You might well be 100% right. I'd like to see the Japanese succeed, actually.
However, it was simply not possible for anyone to succeed at AI in the early 80's. It took some Nobel-prize-winning software, a change of approach, and a massive increase in compute power to finally break through.
I think that we also needed a much larger training corpus than was available in the 1980s. Back then the largest textual data sets were orders of magnitude smaller.
As for "The important thing is that they tried" : would you give them credit for "trying" to invent real-time, neuron-by-neuron brain imaging, in 1982? And giving billions of taxpayer Yen to the effort? How about quantum computers?
Or would you have been justified in saying that there are projects with a better prospect of success right now, and we shouldn't waste the taxpayers' money on things guaranteed to fail?
As for "The important thing is that they tried" : would you give them credit for "trying" to invent real-time, neuron-by-neuron brain imaging, in 1982? And giving billions of taxpayer Yen to the effort? How about quantum computers?
For me, I'd say:
1. Yes
2. Taxation is theft
3. Yes
Or would you have been justified in saying that there are projects with a better prospect of success right now, and we shouldn't waste the taxpayers' money on things guaranteed to fail?
See again: taxation is theft. But regardless of how you fund research, it remains the case that "you don't know what you don't know" and "hindsight is 20/20". I'm certainly not going to slag the Japanese for the effort they put into the 5th gen project just because things didn't work out as favorably as they might have.
And also, while the project might not have met their immediate goals and is deemed a "failure" that doesn't necessarily mean that the research they did is value-less. Speaking for myself, I actually recently went on a bit of a buying binge, buying a bunch of books on the 5th gen project (read that Feigenbaum & McCorduck book ages ago) and related ideas (eg, concurrent prolog). Because I have a hunch there's a kernel of something useful there still waiting to emerge. Now my research may lead me nowhere, but that's OK. And at least in my case I'm spending only my own money.
Let me just repeat: So what ARE your limits? Or are there any?
So I guess you're saying there are no limits? Every project should be funded to the max?
and since you're against taxation, does that mean ordinary people are to be compelled to "voluntarily" fund them? Or where is the money supposed to come from?
and since you're against taxation, does that mean ordinary people are to be compelled to "voluntarily" fund them? Or where is the money supposed to come from?
Honestly, not interested in going any deeper on this topic here on HN. It won't lead to anything productive and will just start a flamewar. In the off chance that you are actually especially interested in hearing my opinion(s) here, drop me an email at prhodes@fogbeam.com and we can continue there. If not, then I'm satisfied to drop this here.
I offered to continue the dialog. You decided to go for the "zinger" approach. I think that tells us both all we need to know about the merits of me continuing this little dialog with you. Have a nice day.
The "Nobel Prize in Economics" was not one of the original ones endowed by Alfred Nobel. As the name implies, it was created by a bank.
Is there any reason Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk can't endow a Prize in Computer Science? That would end the controversy about whether AI is "Physics."
Not being the original does not make it any less meaningful. Repeating the same "Not real Nobel" spiel every time Nobel price in Economics is discussed as it is some kind of refutation is silly.
>Is there any reason
Yes there is. Nobel committee has accepted Nobel in economics as one of the Nobel prices. Its in their website, in their documents and its given out in the same ceremony in Stockholm. Laureates are selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
"created by a bank "
Sveriges Riksbank is the central bank of Sweden. It's not a just some random private bank.
> The Breakthrough Prize, renowned as the “Oscars of Science”, recognizes the world’s top scientists working in the fundamental sciences – the disciplines that ask the biggest questions and find the deepest explanations.
> Each prize is $3 million and presented in the fields of Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics.
> The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki. The Prizes have been sponsored by the personal foundations established by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Ma Huateng, Jack Ma, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.
It's not even a non-original Nobel. It's simply "Not a Nobel Prize".
The headline should read "Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson won Not a Nobel Prize in Economics."
We shouldn't validate the idea that one can earn a Nobel in economics. It's simply not possible because such a prize does not exist. Shame on economists for attempting to legitimize economics using the memory of Alfred Nobel. It is low, even for them.
> Is there any reason Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk can't endow a Prize in Computer Science?
Even without searching, I'm sure they back a number of organizations that do endow various awards, scholarships, and so on. I doubt they could come up with a "flagship" one that would be as prestigious as the Nobel Prize, though. Our attitudes toward modern-day "industrialists" and their pet projects are quite different today. Whatever controversies surround the Nobel Prize, they would be many times worse for the Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk Medal of Merit.
This seems kinda confused. The Nobel is now controversial because after all, Nobel invented dynamite and he wanted to expunge his guilt. Yet you said it was "prestigious" -- but you want to cancel that, regardless?
But somehow the Nobel Prize in Computer Science would be too controversial even given all that.
OK, I get that you don't like Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk. Maybe you're just jealous.
Academic talking points. Talk about the indigenous Irish who got "colonized" by the Celts, or the Britons who got "colonized" by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, or the native American tribes who got "colonized" by other tribes, or the Gauls who got "colonized" by migrant tribes.
The fact is, everyone is on "stolen land" including the "indigenous." The Spaniards were more exploitive than the English and other northern Europeans (look up "Potosi"), but that doesn't make the latter perfect.
The New World was going to be integrated with the Old World sooner or later, no matter who did it.
Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times.
He's not "controversial," he's just a bloviator. His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team and agreed to never challenge them again, on anything.
When you have to spend many words on explaining the "context" in which someone's quotes should be viewed, you are losing.
> His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team
You might be (unpleasantly) surprised by the emphasis of the current year's nobel economics prize winners on the importance of societal institutions and the need for inclusivity to advance the wealth of nations :-)
Krugman triggered some self reflection on my part when I read a column by him that was really stupid. Not just politically biased, but got economics wrong.
This is a Nobel winner in economics, I warned myself. Are you really putting your judgement ahead of theirs in their own field of study? I wanted to make sure I wasn't just doing the HN thing of arrogantly assuming I'm an expert in a field because I read a book once.
The eventual conclusion I came to was that I should always make sure to hold some allowance that the export may be correct and myself wrong, except when it's really obviously dumb, and that Krugman's writing fell into that camp.
> Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times.
This is BS. Krugman has very specific theories that made predictions validated by practice.
Remember 2008? He made a prediction that an increase in the monetary base wouldn't cause inflation. This prediction was spectacularly confirmed. He also made a case for fiscal intervention: it wouldn't cause inflation, and it would speed up the recovery. And his prediction again was confirmed.
More recently: he predicted that the inflation spike was transient, due to supply chain issues rather than fundamental changes. And he's again been vindicated.
Saying that Krugman was vindicated is quite a stretch. As the economist Noah Smith wrote:
>...In 2021, Krugman tweeted: "I like it and plan to steal it. This report does look like what you'd expect if recent inflation was about transitory disruptions, not stagflation redux".
As Smith pointed out:
>...But in late 2021, inflation spread to become very broad-based. Services inflation was always significant, and took over from goods inflation as the main contributor in 2022.
>The notion that this was just some transient supply-chain disruptions that was only affecting specific products was absolutely central to Team Transitory’s claims in the summer of 2021. And that was incorrect.
>...Team Transitory also called the end of the inflation at least a year and a half too soon.
On October 13, 2021 Krugman tweeted "Three month core inflation. Why isn't everyone calling this a victory for team transitory"
>...So they didn’t entirely whiff here. They just greatly overstated their case. And their complacency in 2021 probably fed into the Fed’s decision to delay the start of rate hikes until 2022, which in retrospect looks like a serious mistake.
What did get vindicated was mainstream economics as taught in our textbooks. As Smith wrote:
>...Mainstream macro’s first victory was in predicting that the inflation would happen in the first place. In February 2021, Olivier Blanchard used a very simple “output gap” model to predict that Biden’s Covid relief bill would raise demand by enough to show up in the inflation numbers. His prediction came true. He didn’t get everything right — he thought wages would rise more than consumer prices, and he neglected the lagged effects of Trump’s Covid relief packages and Fed lending programs. But his standard simple mainstream model got the basic prediction right when most people made the opposite prediction, and this deserves recognition.
>More importantly, mainstream macro appears to have gotten policy right.
> Canada’s latest guidelines, which Dr. Stockwell advised on, are more stringent: Low-risk drinking is defined as no more than two drinks total per week, regardless of sex.
That's where I'm at. Heading down to one, and then someday zero.
Alcohol is poison, unfortunately. Denying that is, well ... "denial."
It can also be super delicious. So far this year I’ve had something like ten beers, a couple glasses of wine, and one or two cocktails and I thoroughly enjoyed each. Made the meal I had them with better. I think if I totally gave alcohol up, I would lose more than I would gain.
Aside from the obvious drinks, alcohol can be a great addition to food because lots of very tasty compounds are dissolved by alcohol. It’s why deglazing a pan with some red wine is the start of many great sauces.
The dose makes the poison. We all consume substances every day that would be lethal in a higher dose.
Many common foods contain alcohol. Basically anything fermented, such as bread, will have a small amount. No one is actually worried about that low amount.
Where we'll be told the "correct" way to think. I'd rather see it all and decide for myself. And end up watching PBS but never, never pledging in their interminable pledge drives. Somehow, they still manage to stay on the air.
By the way, in Hell they have PBS pledge drivers on the TV, 24x7, for all eternity. You can't mute the sound.
Great article. Reinforces my reluctance to see movies in theaters anymore. At home, you can turn on subtitles. People who are not at all hard of hearing do it.
