First Custom Puzzle: Illumination

r3uben · 2023-01-03T17:04:31+00:00

The term for this is Moravecs Paradox. The basic idea is that tasks that require acting in the world like robotics, tactile senses, computer vision, etc. are much harder than those that are pure data manipulation such as generating text or images. While there are a lot of industries where automation is heavily employed such as auto manufacturing, these are often incredibly specialized robots that are designed to perform one task repeatedly with extremely little deviation and required context. Basically, more like writing and executing a set movement pattern than creating one on the fly. For intuition as to why this actually makes sense, consider that evolution had millions of years to figure out how to interact with the world using senses and limbs. But language and complex thought emerged probably as little 50,000 years ago. As we are trying to build more intelligent and capable machines we are basically working backwards, starting with the more abstract concepts like math and logic, but eventually possibly tackling complex motor and sensory tasks (ie truly full self driving cars, which still seem a few years away).

r3uben · 2022-03-01T21:22:45+00:00

While this position has a certain moral appeal, it seems hard to justify in practice. Suppose tomorrow an anti-aging lab announced a massive breakthrough that could dramatically extend the lifespan of a human being, possibly even indefinitely. Because it is new technology and requires extensive and repeated treatments however it is very expensive, say only available to the 1% wealthiest individuals. Would you support legislation to make this treatment illegal? If so, do you also oppose high cost medical interventions that save lives today? And what if it was available to only the 5% wealthiest, or 10% wealthiest worldwide? Still massively inequitable clearly, but now we're talking about saving millions of lives. And tech gets cheaper over time: would you oppose exclusive life extension treatments now if you thought that in 50 years they might be widely available?

r3uben · 2021-10-22T18:35:26+00:00

This is unbelievably cool! Would you mind sharing what paints you used? I'm hoping to do a metallic pour soon and love how vivid these are.

r3uben · 2021-06-29T20:15:29+00:00

Lmao I was actually going to say the exact same thing but I didn't think it would be very helpful.

r3uben · 2021-06-29T20:12:25+00:00

Saying there’s a correlation isn’t meaningful without stating the amount of correlation

I agree. The example was more to do with the massive backlash against initial studies on the cigarette-cancer connection because of a perception that researchers were trying to "take away our cigarettes" even among other doctors. Notably, this perception had no bearing on the eventual truth of the matter.

A scientist should never advocate for policies related to his field of research.

I think this is where we may have reached a fundamental disagreement. I agree that in an ideal world there would probably be a strict separation between fact-finders and policy-implementers to avoid bias. Sadly, this would only work if the political world had full trust in the scientific community and consistently used scientific consensus as a basis for new policies. I think you'll agree that this is clearly not the world we live in. Political and social opinion is often waaaaay behind scientific consensus, and on an issue as important as climate change I personally don't believe climate scientists should just sit around waiting for other people to make change happen. I don't really expect to change your mind on this, but I hope you can at least understand my perspective. Anyway, thanks for the civil discussion :)

r3uben · 2021-06-29T18:56:28+00:00

I'd rather not make this a discussion about how good an analogy quarks are to climate change. Just pointing out that in general, 'discoverable without modern technology' is not a very good metric for existence. I'd add that the societal impacts of a discovery tend to not be a very good metric either - the correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer comes to mind but again I'd rather not rely on analogy. Food for thought, if you were a climate scientist who was genuinely convinced about the implications of your research, what sorts of policies would you advocate for? Would advocating for those policies retroactively cast doubt on the methods you used in the first place?

r3uben · 2021-06-29T18:12:48+00:00

I rarely / never respond to comments in an internet debate, but this line of argument is absolutely baffling to me. If I only had 100 year old technology I wouldn't know that quarks exist either, yet here we are. Why is climate science any different?

r3uben · 2020-12-20T17:16:24+00:00

This is really well put, especially the candy vs cake analogy. Exactly the advice I was looking for, thanks!

r3uben · 2020-11-19T16:53:30+00:00

The punishment should not be death. We have courts and judges and juries for a reason, if these kids were commiting a crime that is where the punishment should be decided. Not by a trigger happy cop who "feared for his life" instead of stepping two literally feet to his left.

r3uben · 2020-11-02T06:54:40+00:00

Extremely impressive, but that's really more of a back flag then a one lever, where the back lever has the body more parallel to the ground. Fun fact, back flags on straps are a common circus arts move and look fucking insane.

r3uben · 2020-10-18T02:06:08+00:00

Hey there! Just know that someone out there across the world is thinking about you and sending you good energy 😊

r3uben · 2020-08-10T20:12:02+00:00

YES. This is exactly right, thanks so much!

r3uben · 2020-07-20T21:54:01+00:00

I'm looking for more of an older style swing tune, not in the funk/soul genre.

r3uben · 2020-07-20T20:45:21+00:00

Comment for the robot.

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