183 karma · joined October 13, 2020
If this is the case, the obvious side effect is the emergence of bullshit jobs as the purpose of hiring is not primarely to finish work but to increase power of managers in corporations.
Beside that, even if the interview is not manipulated, it is not a proof for human-like sentience. Human emotions are based on neurochemical processes. If emotions can actually arise on the basis of electromagnetism as well, that would be a groundbreaking discovery. But an "interview" of a part-time researcher with a computer program is not enough evidence to seriously claim this.
I believe that there are many Elon Musks in the world but due to various circumstances (born in the wrong place at the wrong time, bad luck, terrible parents) they never get the chance to shine.
Long story short: If you don't know which horse will win and you have enough money (time), bet a certain amount on the most promising ones.
Anyway, the illogic of this movement already starts with the fact that only certain characteristics are seen as a source of discrimination, while others are not. Skin color and gender are known to be factors of discrimination. But what about "beauty," "social origin" or "age"? It is known from studies that attractive people are considered to be more competent or more successful and are promoted more often - less attractive people therefore suffer an unfair disadvantage. Shouldn't this therefore also become part of any effort to stop discrimination?
> prior to the Bitcoin Paper we literally didn't know how to have permissionless
Simply not true. Torrents allow you to store and retrieve objects from a decentralized object "database" without an individual having control over it.
For me the important question would be: How much do you _care_ finding that line in the haystack?
It might be interesting to think about ideas where creators are automatically compensated for their digital content, even if it's just fractions of a cent per view or code execution. Many authors of popular answers on Stackoverflow would probably be rich already.
These interview questions exist only for the purpose of filtering out as many as possible from an enormous number of candidates, not to find the most suitable engineers.
But yes, if "improving conversion rates" is your main priority, it may be helpful.
Two things I learned here: 1) If I didn't know already someone at that company, I would still be clueless why I wasn't accepted. 2) The first hiring stage at big companies is indeed a silly keyword filtering process.