breaking the law, but is not corruption.

It is important to recognize that just because a system is codified in law does not mean that it is not corrupt.

There is a large opportunity to simplify and rationalize the regulations. This would dramatically reduce the cost of both bureaucracy and compliance. In addition to massively reduced cost, it would enable people in CA to do more cool stuff faster!

But simplification, rationalization, and acceleration is not in the interest of the bureaucracy or the incumbents... so we are very unlikely to see change until there is an existential crisis.

Even if the bureaucracy didn't exist and everyone voluntarily followed the regulations, you could not run a globally cost competitive business without some sort of subsidy when competing with places where rampant pollution is allowed.

It's a real problem without an obvious long term solution that I am aware of.

Doesn't the Turing Test determine only if a machine can fool people into thinking it is intelligent?

If fooling people is the defining characteristic of AI, am I a fool to think that AI can produce work of concrete (non-foolish) value?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47057219

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47009327

Points: 378

# Comments: 277

Taking satins is proven to reduce heart disease rates, but there are lots of other drugs that lower LDL... many with much more efficacy than satins.

These non-satin drugs do not reduce heart disease rates significantly.

There something else going on here. High LDL is correlated with the development of heart disease, but it does not cause heart disease. Satins do reduce the risk of heart disease and they do reduce LDL, but their positive effect on heart disease rates is not caused by reduced LDL.

I bake bread. I have spent a good deal of time optimizing the recipe for deliciousness but also for time efficiency. Proving in a warm oven is a great tip. Also baking two loaves at a time!

All this nit picking about writing style is disappointing. I like that this person got their ideas out there. They are good ideas. Legible and easy to parse == good enough. I don't care about the writing style any more than that and you shouldn't either. It is a waste of everyone's time... yours especially.

It's very nice to hear about someone else who is interested in doing hard things/real things. Seems like there ought to be a meet up or a get together opportunity for people working on stuff like that. Perhaps a get-together where everyone gives a 2-5 minute talk about something they are working on then we all hang out for another hour or two. Seems like alcohol might help get the wheels spinning?

I fully appreciate the need for a catchy headline with a hook (it got me!) but I wonder if these ideas would be more powerful/useful if expressed in positive language rather than doom speak? I guess doom speak is the fashion these days and we all have to conform to the dominant paradigm... at least a little around the edges.

Generally... Bravo. Nice piece. Nice ideas.

To little, to late? Maybe.

Surely very little, surprisingly late.

There are so many great reasons to distrust "The Science"... perhaps the greatest is that without powerful and persistent skepticism, science simply isn't science. Questioning and skepticism is profoundly fundamental to the scientific process. "Trust the science" or worse yet "Believe the science" are statements that are about as destructive to the foundation of science as one can get.

The whole point of science was that everyone has access to the true nature of the universe which we can discover through theorizing and experimentation. Empirical experience is the great equalizer that puts the Arch Duke of Where-and-What or the Highest of High Priests the on the same footing as, say, Joseph Preistly or Benjamin Franklyn. Questioning and skepticism must be accepted from all quarters. To say that only the most select, distinguished and credentialed can be admitted to the discussion smacks of priesthood and aristocracy.

The argument that we need to re-persuade the people to trust in science is missing the point by such a wide margin as to be a symptom of the problem.

It is more or less the same as fretting that people aren't going to church so much any more.

The science should not be trusted. The science should be tested. Those who say "Trust the science" have completely lost the thread.