How to Build the Future: Demis Hassabis [video]
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I hadn’t really appreciated before the connection between his chess and game industry experience and the early reinforcement learning work that put Deepmind on the map, e.g. the Atari game AI demos, AlphaGo, Alphazero, etc. There is a fascinating thread there and it’s certainly a case of the right person with the right mix of past experience and vision being able to pick exactly the right problems to focus on to move technology forward.
The book has a few flaws: it’s maybe a little too uncritical of its subject. But that’s almost a given with books of this kind where the author gets a lot of access.
Out of all the heads of AI orgs out there, Dennis is the best, but the book did him a disservice by painting an unrealistically sunny picture of him as some kind of visionary figure.
Guys hes just one smart guy who got placed in a good moment in the AI technological revolution- hes def not the second coming of Christ
Like I already said, bias is inevitable in a book where the writer gets access (to the point of interviewing Hassabis in a North London pub every month), but the benefit to readers is that you do get a lot more insight into what makes the guy tick than you would in a book written by an outsider. I certainly learned a lot and just because I did doesn’t mean I’m buying into some cult of tech hero worship.
Seriously, just... don't? This isn’t some woke political thing and I dislike excessive policing of language but damn it, there are limits. "Guys" I'll let pass no problem, maybe even "dude" too on a good day. At "bro" I will take a stand, thank you very much.
> I had no idea it was possible to use male-gendered terms in a generic way
This is just sarcastic, right? "Male gendering" is just a use, no gender is involved in plain terming (outside the obvious exception of intentional gendering)... "Wo-man" specifies "/sensitive/ man", but there is no gender in "man", in "having a mind"... "Human", i.e. "heartly", is not gendered - yet some languages typically correlate derivations like French "homme" with male in default understanding... This should be clear, but just to be sure.
> bro
To the best of my recollection, in the IE roots "brother" is "who assists in the rites" - not necessarily gendered. (Some add that the idea is "supporter".) The suggestion from the term is that of the "brotherhood" - which is not gendered (the idea of fraternity is not gendered). "Sister" should instead mean "welcome" (to some studies): not gendered in this case; others interpret it as gendered ("one's girl" - this is what Etymonline proposes).
> "Guys" I'll let pass no problem, maybe even "dude" too on a good day
That's odd. You wouldn't mind being called "a generic Italo- or possibly French ("Guido" or "Guy")"*; you wouldn't mind being called a "doodle", which has a connotation of "simpleton" - and you refuse "brother", which basically means to imply "getting close to you" (as an opening from the speaker)?
* Edit: Yes, also the explosion of the term and the non-national derivation from "Guy Fawkes" (from the celebration that involved displays of Guy Fawkes ragdolls) should be remembered. Still not precisely complimentary, I'd say.
I often quote what we do in the server-client relation: interpret loosely but express correctly.
It is not just a way of communication: language is one of the factors behind thought: hence, its care must be cared for and promoted.
Sure, also the context and the communication need have a weight. But without compromising into conformism (as in, "doing it wrong because people do").
> its meaning is in the minds of the participants
Awareness has its benefits (the greatest understatement I have ever written); licence has its costs.
> entirely insufficient to justify its use
Why. The competent will always use tools differently than the layman and the amateur. Again the server client (and always the need of good thought in the background): you will express as best as you can and try to be clear (communicatively efficient) within that framework.
Now duly supposing you are not ironic (all ages and paths come here):
You call people "brother"; "brother" means "supportive" (and is used for "openness", "closeness"); if you want to be close and supporting to people, if you want to be an asset (not a liability), you will have to cultivate yourself, to get the wisdom required. Erudition is not yet wisdom, but coupled with the good intention to learn the important things it surely helps.
If I understand correctly, we've got: libraryofbabel says "maybe a little too uncritical" ... but that was supposed to be British snark that actually meant "it's a big problem that it's not at all critical"
Then, moab says "Bro" as a pejorative, because he took the original "uncritical" comment as literal rather than sarcastic...
And then libraryofbabel objects to "bro" not because it was used as a pejorative (which maybe she doesn't understand that it is in this context?), but because she interprets it as gendered (which maybe it is in British usage?)
I think libraryofbabel and moab are actually in agreement about the book, and but have both misunderstood the other's sarcasm. Maybe we really do need the /s usage.
Wait, 'unrealistically sunny'? You better not be talking about Dennis from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, because we're all screwed if so.
Then again, the western AI landscape has become somewhat stale recently. Claude and Gemini may have cute names, but they all pale in comparison to The Golden God.
^ Educational resources for the ignorant that instead prefer to discuss the merits of the term "bro", at length.
Also I don't really care that it's a bit of a cheerleader for DeepMind and Hassabis. Substantive criticism is good, but too often with these kind of books it feels like an editor told the author that the book needs something negative and the author has to inflate an issue to meet the requirement.
Of course, I am not trying to prove moral equivalency between Steinhardt and Hassabis. But it is worth keeping this in mind when reading something by Mallaby. Do not expect completeness or impartiality.
I want to learn to think more like him. What differences between his way of thinking and mine create such a powerful gap? If I could understand those differences, I might also understand how to narrow that gap. And if we could identify the causes of that gap, perhaps humans in general could develop much further.
I truly envy his intelligence. When I read his writings, I can see fragments of knowledge that he cannot hide, and it makes me think: I want to become like that too.
Certainly much less powerful than just having rich or pushy parents.
> The CV of e.g. IQ is only 15%. That's in line with other 'natural' attributes of humans, but not compared to something like family wealth or background. From a quick Google, wealth is 700% in the US? Income also same OOM.
His parents weren't particularly wealthy. More likely: he is exceptionally intelligent, hardworking, visionary, and grew up in an environment which fostered those attributes in a precocious child.
But at a system-scale view of intelligence, humans are squashed together and it plays a pretty small role on outcomes. You should much prefer being rich than smart if your goal is 'success' by most metrics.
Not at all. I have to learn how to talk very differently to people on both ends of the IQ range. Wealth is a terrible proxy for IQ because it doesn't actually correlate very much due to accidents of birth and interests. Just look at Terrance Tao vs Trump's idiot sons.
His father didn't have a steady job even, he is truly a black swan.
Farnam Street used to be a very good blog too, albeit it feels much more 'commercial' for the past 5 years.
Presumably sophistication ("sophisticated" as "complex" as opposed to "naïve" as in "less mature").
> If I could understand those differences, I might also understand how to narrow that gap
You narrow that gap through application on improved mental habits as aided by the leading examples of your good acquaintances (especially through reading). Just discipline yourself to think in a better way.
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Edit: oh, since I had to return out of a linguistic matter: examine thought and its tools - language is one, logic of course another, aletics a paramount one... Refine all your tools. Learn to see better and better.
Cannot become like that unfortunately. But hey, you are great already, and you can become even better. Your own version.
I don't agree with everything he says, but he's obviously an enormously deeper thinker than the likes of Altman.
The main problem is that in capitalism private companies have only the mission to serve their shareholders/owners.
Public institutions have the mission to serve the public.
The only real solution is to make AI a public good/utility which should be regulated on an international level and overseen by trustworthy institutions.
The reason media training exists is to win over people like you.
I know people high up at OpenAI, I'm quite sure Altman etc. don't care either; the only difference is, they've been trained well to hide it.
There is a precedent for this in nuclear weapons. It did not work. All it takes is a sufficiently resourced nation-state to defect from whatever agreements there are and the whole thing collapses. If the incentives point toward doing so, it is an inevitable outcome.