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Comment by xvilka | Hacker News Reader

How is it possible to make an introduction to something that doesn't exist?

"1945: Arthur C. Clarke begins privately circulating copies of a paper that proposes using space satellites for global communications." [0]

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

[0] https://www.wired.com/2011/05/0525arthur-c-clarke-proposes-g...

Concepts that can exist but not yet for some reason surely can have a link to our reality. That link is the introduction. Think of asteroid mining. Nothing forbids that it can be done, but it's not practical yet to exist, but you can write a book on it regardless.

You need theory before you get implementation.

Wager: None of the theory on this page will have any bearing on the implementation of a real world AI system that solves any problem of interest.

Not that there aren't problems to solve regarding AI, just that this line of inquiry won't be relevant to solving them. It'll be complicated boring work dealing with power structures, economics, and social movements, not thought experiments about omnipotent Others.

You will have to be clearer, because I submitted here information about an «implementation of a real world AI system that solves [a] problem of interest» through some «theory on this page» only hours ago.

It is not fully clear what you mean with "«this line of inquiry»", because the submission does not seem to deal with «omnipotent Others», and because the «boring work» will have no foundation without the actual product and its theoretical and technical enablers.

"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Eisenhower.

I'm sure there are plenty of things we've implemented without theory, such as global warming or the economy.

Most of the history of technological development is the other way around. Theory-driven novel engineering is actually quite rare.

Quantum mechanics was quite handy to develop electronics.

Quantum mechanics came about after we already had electronics. If anything it was a result of the hundred year disruption in physics that the use of electricity brought.

It did, however we would probably have hit a ceiling if QM remained unknown to us.

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is-it...

Electronics predate our physical understanding of how they work.

Think we had the first airplane before Prandtl came up with his stuff.

(Further to other replies:)

Regulative ideas, ideals, can be productive.

Ever sold a used car?

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