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Comment by cavanasm | Hacker News Reader

The title of the job opening says computational chemistry, but the details indicate they're looking for someone with credentials in one of a few different computation / simulation specialized fields. If I had to guess, it seems possible they think those types of simulation design skills may be useful for simulating user social behavior somehow?

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No, it's really about material science and biology, just read further in the ad:

Responsibilities

• Follow the latest progress in computational science such as material and biology.

• Solve real-world problems in material and biology, with computational approaches such as molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and machine learning.

• Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms with artificial intelligence and high-throughput computational methods.

That will be cool if their really looking to expand into something useful like biochemistry r&d, similar to Google with deepmind.

TikTok brain implant?

I don’t think manufacturing of computing parts (in this case, a brain implant) is the future.

My money is on bio-engineering “experience” into human memory.

It’s the least materially wasteful as the materials are in the process, not outputs. The outputs are not stuff but modified organic matter state.

I am pretty sure they are exploring AlphaFold, potential growth opportunity. ByteDance has been exploring games, education, online office suites and many more.

They are going after the hundred billion dollar pet industry, focusing on electronics for pets. With a TikTok flip-flop, give a dog a phone.

Watch your posts on a dog-themed clone.

and we thought spam calls were bad, now instead of extended warrantys and political surveys, my dog is going to be calling and texting me every 10 minutes asking for treats and belly rubs

or just to say "hey", like the old far side comic with a canine decoder

https://elorganillero.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/canine-...

Haha that’s a good one thanks for the link!

Just pulled “Hound of the Far Side” off a shelf last night after not looking at a Larson comic in a long time - reminds me of the one where a car of cows are driving by a field of humans yelling “yakkity yak yak” out the window

Yeah, this isn't really that different than quant hedge funds hiring theoretical physics PhDs. It's not like you're actually going to be doing Yang Mills field equations to trade some stocks. They just need a guy to run some linear regressions, and can afford to find someone really really overqualified so they don't screw up.

Not sure if these people are overqualified as much as the fact that people who check the box on paper are generally unqualified. Generally good people can only really do math up to a few years below the highest level that they learned in school. If you actually need someone to do basic linear algebra you probably want somehow who took classes that went well beyond the freshman/sophomore level that everyone has.

Is this something unique to math? I've never taken computer science courses in school, but I'm fairly good at it...

I'd suspect someone who was self-taught in mathematics wouldn't have a disconnect between apparent and actual ability either; teaching math to people who primarily need it to pass an exam is a very different process from learning the same material out of personal interest.

Well if you have a mathematics undergraduate degree you would have taken classes "that went well beyond the freshman/sophomore level that everyone has."

I don't see why it's necessary to have a potentially unrelated PHD to do basic linear algebra.

Perhaps a PhD signals a higher probability of something the employer is looking for.

If this is true, I suspect it is only true because most people can do arithmetic despite having taken high school math

Black–Scholes comes from Brownian motion, maybe they are fishing for the next idea in that fashion.

Modeling user brain chemistry? Ominous.

self-aware General AI who's existence is entirely made of simulated eons of watching tiktoks

All much too complicated, they are just interested in someone coming up with more "what happens if you put mentos into coke"-type reactions for their content creator's inspiration..

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