Scientific computing in the age of agentic AI
openai.comCan we just stop posting press releases to HN?
When I was in school, one of my professors told me something like "the age of the small research project is over. Now it's becoming a lot more like industry where the large-scale research plan is king". Using AI and large-scale computing in general is a continuation of that, even in abstract fields like math.
Have to admit, while it might be impressive, I found this new paradigm to be not much fun. Some find allure in it because it gives some immediately impressive results or finds some low-hanging fruit that wasn't there before.
But I get the feeling that we're becoming smaller and smaller irrelevant cogs in a machine where the individual is becoming more replaceable every day.
Proponents of high-tech utopias where we are 100% safe and all diseases are solved and we have endless surplus no doubt support this sort of future. But I think it's basically equivalent of living like zoo animals - anhorrent and not a future worth working towards.
So while there can be no doubt that new science will be done with these techniques, I for one have no enthusiasm about whatever will be discovered, unless of course AI goes haywire and deletes itself.
Why would being "100% safe and all diseases are solved and we have endless surplus" be abhorrent to you?
It's not the fact that it's safe or that all diseases are solved - heck, I'd love that.
But, it's the necessary infrastructure that goes with it: the only reason that it would be safe would be high-tech surveillance and tight government/corporation control. The only reason why it would be disease-free would likely be genetic engineering and a dependence on technology. The only reason why we'd have endless surplus would be because we would have pilfered the earth.
And endless surplus deadens the creative spirit as well and all art becomes superficial. In other words, the supposed utopia necessarily implies us living in a zoo.
The problem with people who are bright about a high-tech future is that they never imagine the downsides because they're too obsessed and myopic about problem solving.
I think your criticisms are mostly fair but I think most tech people are aware of the potential downsides but ask themselves, "what is the alternative course?"
We stay the same? We accept some amount of harm, disease, and want as necessary to the human condition?
I'm a fan of solving aging and disease, making the genetic code customizable, and commoditizing space flight to the point we can all just consciously uncouple in space and go our separate ways.
It's a really big galaxy out there and a few million years later, it's a really big universe. And unless we run into someone who has done it first, why not be first?
And I say that thinking we will run into someone who has done it first if we go out far enough. But we've got a couple thousand years of you get the hell off my asteroid before that's even a consideration.
> I'm a fan of solving aging and disease, making the genetic code customizable, and commoditizing space flight to the point we can all just consciously uncouple in space and go our separate ways.
Hey, when you put it like that, it sounds good. But the reality is, the best ageing cures will be used for the rich. The genetic code being openly editable will just lead to eugenics. And space flight? Heck, there's no where to go in space and it's unlikely we'll be able to make planets habitable so I think we'd better focus on this one.
I think there is an alternative course. Work to make smaller communities that aren't so dependent on technology and innovation. A lot of diseases are caused by technology, at least ones like depression and stress-related things. I bet a lot of heart disease could be lessened if people had more time for themselves in smaller communities where people would encourage each other to eat more healthy.
That's not staying the same, and it's not using technology to solve a problem either. It's using human ingenuity.
You could say that it's difficult. But every big tech innovation is also difficult. The guy who constructed Deep Blue to beat Gary Kasparov was told that it was impossible at every stage, and yet he went ahead, working for years to construct the first chess computer to beat Gary.
Yet, we don't even try to find new, non-tech solutions to things. We just throw up our hands and give up. Why can't we have the same attitude towards non-tech that we have towards tech innovation? Andrew Wiles spent a decade in his attic chipping away at Fermat's last theorem. We should all spent the same amount of effort trying to find lower-resource ways of solving our problems through human cooperation rather than technology. But most techies just give up and say tech is the solution.
Yes, this won't solve every disease, but I do think with less pollution and less land destruction, we'd make life a lot better, if not perfect. And if there's a bit of imperfection left in life, I think that'd be worth it compared to the coming tech dystopia.
Coordinated with the ACM announcement?