Skip to content

Elon Musk wants to rewrite "the entire corpus of human knowledge" with Grok

Technology
199 159 908
  • We're Not Innovating, We’re Just Forgetting Slower

    Technology technology
    39
    1
    292 Stimmen
    39 Beiträge
    8 Aufrufe
    P
    Gotcha, thank you for the extra context so I understand your point. I'll respond to your original statement now that I understand it better: I ALSO think the author would prefer more broad technical literacy, but his core arguement seemed to be that those making things dont understand the tech they’re built upon and that unintended consequences can occur when that happens. I think the author's argument on that is also not a great one. Lets take your web app example. As you said, you can make the app, but you don't understand the memory allocation, and why? Because the high level language or framework you wrote it in does memory management and garbage collection. However, there are many, many, MANY, more layers of abstraction beside just your code and the interpreter. Do you know the webserver front to back? Do you know which ring your app or the web server is operating in inside the OS (ring 3 BTW)? Do you know how the IP stack works in the server? Do you know how the networking works that resolves names to IP addresses or routes the traffic appropriately? Do you know how the firewalls work that the traffic is going over when it leaves the server? Back on the server, do you know how the operating system makes calls to the hardware via device drivers (ring 1) or how those calls are handled by the OS kernel (ring 0)? Do you know how the system bus works on the motherboard or how the L1, L2, and L3 cache affect the operation and performance of the server overall? How about that assembly language isn't even the bottom of abstraction? Below that all of this data is merely an abstraction of binary, which is really just the presence or absence of voltage on a pit or in a bit register in ICs scattered across the system? I'll say probably not. And thats just fine! Why? Because unless your web app is going to be loaded onto a spacecraft with a 20 to 40 year life span and you'll never be able to touch it again, then having all of that extra knowledge and understanding only have slight impacts on the web app for its entire life. Once you get one or maybe two levels of abstraction down, the knowledge is a novelty not a requirement. There's also exceptions to this if you're writing software for embedded systems where you have limited system resources, but again, this is an edge case that very very few people will ever need to worry about. The people in those generally professions do have the deep understanding of those platforms they're responsible for. Focus on your web app. Make sure its solving the problem that it was written to solve. Yes, you might need to dive a bit deeper to eek out some performance, but that comes with time and experience anyway. The author talks like even the most novice people need the ultimately deep understanding through all layers of abstraction. I think that is too much of a burden, especially when it acts as a barrier to people being able to jump in and use the technology to solve problems. Perhaps the best example of the world that I think the author wants would be the 1960s Apollo program. This was a time where the pinnacle of technology was being deployed in real-time to solve world moving problems. Human kind was trying to land on the moon! The most heroic optimization of machines and procedures had to be accomplished for even a chance for this to go right. The best of the best had to know every. little. thing. about. everything. People's lives were at stake! National pride was at stake! Failure was NOT an option! All of that speaks to more of what the author wants for everyone today. However, that's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist today. Compute power today is CHEAP!!! High level program languages and frameworks are so easy to understand that programming it is accessible to everyone with a device and a desire to use it. We're not going to the moon with this. Its the kid down the block that figured out how to use If This Then That to make a light bulb turn on when he farts into a microphone. The beauty is the accessibility. The democratization of compute. We don't need gatekeepers demanding the deepest commitment to understanding before the primitive humans are allowed to use fire. Are there going to be problems or things that don't work? Yes. Will the net benefit of cheap and readily available compute in the hands of everyone be greater than the detriments, I believe yes. It appears the author disagrees with me. /sorry for the wall of text
  • Deep Dive on Google's TPU (Tensor Processing Unit)

    Technology technology
    1
    45 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    12 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet
  • 226 Stimmen
    53 Beiträge
    194 Aufrufe
    E
    Well fuck me I guess lol
  • Matrix.org is Introducing Premium Accounts

    Technology technology
    110
    1
    225 Stimmen
    110 Beiträge
    517 Aufrufe
    F
    It's nice that this exists, but even for this I'd prefer to use an open source tool. And it of course helps with migration only if the old HS is still online.. I think most practically this migration function would be built inside some Matrix client (one that would support more than one server to start with), but I suppose a standalone tool would be a decent solution as well.
  • xAI Data Center Emits Plumes of Pollution, New Video Shows

    Technology technology
    50
    1
    516 Stimmen
    50 Beiträge
    261 Aufrufe
    G
    You do. But you also plan in the case the surrounding infrastructure fails. But more to the point, in some cases it is better to produce (parto of) your own electricity (where better means cheaper) than buy it on the market. It is not really common but is doable.
  • Meta Filed a Lawsuit Against The Entity Behind CrushAI Nudify App.

    Technology technology
    21
    1
    92 Stimmen
    21 Beiträge
    124 Aufrufe
    L
    I know everybody hates AI but to me it's weird to treat artificially generated nudity differently from if somebody painted a naked body with a real person's face on it - which I assume would be legally protected freedom of expression.
  • 347 Stimmen
    91 Beiträge
    169 Aufrufe
    E
    It kinda seems like you don’t understand the actual technology.
  • Tiny LEDs May Power Future AI Inteconnects

    Technology technology
    1
    1
    8 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    14 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet