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RealityApologist posted:
What worries me is that the most efficient conformation of society might involve extermination of massive numbers of redundant human bodies. You compare human social networks to the neural networks of the brain and find social networks lacking in efficient stable dynamic feedback compared to the brain. Are you familiar with 'pruning' and it's importance in the construction of neural networks?
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Dec 1, 2013 01:50
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- hi
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Wet Bandits Copycat posted:It's self-serving and it fits in nicely with the zeitgeist. Isn't this literally the reason anyone believes anything?
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Dec 1, 2013 02:00
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Is eripsa paying for the privilege to go to grad school?
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Dec 1, 2013 02:03
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Obdicut posted:This is what makes me think you actually are nuts. "Unifying synthesis of digital theory" is basically meaningless. It could mean anything. So why would you say it? You might as well have said "Hurffydurfffy". I could interpret "Digital theory" alone in a hundred different ways. You absolutely failed to communicate. I don't think this is fair or very constructive. Perhaps I've developed some eccentric terminology, but I've been writing about this stuff for years both here and elsewhere, and I find the terminology helpful for keeping my views consistent and organized. You were telling me moments before that my posts are filled with white noise and text-walls, so if I don't appeal to some terminological shorthand I'm not sure how I'd get anything done. I've tried to use these terms in consistent ways, and I can point to places where I've elaborated on the issues more explicitly. To conclude that it is meaningless from your interactions with me on the Something Awful forums would be rather hasty, especially if you are actually interested in the topic. The audience here is hostile, and perhaps it reflects poorly on the views, but I'm not sure what else I should be doing except giving them the best treatment I can. Since they are multifaceted and have implications for many domains, it's a huge task, and I'm obviously not very good at it which makes it that much harder. But despite my failings I think I'm advocating for a coherent and comprehensive philosophical position that is quite unlike anything I see being advocated by anyone else. I think I can defend the claim that attention can't be faked, given a proper theoretical context, but that requires giving me the discursive room to make the case, and I don't think I have it. I don't think I've posted anything crazy in this thread, and I'd appreciate the conversation to stick on topic instead of devolving into attacks on me.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:13
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Cicero posted:D&D is fairly skeptical of new technology, because a) often new technology destroys existing jobs, b) technology is usually adopted by the rich first, and c) it's a way of bettering society that doesn't involve putting capitalists up against the wall. Gotcha. I have no issue with any of those. I actually work for a company that develops business automation software, and we're proud of the fact that we make businesses more efficient and productive by drastically reducing the need for manual work. poo poo gets done a lot faster, problems and errors are minimized and there's a lot more oversight over processes since the software can generate reports on-demand. Essentially it comes down to this: no one is "entitled" to a job. If the only value they are adding can be automated away by software, they need to figure out other ways of adding value. Liberals have an issue with this because not everyone is capable (financially or intellectually) of re-educating themselves to stay relevant in an economy that is ever faster-paced. Once those people lose their jobs due to automation, they descend into poverty. I think that's a very fair concern. In my opinion, the only solution in the long run is unconditional basic income. With that, we can at least minimize the pain of economic obsolescence.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:21
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Eripsa, I think you should read some critical writing by somebody like Richard Mitchell and spend some time thinking about what it means to have to resort to nonsense words and phrases in order to express yourself. There are probably perfectly good English phrases with concrete meanings that you could use to express whatever "digital theory" means. To me the only reasonable meaning is something like "Boolean Algebra", and I don't suspect that that's what you're on about. Technology is just technology. Not everybody in the world is (or wants to be) a programmer. Lots of people never ever want to do that and it's absurd to suggest they should or they will. Organization of Internet participants is not "collective", it's selective (and generally self-selective). Most people in the world can't and won't participate.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:21
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Let's all look at reddit and slashdot and CNN comment threads to see what the digital future utopia will be like.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:23
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Ocean Book posted:What worries me is that the most efficient conformation of society might involve extermination of massive numbers of redundant human bodies. You compare human social networks to the neural networks of the brain and find social networks lacking in efficient stable dynamic feedback compared to the brain. Are you familiar with 'pruning' and it's importance in the construction of neural networks? Onto a different topic: The problem with perfect democracy is that it also requires everyone to have a complete understanding of all relevant issues. This may be impossible for some people (ex. the mentally challenged) and quite difficult for non-experts without some kind of amplification of the brain's processing power, critical analysis abilities, and memory storage. When experts try to simplify a concept for popular consumption, they often remove much of the needed nuance, and if everyone is not bringing original ideas to the table then there is redundancy.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:25
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hotgreenpeas posted:The Chilean government sort of tried this in the 1970s with Project Cybersyn. (More detailed story here.) Implementation unfortunately coincided with a military coup, so the glorious Socialist Internet Revolution was never to be. Cybersyn is actually very illustrative of the problems with such utopianism. It's easy to fault the coup in its demise, but the implementation was failing much earlier, because it failed to work through the endemic social class distinctions between engineers and factory workers. Buy-in for the latter was essential for the system to work, as it was recursive and needed all levels to work similarly, but the engineers were really aloof and had no faith in mere proles being able to work it out. Other than the Telex system which allowed the Allende regime to work around petit-bourgeois strike in the interim, it wasn't really panning out. A really good book about that which came out recently was Cybernetic Revolutionaries. A similar group attempted to do similar things in the Soviet Union; there it was blocked by people in the upper echelons of the various ministries, who refused to allow for the devolution of power required to allow this to work. A recommended source would be From Newspeak to Cyberspeak; also recommended, although somewhat fictional, is the amazing Red Plenty, covering similar themes. Hell, if you don't read any of the others, read Red Plenty. It's loads of fun, and comes with meticulous endnotes for relevant non-fictional sources if you're interested. Technocrats keep thinking they can somehow use the latest form of information technology to bypass political economy. Nothing doing. Entrenched powers be entrenched. They must be fought politically.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:28
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enraged_camel posted:You're embarrassing yourself. Try to follow the discussion please. You're embarrasing yourself with by talking about how a cheap rear end app that calls people who have taxi services is the be all, end all to transportation. Wishing for hovercars is a more practical idea if you're aiming to utterly transform mass transit, otherwise it's a driver service with shiny buttons.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:28
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Ocean Book posted:What worries me is that the most efficient conformation of society might involve extermination of massive numbers of redundant human bodies. You compare human social networks to the neural networks of the brain and find social networks lacking in efficient stable dynamic feedback compared to the brain. Are you familiar with 'pruning' and it's importance in the construction of neural networks? The pruning will happen whether or not we advocate for digital alternatives. Natural systems grow to over capacity, and then settle back into more stable configurations. That's to be expected. But pruning doesn't mean genocide and killing, which by the way we're already doing quite a lot of without any digital anything. Pruning just means a reduction of the connections between nodes. Technological unemployment is a kind of pruning; it removes the redundant or unnecessary jobs being performed by big clumsy humans, with machines that perform more accurately and efficiently. That means more people unemployed, which means that resources will have to be distributed in some other way than through the labor process, because we can no longer rely on the network of employment for allocating resources. In some sense, it frees up the economic situation to find other stable patterns of interaction. For instance, you see people worried about the economic implications of things like renters services. If I can just rent a car when I need it from Zipcar, or get a ride from Uber, then I'll never need to own a car. So you get pruning in ownership, and that corresponds to new structures that support the new sharing networks. Another kind of pruning we'll see is probably a reduction in the size of the really massive social networks like Facebook, as the digital population gets better at finding and cultivating more personalized and immediate communities in other parts of the net. These are forms of organizational pruning that are perfectly normal and expected and shouldn't give anyone cause to freak out. In many cases we can anticipate and prepare for these events, like we do for earthquakes and tsunamis.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:31
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Technocrats keep thinking they can somehow use the latest form of information technology to bypass political economy. Nothing doing. Entrenched powers be entrenched. They must be fought politically. The call for Silicon Valley to secede from the union is undoubtedly a political call to war.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:34
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N. Senada posted:Is eripsa paying for the privilege to go to grad school? What does this have to do with anything?
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Dec 1, 2013 02:36
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Negative Entropy posted:The problem with perfect democracy is that it also requires everyone to have a complete understanding of all relevant issues. This may be impossible for some people (ex. the mentally challenged) and quite difficult for non-experts without some kind of amplification of the brain's processing power, critical analysis abilities, and memory storage. When experts try to simplify a concept for popular consumption, they often remove much of the needed nuance, and if everyone is not bringing original ideas to the table then there is redundancy. No, it doesn't. It requires only being able to discover and amplify the good ideas in the niche communities where they exist, and amplify them into the general consensus. If I trust the community of experts to evaluate the claims of experts, then I don't need to be an expert myself to benefit from the results of that research. During OWS I wrote up an algorithm describing a consensus procedure designed to do exactly this kind of memetic pruning. This doesn't make it a "perfect democracy" in the sense that it never fails to be a just system, but it does ensure that we avoid the communications problems you are mentioning.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:42
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RealityApologist posted:The call for Silicon Valley to secede from the union is undoubtedly a political call to war. Let's look at Uber. Uber is an app which replaces cabs with something somewhat fancier, through an app, although with wildly fluctuating prices. In the process of instating this service in various cities, Travis Kalanick has to constantly fight the entrenched interest of cab and limo services, through pushing for exceptions to or the repeal of the laws that regulate their pricing and service. Obviously, to him it is no more than a stumbling block in the face of his amazing new liberating service. But why are these regulations in place? Why are the pricing structures the way they are? Does he realize how easy it would be to prey on both riders and the low-end drivers if these things weren't there? He doesn't give a poo poo. Tech-utopians, and utopians in general, don't give a poo poo. Well, I do. Whoever was calling it "the charter schools of public transportation" earlier was right on the money. A completely a-historical attempt to throw "smart money" at a problem, without looking at or even caring about the human consequences. At least a bunch of tech-millionaires and trust-fund hipsters can have a more awesome experience at what to them is a reasonable price.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:46
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RealityApologist posted:The call for Silicon Valley to secede from the union is undoubtedly a political call to war.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:48
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Eripsa have you ever tried to actually use that algorithm? Has it been exposed to actual reality? It's insanely optimistic about human behavior.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:49
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icantfindaname posted:Why is it that so many IT/tech boom people are fanatical evangelists of crazy person ideologies? This seems to be a trend from what I can tell. If Moore's Law had not been constantly redefined over the decades, and if the original version was still "true" then today, we would have scratches on the sides of electrons for bit storage. enraged_camel posted:Liberals have an issue with this because not everyone is capable (financially or intellectually) of re-educating themselves to stay relevant in an economy that is ever faster-paced. Once those people lose their jobs due to automation, they descend into poverty. I think that's a very fair concern. I agree with the recommendation to read Red Plenty. I just finished the book earlier this fall and it was very thought provoking.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:52
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emfive posted:Eripsa have you ever tried to actually use that algorithm? Has it been exposed to actual reality? It's insanely optimistic about human behavior. I use a very similar algorithm to run class debates, and have done it for years. The students are allowed to move freely between position groups as the debate progresses; the group that attracts the most detractors by the end of the debate wins. We call it the "Boston Massacre" style debate, which has only recently taken on more grim tones. In any case, it's one of my student's favorite activities.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:52
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RealityApologist posted:I use a very similar algorithm to run class debates, and have done it for years. The students are allowed to move freely between position groups as the debate progresses; the group that attracts the most detractors by the end of the debate wins. We call it the "Boston Massacre" style debate, which has only recently taken on more grim tones. In any case, it's one of my student's favorite activities. I see. Class debates. I don't mean to trivialize, but perhaps actual people discussing things that for-real affect their lives and their prosperity/wealth might behave differently.
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Dec 1, 2013 02:58
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Soviet Space Dog posted:I'm always amused by how uneducated the IT sector is, the idea of a technocracy has been around for 100 years or more. In terms of organizational and management theory there is a whole host of functional approaches (i.e. everything is a problem that can be fixed by experts and expertise, don't worry too much about people's points of view), and it turns out when applied they don't actually end up in an apolitical utopia. Often they just strengthen existing power structures. Then of course, most people in IT aren't even that good at computer science. It's hilarious yet terrifying to watch these aging Randian script kiddies rediscover toy versions of every discipline. They'd be nowhere without these disciplines, but their laser-specific "educations" permitted them to grow up into wealthy manchildren while remaining totally ignorant of them. Meanwhile, their champions are people like Ellison and Jobs, psychopaths by the most charitable interpretation. It's like the Dark Ages with coffee shops and Maseratis.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:01
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Full disclosure: I've been a software professional for the last 35 years.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:01
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LP97S posted:You're embarrasing yourself with by talking about how a cheap rear end app that calls people who have taxi services is the be all, end all to transportation.  I want you to show me where I said anything that even remotely resembles this. Go on. I'll wait.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:03
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I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace. - Richard Brautigan It would be great to create public fleets of autonomous vehicles (creating jobs through strict maintenance schedules and generally improving the energy efficiency of civilization). However like a central jobs/property market it would be very strongly opposed, not just by the entrenched political/economic actors, but by the general reactionary nature of our present society. People are disillusioned about all top-down change, and truthfully that is the only way things get done. Note how both hippies and Randians believe in changing the worldview and actions of individuals ('War is Over (If you want it)' and 'Read Ayn Rand') rather than having any kind of pragmatic reforms. The baby boomers are a generation defined by individualism. Applying IT in a substantial way is inherently collectivist and overcoming the culture of individualism is the biggest challenge.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:08
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Conference synopsis posted:Successful applications of the theory of human computation include von Ahn’s reCAPTCHA, Amazon.com’s mechanical turk, computationally significant games like Fold.it’s protein folding puzzle game, and Google’s Waze platform for monitoring traffic and road conditions. Tell me more about the brave new world when we are finally free of paying attention to the man behind the curtain.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:17
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enraged_camel posted:
enraged_camel posted:Are you talking about the public transport system that's on strike all the time? By responding to criticism of Uber with that response, you're trying to tie together the overpriced taxi hire as a replacement for not only public transportation but also for the existing taxi system in place. If you didn't mean that, then I apologize and will go back to my main point, Uber is a lovely taxi hire service with a slick app for people with smart phones too dumb or lazy to use public transportation. I looked at the Uber page and they offer transit from Philadelphia international to Center City (doesn't say where) for $45 while Septa offers a train from Philadelphia international to several stations and larger hubs for about $8.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:21
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As for the OP, it's a bit... too much noise/signal ratio? I can appreciate the effort, but the description, while verbose, is just too broad. All right, so the people are supposed to give their feedback, but how would it be processed? If one group of people says that expanding the agricultural sector should be a priority and another one would rather see a new power plant built, what exactly decides how will the resources and manpower be spent? How can we ensure that the "politicians-administrators" won't just tweak the crucial software to primarily serve their needs? If more people are replaced by technology, how do we avoid making them a permanent underclass who is the first to suffer when, for some reason, a part of the system is strained? It's not that the answers don't exist, it's just that I have no loving clue after reading the first post how would such a society function. The first thing that needs to be done when describing any political or economics system is to explain how would the most crucial resources (food, water, shelter, etc.) allocated. This is kinda mentioned in the first post, summed up in two sentences, then the author gets bored and starts talking about the thing more interesting to him - privacy. Who gives the gently caress about privacy or lack of thereof, when you haven't yet explained how do you ensure that people don't have to raid their neighbors to get something edible? icantfindaname posted:Why is it that so many IT/tech boom people are fanatical evangelists of crazy person ideologies? This seems to be a trend from what I can tell. When all you have is a hammer, every problem seems to look like a nail to you.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:25
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RealityApologist posted:The pruning will happen whether or not we advocate for digital alternatives. Natural systems grow to over capacity, and then settle back into more stable configurations. That's to be expected. Good points, but I suggest that a better option might be to do some digital advocacy for the collective social graph. Too often we find ourselves disconnected and lost due to the economic realities of the digital economy. If we take the tack of organizing the social graph into a stratospheric configuration (directed acyclic graphs, etc..), it will directly lead to better realities for all peoples. Sites like instagram are already proving this with their interconnectedness and sharing. No organizational pruning is required, only some re allocation of our digital and social currencies.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:27
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Absurd Alhazred posted:He doesn't give a poo poo. Tech-utopians, and utopians in general, don't give a poo poo. Well, I do. Whoever was calling it "the charter schools of public transportation" earlier was right on the money. A completely a-historical attempt to throw "smart money" at a problem, without looking at or even caring about the human consequences. At least a bunch of tech-millionaires and trust-fund hipsters can have a more awesome experience at what to them is a reasonable price. I agree with the "charter schools" comparison, which is why I devoted explicit discussion to the issue of "walled gardens" and the castle doctrine in my post. But it's not true that "tech utopians" don't give a poo poo about this. Clay Shirky spends a good long discussion in Cognitive Surplus treating the case of PickUp Pal and the reaction it received from the Canadian transit authority. These are issues the community is well aware of, and actively treating. I think there's no obligation to work within an illegitimate system, especially when that system fails to provide basic protections for the public interest. I don't think revolution is something to take lightly, but I do think exit is an open and available strategy. At some point the political battles require working the system from the outside.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:30
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No one has brought up the 'interesting' author profile on wired? Balaji S. Srinivasan holds a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. ... He currently runs the Stanford Bitcoin Group and teaches a popular MOOC on startups. RealityApologist posted:During OWS I wrote up an algorithm describing a consensus procedure designed to do exactly this kind of memetic pruning. This doesn't make it a "perfect democracy" in the sense that it never fails to be a just system, but it does ensure that we avoid the communications problems you are mentioning. That algorithm is useless for all but the most trivial problems. I.E. anything at all in the real world. The problem as you describe is one that has been perplexing AI researchers for eternity. The most efficient problem solving algorithms like WATSON are based on very large databases of information, arranged in very complex ways to spend as little time thinking about how to arrive to a solution as possible. Your 'algorithm' on the other hand is basically: if NOT(Algorithm()) then Algorithm() It makes no attempt to converge to a solution or terminate in any useful way. How would it handle any E-filibusters, you know like what goes on at any international conference for global treaties? It is not just that it fails to produce a 'just system', it just fails to produce anything at all. Tokamak fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Dec 1, 2013 |
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Dec 1, 2013 03:31
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LP97S posted:By responding to criticism of Uber with that response, you're trying to tie together the overpriced taxi hire as a replacement for not only public transportation but also for the existing taxi system in place. If you didn't mean that, then I apologize No, I didn't mean that at all. quote:and will go back to my main point, Uber is a lovely taxi hire service with a slick app for people with smart phones too dumb or lazy to use public transportation. I looked at the Uber page and they offer transit from Philadelphia international to Center City (doesn't say where) for $45 while Septa offers a train from Philadelphia international to several stations and larger hubs for about $8. You certainly have strong feelings against Uber. You have yet to explain how public transportation coverage, frequency and comfort can match that of an on-demand service like Uber. Yes, you're paying for the privilege, but so loving what? Why does that make you so angry?
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Dec 1, 2013 03:45
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enraged_camel posted:You have yet to explain how public transportation coverage, frequency and comfort can match that of an on-demand service like Uber. I already did. Public Autonomous Vehicle Fleets. In urban areas you can basically eliminate congestion and massively improve traffic safety by phasing out personal cars in favor of autonomous trucks and buses. Smaller, On-demand vehicles can be used for trips outside the scope of urban mass transit. But the personal car is central to our individualist consumer society, so yeah.
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Dec 1, 2013 03:53
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Tokamak posted:That algorithm is useless for all but the most trivial problems. I.E. anything at all in the real world. The problem as you describe is one that has been perplexing AI researchers for eternity. The most efficient problem solving algorithms like WATSON are based on very large databases of information, arranged in very complex ways to spend as little time thinking about how to arrive to a solution as possible. The context to which it was meant to apply was very specific. But its an instance of a more general form, where individuals are given simple instructions that can be followed according to individual judgments, but where the collective behavior of the system does useful work.
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Dec 1, 2013 04:01
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RealityApologist posted:I think there's no obligation to work within an illegitimate system, especially when that system fails to provide basic protections for the public interest.
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Dec 1, 2013 04:04
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McDowell posted:I already did. The system you describe does not exist right now. Uber does. FilthyImp suggested that Uber users are just too lazy to take public transport. I responded by asking him how the hell public transport can match Uber's convenience. No response so far, because the answer is obvious: it can't. That's why Uber is successful and growing.
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Dec 1, 2013 04:12
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enraged_camel posted:No, I didn't mean that at all. You realize you can call a taxi company with a phone and order a taxi, right? That's if there aren't taxis driving around searching for fares. It's a solution without a problem. What exactly does it offer to justify the cost premium? This is a good microcosm of all this future-ist tech bullshit. enraged_camel posted:The system you describe does not exist right now. Uber does. Yes, it does. It's called a taxi. Why would I pay fees to a company to act as middleman when I can call a loving taxi without their special app? Clearly there is a market for a shiny taxi middleman app for the iPhone, because the company is growing, but that does not indicate much besides rich people liking shiny things. edit: I just ran the numbers, a generic taxi from O'Hare to downtown in Chicago is about $35, an Uber taxi is $45-$50. It's an overpriced taxi service by the looks of it. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Dec 1, 2013 |
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Dec 1, 2013 04:23
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McDowell posted:It would be great to create public fleets of autonomous vehicles (creating jobs through strict maintenance schedules and generally improving the energy efficiency of civilization). However like a central jobs/property market it would be very strongly opposed, not just by the entrenched political/economic actors, but by the general reactionary nature of our present society. I predict that shared self-driving vehicles will be more popular with the central panopticon-state. Every car will be tracked and wired for sound/video. No more need to get search warrants for GPS tracking. The video will be due to early adopters getting vandalized. Customers will love them because after years of rush hour traffic, folks would be grateful to hand someone else the keys for a change as long as they don't have to wait at a bus stop. Insurance and liability problems will probably price old fashioned cars out of the market for the 99%. In the event of protests, autonomous/self-driving cars will be diverted around the protests. Folks attempting to get to the protests will instead be taken directly to police stations for "processing". Police in the US tend to drive larger vehicles because of the intermittent need use them as prisoner transport. With self-driving cars, it will be possible to use smaller police vehicles and summon a black maria as needed. Perhaps one could summon a regular autonomous car under police authority and it then becomes a secure prisoner transport? Versions of autonomous vehicles will be used for construction, as dump trucks and delivery vehicles. They will become so prevalent that they won't be noticed. The business model for Webvan will eventually work by eliminating the manual labor of driving and unloading goods (I suspect that the solution will involve something like lockers in driveways that the vehicles will deposit packages into). These will be carefully controlled by the state as they could be used as self-driving torpedoes - suicide truck bombings without the suicide - or as drug mules. Alternatively, if car ownership stays high (and folks own their own self driving cars), you don't wait for the stuff to get delivered, you send your car to the shop (without you) and folks there load it up with what you bought online. The evil version of delivery vehicles will be used to exile undesirables (such as homeless or Roma). In previous years (disclaimer: may still be happening in 2013), authorities would put homeless/vagrants on buses and have Greyhound drive them away. The rise of self-driving vehicles will be used to make this easier. The untermensch will be tossed into the back and the vehicle sent off to some other place. Very evil places will probably have the black maria drive to the desert (in summer) and park for a few days before dumping the corpse in an out-of-sight location. When questioned, the authorities will truthfully be able to state that the undesirable was alive the last time they saw them. I suppose a self-driving backhoe could be used to bury the evidence. These things will be great for dumping bodies. So great that every police procedural show will have an episode on a corpse that died somewhere along the last route. Agatha Christie, Law and Order, they all have had "locked room mysteries" and so will future shows.
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Dec 1, 2013 04:28
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RealityApologist posted:The context to which it was meant to apply was very specific. But its an instance of a more general form, where individuals are given simple instructions that can be followed according to individual judgments, but where the collective behavior of the system does useful work. The full letter you wrote that explains the algorithm in more depth has the same problem. If you are saying that you have unpublished work that solves the 'obvious' infinite looping problem in your layman's algorithm/procedure, then computer scientists and AI researches would be VERY interested in reading about them. I'm sure google would be pleased not to spend millions of dollars on a boondoggle quantum computer. One thing struck me from your post summarising your work in this field: quote:In the two years since the protest, I've seen the field of human computation developsignificantly. Earlier this month I attended the first AAAI conference on Human Computation (http://goo.gl/HR0vYf). I think perhaps the biggest problem with my suggestion is that it came too early; even the professional academics on the cutting edge are still using very coarse-grained tools (primarily MTurk) for organizing and motivating the crowd to do interesting computational work. They're nowhere near the question of how to make a big group have a productive conversation in real time, even though its those sorts of questions where human computation holds the promise to have the biggest impact on human organizations. Care to elaborate on why the professionals seem to be so 'behind the times' (using coarse-grained tools and not in real time)? If you have come up with a way that can get the same results but much faster, then why haven't they thought of it themselves? They are paid to sit around and think about this all day, surely they could have thought up some sort of consensus decision making model to solve complex social problems. Why is your suggestion 'too early' for the field? Tokamak fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Dec 1, 2013 |
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Dec 1, 2013 04:30
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Huttan posted:I predict that shared self-driving vehicles will be more popular with the central panopticon-state. Yeah it does have major privacy implications, but with smartphones and license plate readers it isn't like we aren't already 75% of the way there; with none of the environmental/economic benefits.
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Dec 1, 2013 04:56
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Yeah, Uber is about as expensive or more expensive than a taxi. It has nothing to do with public transportation especially most people can't afford a taxi to go to work every day. Also, I suspect all this bullshit is ultimately about dodging taxes.
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Dec 1, 2013 05:02
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