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0 pointswillholloway9y ago0 comments

I would argue we are already inside the singularity.

As far as ML, we have seen this before. When the tools get cheaper and easier to use, adoption goes up. RoR + cheap cloud servers and easy VC financing greatly increased the number of startups.

Now TensorFlow and the Nvidia Pascal architecture have made ML accessible and fast.

If there is one thing history has shown us, it is that the Hacker News comment section is full of myopic pessimists with an axe to grind (no offense peers!) -- just go back and look at the Dropbox launch thread here.

Even if ML doesn't meet all the hype (it won't for a time, and then later on it will probably exceed it and create things we can't even dream about right now) there will be an entire wave of ML startups, products and jobs.

There is a ton of money to be made on the ML train guys. It's the new social-local-mobile. Much will be shit, some will change all our lives for the better.

I'm old enough now to know how this works.

Edit PS.

I've heard listenable, interesting music completely generated with tensorflow. I have seen artwork that is arguably as good as anything any of the greats have put out generated through similar methods, and we are in the infancy of machine learning.

Machines have beaten humans at chess, go and most impressively in my opinion Jeopardy!

ML is real and it's here and you should leverage it as much as you can, all the knowledge and tools are free.

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hasbroslasher9y ago· 1 in thread

I'm not saying "don't go learn ML because it's garbage", I'm criticizing Cuban's argument, particularly that the singularity is coming and it's going to replace programmers tomorrow. I gave good reasons. I also _know_ some things about ML, and that gives me insight. Cuban's lack of knowledge affects his arguments on the topic as well - not understanding Calculus and Linear Algebra is tantamount to not understanding deep learning. Not understanding what we are doing today does not prime one for knowing what will happen tomorrow.

It's patently ridiculous to say that we are currently living in the singularity, though, it defies the very meaning of the term.

willhollowayOP9y ago

Cuban is wrong when he says programmers will be replaced any time soon. AGI is still pretty far away, but machine intelligence doesn't have to be general to make a huge dent.

"The accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, give the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, can not continue"

- John von Neumann

I would argue that the intelligence explosion has already occurred. Human affairs as we knew them when that line was uttered have been fragmenting and crumbling all across the world.

The internet itself, the current 10 billion or so machines networked together have resulted in a fundamental change in the human condition.

All of us are operating with amplified brains now. We have access to knowledge from the entire corpus of human information at the touch of our fingers, or now with our voice.

I would say human intelligence is already machine amplified.

The runaway reaction has already begun.

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