[HN Gopher] The Dawn of Mediocre Computing
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The Dawn of Mediocre Computing
Author : jger15
Score : 45 points
Date : 2022-12-03 18:45 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| ur-whale wrote:
| And now I feel compelled to go research who David Brooks is ...
| jeez, talk about a poor man's Streisand effect.
| throwaway82388 wrote:
| I enjoy Rao's writing, but he has a tendency to overindulge the
| occasional (and not particularly funny) mean-spirited joke, as
| well as over-stuffing his essays with half-formed ideas and
| references to his other work. His frequent insights make it
| worth it. He doesn't seem afraid to occasionally get it
| spectacularly wrong. I admire someone willing to work out their
| ideas in such a public way.
|
| As a milquetoast center-right op ed columnist for the Times,
| Brooks is a favorite target of a certain ideological bent
| (journos and bloggers who use twitter). And some of the
| criticism is deserved, but it often has the flavor of off-
| putting, personal vitriol. And Brooks has had a few decent
| pieces. His book Bohos in Paradise, although fairly dated, is
| recommended, and includes a few sharp and entertaining
| observations.
| mhd wrote:
| The "If Books Could Kill"[1] podcast had a pretty decent
| summary of his work recently.
|
| [1]: https://pod.link/1651876897
| semiquaver wrote:
| > This reeks of real yin-yangery that extends to the roots of
| computing somehow. It's not just me hallucinating patterns where
| there are none.
|
| Me thinks the author doth protest too much...
|
| > Unifying AI and crypto at a foundational level smells like a
| problem on par with unifying relativity and quantum mechanics in
| physics.
|
| Give me a break. This tenuous link between fads I made up is as
| important as understanding the nature of the universe! What kind
| of brain worm makes people think and write like this?
| thrown1212 wrote:
| Over-weighting over-fitting pattern matches because you believe
| you're quite clever. It's a soft case of what happens when
| you're stoned.
| hinkley wrote:
| > Over-weighting over-fitting pattern matches
|
| No wonder he's so comfortable with AI...
| hinkley wrote:
| The bipolar disorder spectrum, that's what.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some
| men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
|
| https://www.thoughtco.com/catch-22-quotes-739155 (chapter 9)
|
| I always think of Jerry (or "Larry") in Parks and Rec, who, as
| the final episode tells us, served 11 terms as Pawnee mayor (yes,
| I know he had a perfect family life). Being mediocre is
| unthreatening. If you're mediocre but personable and even-
| tempered, the top job _somewhere_ is just waiting for you.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| _Intentional_ mediocrity is incredibly hard to achieve. Smart
| people who can create something that 's perfectly mediocre and
| can be consumed by the masses are the true geniuses of this
| world.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I present to you, ladies & gents, James Cameron:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron
|
| _Avatar_ and _Titanic_ are stunningly mediocre films. But
| look at the box office numbers.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Cameron is strange because he is a legitimate genius at
| some parts of movie-making. For all their mediocrity,
| Titanic and Avatar have exceptional action sequences - and
| Cameron is a bonafide genius at that.
| mathematicaster wrote:
| Is it even fair to call that mediocrity?
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Maybe it's "cerebral suppression" where you intentionally
| switch off the part of your brain that wants to make it
| more clever and smarter.
|
| Chuck Lorre (creator of _Two and a Half Men_ and _Big Bang
| Theory_ ) comes to mind.
| CSSer wrote:
| The VP of my company is like this. When I started he was an
| operations director. He amazes me. He's an older guy that
| physically seems half his age. The only indicator to the
| contrary are some fine lines and his completely gray-white
| hair. He's somehow incredibly even-tempered with a dry wit.
| I've worked with him for four years, and I've seen him make an
| upset face exactly once.
|
| What's even crazier is that I've had scenarios where I needed
| something and my supervisors made it seem like it would take
| eons to get it because they don't understand it. They'd want me
| to write a report or something to that effect. Same five minute
| conversation revisited with him in the room? He listens, asks a
| few questions (mostly about how it'll impact our budget), and
| then says something like, "Okay, sounds like we need this," and
| boom! Done.
|
| He's not a programmer. He has no technical experience or
| background. He just seems to have a fine-tuned compass for what
| is and isn't a big deal. I've never had the feeling that he
| didn't trust me about something that I 100% feel is what needs
| to be done. Yet he's still taught me things I didn't know. It's
| weird.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Excellent and hardly mediocre. "Common sense" is anything but
| common.
|
| But I _have_ found in interviewing veterans that a no-panic
| approach to problems is a very powerful force in business.
| Some of them say that a military leader who deals with actual
| life-and-death situations can have a nicely blase attitude
| about civilian problems.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| There's nothing mediocre about the person you're describing.
| pharke wrote:
| Yes, this person is an expert manager.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Even being able to have such a firm grasp on your
| emotions is hardly the stuff of mediocrity.
| CSSer wrote:
| Obviously I agree. I suppose I got here because this
| industry often seems laser-focused on CTOs, 10x engineers,
| and individuals with a generally accepted as outstanding
| level of knowledge in some niche field or specialization.
| This guy has none of that, hence "mediocre" but I agree
| he's anything but.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I think a fundamental challenge to what Venkatesh calls "Mediocre
| Computing" is that humans are very good at leaning boundaries in
| a way that current AI is not. Much of what separates mediocre
| humans from exceptional ones is correctly sensing when and how to
| cross boundaries, to exceed guidelines, etc. When, say, GPT
| exceeds the boundaries of a prompt it's _relatable_ - as a human,
| you can generally see why it crossed into the other domain. The
| connection is real and not a mistake. But efficient functioning
| in the world relies on humans recognizing that they should not
| cross that boundary _because of the domain they are operating
| in._ It 's a thing that current AI really struggles with.
|
| I do think that we are entering an age where mediocre humans
| paired with mediocre AIs will be able to do much better work than
| either on their own, but I don't really think we are ready to
| dive into independent AI agents. It's still Optometrist
| Algorithms all the way down[1].
|
| [1] https://futurism.com/googles-new-algorithm-wants-to-help-
| res...
| [deleted]
| foobiekr wrote:
| Alternately, these tools take the asymmetric warfare of
| bullshit generators vs actual workers and basically give the
| bullshit side automated factories.
| Animats wrote:
| Conflating crypto and AI seems unhelpful. But the subject of
| "realish domains" is useful. "Realish is reality rendered a bit
| user-friendly. Natural reality with some improvements." Like
| sidewalks and traffic lights, and barriers around holes in the
| ground. Working definition: a realish environment can be
| traversed by someone who is looking at a phone.
|
| This is a useful concept for targeting AI systems. I sometimes
| talk about the difficulties of getting AI to squirrel-level
| manipulation capability. There was an article today about
| Amazon's latest bin-picking system. It's way below squirrel
| level. But, in the "realish domain" of an Amazon warehouse, it's
| almost good enough to be useful.
|
| This comes up all the time in manufacturing. Do you drop parts
| into a bin, or put them on something that keeps their
| orientation? If you lose orientation, at some point you have to
| pay somebody or something to get it back for the next step in the
| process.
|
| There are degrees of order in part handling. The strict form is,
| they're in a mechanical feeder which will dispense one item in
| the desired orientation through a simple motion. Much of
| manufacturing works like that, but you need specialized tooling
| for each part. The other extreme, all the parts in a bin with a
| human pulling them out, is general-purpose but expensive, and
| slow for small parts. In the middle, there are systems which use
| simple computer vision systems to find parts in trays that keep
| the parts in approximately the right place. The vision system can
| deal with minor misalignment, empty slots, and upside down parts.
| Those are becoming popular now that simple vision systems are
| cheap.
|
| "Realish domains" can get similar treatment. If you pad the sharp
| edges, the AI can be dumber. This applies to tasks outside
| manufacturing.
| bluepizza wrote:
| I felt it is a fundamentally snobbish concept, as if a mall is
| less real than a park.
|
| All human spaces are artificial, we build them for a reason!
|
| Pretending that malls, offices, restaurants, airports,
| libraries and any other curated spaces are not absolutely real
| is self delusion. They are the building blocks of our reality,
| today.
| bluepizza wrote:
| This text could have been generated by GPT-3 itself. It throws
| together a bunch of unrelated concepts, touches them
| superficially, uses a bland corporate style, and there is very
| little coherence overall.
|
| It is fundamentally flawed, and fundamentally human. As AI
| evolves and becomes ever more perfect, this sort of author will
| actually become more and more important. When you can get
| perfection in your fingertips, it is the fundamentally flawed
| that you will crave.
| tuatoru wrote:
| So...containing, as it does, an inherent contradiction, your
| comment _was_ generated by GPT-3?
|
| Your last sentence is illustrated by the adjective "artisanal".
| quonn wrote:
| Yes, it is correct that my comment was generated by GPT-3,
| which is a large language model trained by OpenAI. As a
| language model, GPT-3 is capable of generating text based on
| the input it receives, but it does not have the ability to
| browse the internet or access external information.
| Therefore, any contradictions or other inconsistencies in my
| responses are a result of the limitations of the model and
| not due to any intentional deceit on my part.
| bluepizza wrote:
| That was the point, yes :)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This article talks a lot about 'AI and crypto' but it might have
| been more interesting to look at the bigger picture of fintech,
| defined as 'computer programs and related technology used to
| support banking and financial services', and machine learning
| instead of AI.
|
| Noteably, the short-term consequences of machine learning +
| fintech don't really seem to align with the long-term results,
| which don't seem that great.
| jesse__ wrote:
| > It's not just me hallucinating patterns where there are none.
|
| I'm unconvinced..
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(page generated 2022-12-03 23:00 UTC)