jerb's comments | WingNews

jerb | 1 year ago | on: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

Yes. Productivity tools make programmer time more valuable, not less. This is basic economics. You’re now able to generate more value per hour than before.

(Or if you’re being paid to waste time, maybe consider coding in assembly?)

So don’t be afraid. Learn to use the tools. They’re not magic, so stop expecting that. It’s like anything else, good at some things and not others.

jerb | 1 year ago | on: US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

But it’s clearly statistically much safer (https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport) 7 million miles before an accident w FSD vs. 1 million when disengaged. I agree I didn’t like the feel of FSD either, but the numbers speak for themselves.

jerb | 1 year ago | on: Why Is Light So Fast?

Thanks, I’ve never heard this and it’s quite profound. It’s always bothered me that there even is a top speed, and further that mass becomes infinite as it’s approached. But “speed of causality” makes these less strange.

jerb | 1 year ago | on: The Intelligence Age

When I say “new knowledge” I mean in the David Deutsch sense. Like the discovery of new physics which Sam mentioned.

jerb | 1 year ago | on: The Intelligence Age

I want to be wildly optimistic too, but I still see no evidence LLMs generate new knowledge. They always hew in-distribution.

Please correct me if I’m wrong

jerb | 1 year ago | on: Kids Should Be Taught to Think Logically

T

jerb | 1 year ago | on: AI solves International Math Olympiad problems at silver medal level

Is the score of 28 comparable to the score of 29 here? https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/ai-mathematical-olympiad...

jerb | 2 years ago | on: Over 2 percent of the US's electricity generation now goes to Bitcoin

Define “waste”. Then explain why your opinion should trump a free market. Then tell me how much coercion will be required to enforce it.

jerb | 2 years ago | on: Ask HN: Where do you sit?

Problem with most chairs (including Aeron) is the bowl-shaped seat pan. It feels comfy / cradling when you first sit down, and that’s why people buy them. But as the minutes and hours go by, your pelvis is turning inward for lack of central support. Eventually you get back problems. Google Esther Gokhale for full explanation. An upwardly curved or at least flat seat pan (think old fashioned upholstered chairs or solid wood chairs) are more human designs.

jerb | 3 years ago | on: The Society of Mind (1986) [pdf]

> I often wonder what Minsky would think about the current generation of AI.

I suspect he'd react similiarly to Chomsky who in, a recent interview (MLST), was highly critical of LLMs as "not even a theory" (of what, i'm not sure... language aquisition? language production? maybe both)

Minksy was more broadly critical of NNs because it wasn't clear how difficult the problems they solved actually were. Until we had a better measure of that, saying "I got a NN to do X" is kind of meaningless. He elaborates in this excellent interview from 1990, beginning at 45:00: https://youtu.be/DrmnH0xkzQ8?t=2700

jerb | 4 years ago | on: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

Scientific progress has slowed, but engineering progress is only just beginning. For instance, the electronic transport chain of respiration/photosynthesis, is a series of quantum tunnels. Man has barely scratched the surface of quantum-level control which nature already exhibits.