What if AI is a failed dream? - <AUTHOR> https://www.madebymany.com/stories/what-if-ai-is-a-failed-dream <comment><USER3> I don't understand why he finishes with this paragraph:

 _I'm as excited by the idea of colonising Mars as much as the next nerd. But not at the opportunity cost of not solving the problems facing us on Earth. That's a bet too big._

Making an effort to colonize Mars does not carry such a cost. People who are interested in solving this issue will not magically do whatever you'd like them to do instead. We will never solve all problems we have here on Earth, that shouldn't stop us from venturing out into space.

<comment><USER4> My take is he means that trying to move to another planet isn't a good survival strategy as a species, because of the high probability that such an endeavour would end in failure.

<comment><USER5> We stay on this rock, we die on this rock. Confining ourselves to Earth isn't a survival strategy, it's giving up. Rebuttals would be appreciated, though!

<comment> wu-ikkyu Perhaps a counterpoint would be that the opportunity cost of colonizing mars would be better spent by first solving the existential issues here on Earth.

Once we have figured out how to achieve homeostasis on a planet so plentiful in resources as our own, then we could start looking to do so elsewhere in less favorable environments.

Mars is extremely barren and has negligible capabilities for life support.

<comment><USER6> > the existential issues here on Earth.

I don't think we have any issues like that as a species, as a species we are pretty much thriving. That growth might not be built on the most sustainable principles, but we are slowly getting there.

Short of something super apocalyptic ruining the whole planet for most life (like a big asteroid hitting us), I don't see humanity eradicating itself completely anytime soon, we are quite a sturdy bunch.

> Once we have figured out how to achieve homeostasis on a planet so plentiful > in resources as our own

We've had plenty enough time trying to do that, maybe it's time to try a different exercise with more constraints to motivate creativity? Mars could be exactly that.

<comment><USER7> > That growth might not be built on the most sustainable principles, but we > are slowly getting there.

Despite what you hear about electric cars and so on, every year the human race increases the amount of environmental damage it does compared to the year previous. We're not just increasing the damage; we're increasing the rate of increase of the damage. Heck, not just the first and second but also the third derivatives are all positive.

So in fact we're not getting to sustainability at all; we're moving away from it faster each year. We're accelerating into the apocalypse. Some day that might change, but not this year. First we'd have to stop accelerating. Then we've have to slow down. Then we'd have to start reversing.

<comment><USER6> First part of solving a problem is recognizing that you actually have a problem. I increasingly see that happen in regards to the finite nature of the resources on Earth and it's rather delicate balance of climate vs pollution. These are problems we've accumulated over generations and just recently recognized we actually have, to me that's worth something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I personally consider another possibility :

AI is already here and we're all slaves to it already, we're just in denial of being in control. It's just a matter of interpretation.

Right now, machines dominate our life from the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep with our phones beside us.

It runs the world - guides the ships, planes, cars, drilling machines, financial system and so on.

The symbiosis makes us feel like we have a say - in practice, any of us can do absolutely nothing to stop _it_ or change its course.

Our power starts and ends with the branch we're working on - then our pull request will be merged into master - and that's pretty much the value of the company we're working for - source code for apps that run and interoperate in the cloud.

The illusion is that we're doing it for other people, the reality is that we do what the machine requires us to do so that it's even more pervasive in everyone's lives.

Overexposed to machines, people are too numb and apathetic to notice or care about whatever new app or service or product.

Well, it's just another way to look at it, otherwise there're lots of great things about the machine - maybe it will even save us from ourselves - question is, why ?

<comment> wu-ikkyu I forget where but I've read of this theory before: that what constitutes a true AI is constantly redefined as the level of development that we have not yet achieved, so as to be invisible

<comment> GuB-42 In other words, true AI is magic.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Or at least the idea of what true AI _is_ is a constantly changing mythology

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I appreciate the point of view this post is providing. It is always important to think about the potential limitations of AI, and the fact that once again, we may hit the ceiling of our current attempts at AI much more quickly than we realize, and no singularity will ever occur. We need to think about how to solve our problems realistically, now, without waiting for a godly super AI to come solve them for us.

However, what's bizarre is that he is painting a world that is already wrong. In particular:

"We won't have massive, perfectly coordinated networks with optimised flow and distribution — think traffic networks (those self-driving Teslas that act as taxis when you don't need them)"

But... we will. We're already making it. It might not work very well at first, but automated cars are a real thing, and they are going to happen. We have preliminary automated cars _right now_. Perhaps he is instead claiming that our autonomous cars won't scale, but this too makes no sense. Of course we can make them scale. Once we've solved the hard problem, which is actually driving the cars around and not hitting things, solving distribution and flow is almost trivial. We have all sorts of systems for solving distribution problems and finding maximal flow along a network. There's even an entire class of algorithms to solve it with[1], which we currently use, right now, to solve things like scheduling airplane flights.

And then he brings up a point that seems completely perpendicular to the entire rest of the post:

"We won't have total surveillance (à la Reynold's Mechanism or Brin's Transparent Society)"

This has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with cryptography. Whether or not the singularity does or doesn't happen is completely irrelevant. Indeed, it currently looks like we're headed towards having total surveillance with or without the singularity, unless we do something about our privacy laws.

While we shouldn't assume AI will fix all our problems, the examples provided in this post are bizarre, to say the least.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_flow_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_flow_problem)

<comment><USER10> Your first paragraph is spot on.

The "singularity" is really just 17th-century metaphysics. It's Rene Descartes all over again imbued with religious undertones of salvation and transcendence. Most of the "aspirations" of its occurrence are nonsense. Kurzweil has fashioned himself like an AI prophet. For some reason, it has caught on among people, some very smart, and has lead to this general passive- ness to solving real problems today. The "singularity" becomes the answer for everything, "it's definitely coming!"

<comment><USER11> The only problems I'm interested in solving today are the ones that will make me rich enough that I don't have to work when the robots take over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >But if you took someone from 1870 and had them wake up 70 years later, in 1940, the world would look entirely different.

>Now skip forward from 1940 to 2010: apart from our obsession with little glass rectangles, the world would be fundamentally familiar.

Disagree completely. The technology and information economy revolution means that a socially well-adjusted blue collar, white collar or even field-hand in 1940 cannot compete at all in 2010 at the same job.

<comment> le-mark Lots of crop types haven't been automated partly due to the presence of cheap labor, and the difficulty in automating. Some fruits are very difficult for mechanical pickers to not bruise, and a human touch has been required up to now. Of course if the economics change or human like mechanical picking hands become common, that would change.

<comment><USER13> It'll be interesting to see if the UK invests in such automation, as apparently migrant workers are less inclined to pick fruit for the UK, post- Brexit:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit- lates...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-latest- british-strawberry-price-rise-fruit-farms-eu-workers-seasonal-labourers- pickers-a7802616.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Now skip forward from 1940 to 2010: apart from our obsession with little > glass rectangles, the world would be fundamentally familiar.

This is similar to summarizing the discovery of space-warping technology by "Except for everyone's pockets now being bottomless Bags of Holding, the world hasn't changed much."

It misses the fact that computers are involved in _everything_ today. When you listen to music, the sound is undistorted thanks to computers. If advertising shows a smiling woman, her face is prettier than life thanks to computers. When you see a plane flying overhead, it is saving fuel thanks to computers. Even mobile telephony requires computers. (Imagine having an operator in every cell tower, manually routing calls.)

It is easy to overlook, but lots of little details of our modern lives would seem utterly impossible to someone from 1940, and I don't think this kind of change is going to stop anytime soon.

</comment><comment> d--b When we discovered electricity, some people thought we could revive the dead with it. When we invented steam engines, some people thought that we could make brains out of steam. When we invented computers, some people were quick to say that computers would replicate human thoughts. Though these technologies did not match the wildest dreams, they had massive impacts on humanity.

While you can certainly criticize the hype around AI, you can't deny the advances made by self driving vehicles. That in itself is a major technological leap, and will revolutionize the transport industry.

I think that robots that perform some more complex tasks - such as filling amazon boxes, picking fruits, cooking stuff, and so on - may not be very far away.

General intelligence/consciousness is not there, clearly, but there are some elements of technology that somehow resemble the way the brain works, and that we can find some useful cases for. That's really all that matters

<comment><USER15> We do revive the (recently) dead using electricity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The premise is wrong.

"We've been told the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is right around the corner. But what if it isn't?"

Google Photos already picks out objects in photos to make photos searchable by keyword, removes obstructions (eg. fences) from photos. Tesla cars already automatically follow the speed limit, automatically brake, automate lane changes, etc.

A few years ago this article might've had a valid point, but not anymore.

<comment><USER17> And yet we don't have have an AI which could tell us if a photo is a bird _and_ win at checkers (or tic-tac-toe). Our current AI is stuck in widget-land and it might solve some small, interesting tasks but we don't know how to even approach the harder stuff.

It reminds me of that problem where anytime we do something new in AI, it is quickly defined as not AI. I think that is totally correct because what we're doing isn't actual AI! We're going to enter another AI winter once lay people begin to realize the limitations of the current state-of-the-art. My prediction is that this will happen once progress on the self-driving front stalls.

<comment><USER18> > And yet we don't have have an AI which could tell us if a photo is a bird > and win at checkers (or tic-tac-toe).

Google can. I did search by image and it identified my picture as a dog. And if you search for "tic-tac-toe" it has a built in game which has difficulty settings up to Impossible (which presumably plays perfectly).

<comment><USER17> Presumably those are separate systems. I'm talking about multi-task learning.

<comment><USER16> The point is that we didn't have this in products 5 - 10 years ago. Advancement is being made. It might have a limit, but no one is claiming that we have 100% solved AI; just that advancements have been made and products are not yet taking advantage of all the new possibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Whn it comes to reasoning about AI and automation, and their potential effects on employment I think hjournalism is doing a terrible job. There's a borderline dishonest blurring of the lines between has-happened, is-happening and may-happen.

 _..automation is eradicating our jobs. But — unlike in the past — new ones aren't being created to replace them._

This is very often written about as if it had already happened or at least halfway there. As of right now, this is still a speculation about a future that may happen, not some known fact about the past or present.

This reason that I bring it up here is that this article is specifically about "what if we're wrong about the future."

Predicting is hard. Predicting technology, predicting economy, predicting culture... It's all hard and we need to remember that we're speculating.

If we travel back to the futures predicted 70 years ago (as he suggests), many of them were wrong. Keynes predicted drastically shortned workweeks. The era was named the "nulcear age" or "Space Age." There were also predictions about the continuation of the mechanisation (a close cousin of automation) trend, which did turn out to be true.

Keynes' workweek never happened, even thoug the workforce grew as women joined it. The space & nuclear ages kind of happened, but so far nothing earth shattering has resulted. The continuation of the industrialization- mechanisation trend has resulted in much cheaper durable and consumable goods. Cutlery, soap and such is very cheap.

<comment><USER20> > automation is eradicating our jobs. But — unlike in the past — new ones > aren't being created to replace them

He presents no evidence to support this claim, and it is most likely false.

If you remove resources from some sector, and people become unemployed, but total resources were increased due to improved efficiency then those displaced people will more than likely figure out how to get some of those resources rather than starving to death.

<comment><USER21> Your argument is as speculative if not more. Resources are not all equal. The ex driver or ex cashier is not going to starve to death. But it's not getting the same salary, if any at all.

<comment><USER20> My argument is speculative except that technological progress has always led to increasing generalized prosperity in the past.

The adjustment periods have been on the scale of generations though so you can definitely have localized decreases in well being for large segments of the population due to technological change.

<comment><USER21> > has always led to increasing generalized prosperity in the past

Because people always had something else to do. But what will happen when machines can do pretty much everything? That never happened in history before.

<comment><USER20> This is a kind of "end of history" argument that assumes no further advances can happen. I just don't buy it.

We will invent new things to do. Or, god forbid, maybe just spend some time relaxing and enjoying life instead of working ourselves to death.

<comment><USER21> > that assumes no further advances can happen

...by humans.

> We will invent new things to do. Or, god forbid, maybe just spend some time > relaxing and enjoying life instead of working ourselves to death.

With some luck we'll be good pets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't see how they go from 'but it might not happen yet' to 'failed dream'. The fraction of things that humans can do which machines cannot is shrinking monotonically. One of two things will happen - either humans are unbelievably close to some 'maximum possible intelligence', or computers will one day handily beat us at everything. My money's on the second scenario.

<comment><USER23> > The fraction of things that humans can do which machines cannot is shrinking > monotonically.

That's only true until it's not. Our little enclave of civilization that currently exists on this planet has a finite lifespan, just like every other civilization that's ever been run by uplifted killer apes. Either we will achieve a takeoff point within that lifespan, or we will not. If not - and I think that's the more likely outcome - there is no reason to expect another industrial revolution now that the easily accessible fossil fuels are all gone. Our descendants will eke out a living as subsistence farmers until evolution eliminates the overhead of general intelligence or the sun autoclaves the biosphere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> @idlewords has a very nice talk about this: "Superintelligence, The Idea That Eats Smart People". [http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm)

Also don't forget the filter bubble we're in. This article opens with "We've been told the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is right around the corner", but only a rather specific in-crowd actually believes this. I bet if you'd interview the average world-citizen they'd not be so convinced.

<comment><USER25> From the link you reference:

> Premise 2: No Quantum Shenanigans

> ...

> the mind arises out of ordinary physics. Some people like Roger Penrose > would take issue with this argument, believing that there is extra stuff > happening in the brain at a quantum level.

And some other people would take issue with the idea that you can talk about a simple physics that excludes quantum physics.

> But for most of us, this is an easy premise to accept.

I'm out.

<comment><USER21> I read it as "everything can be explained with classical physics alone", the same way we can safely assume the Earth is flat for making a small house. We're not going to complicate math by using the curvature the same way we're not worrying about tunneling, spin, entanglement, etc.

<comment><USER25> That is exactly why I'm skeptical. Photosynthesis involves quantum entanglement. I'd be surprised if quantum entanglement doesn't play a role in consciousness.

<comment><USER26> Saying that quantum effects are present and saying that the human brain is a quantum computer (or more?) and will get exponential speedup are two very different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> AI is no more a failed dream than normal intelligence and i chsllenge anyone to come up with an argument for why we could evolve from basic elements of the universe to what we are today but that this couldnt happen with "machines". AI is already a reality its not just wishfull thinking. And people would notice the difference quite a as it would have become way more granular.

<comment><USER28> This is exactly my thinking. Things like faster than light travel or whole object teleportation are wishful thinking. Things like intelligence explosions are not, because one has happened in the last 100,000 years. That intelligence has come to dominate every animal on this planet and the biosphere, even to the point of escaping the planets gravity well itself. To imagine that we are the pinnacle of the optimization of intelligence (especially when we cannot tweak our bandwidth or input devices much) sounds like hubris.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Your brain weighs about 3 lbs and uses about 20 watts. It's an analog device. It does not have optical interconnects and the switching speeds of the components within it are governed by chemical rather than electrical processes: signals within it propagate at under a few thousandths of a percent of the speed of light. It takes about 3 years to boot up and begin to be sensible and over 12-15 years it achieves roughly human intelligence. Well before those 15 years it surpasses all of our AI in a variety of tasks for which AI is not intelligent enough.

The brain does lots of things, but some of them are quite small and well- defined intelligent tasks, such as judging the meaning of a sentence it is parsing in a language it has learned, or other "AI"-type work. We can easily estimate whether it is doing so correctly. (For example through reading comprehension tests, which we have standardized.) Human brains are able to pass these tests and our best AI fails these tests.

The only way that there is no digital device that can ever model these aspects of this analog device well enough to make the same meaningful calculations (such as deciding what a sentence means in the context of human culture), i.e. the only way the analog device has a monopoly on the calculation and judgment it performs, for not only the next 10, 30, 50, or 100 years, but 1,000 or even 10,000 years, is if this analog device is a keyfob to a magical ethereal plane where our souls and consciousness do all the real intelligent work, only communicating back to our corporeal selves through an antenna which is our brain.

Under that scenario it is certainly possible that AI will be a failed dream forever. After all, rather than 3 lbs of analog device doing work, our ethereal selves could each be the size of a billions of our universes.

Then it would be silly to imagine we could ever accurately model any part of that. I don't think it's a false dichotomy here - I think it's one or the other.

In my personal opinion the latter scenario is unlikely. In my personal scenario anyone who says that nothing digital will ever capture the calculating power of 3 lbs of meat is living on the same side of history as Lord Kelvin when he announced "Heavier than air flying machines are impossible".

To the exact and same extent, true AI is impossible.

<comment><USER11> This guy gets it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> To be honest I didn't read the actually because I gotta run, but right from the outset there is one bullshit bit that always annoys me: there is no "the" singularity!

For those who are in it, there is nothing else, they might not even have a concept of the singularity. For those who aren't in it, there could be lots -- it's not called singularity because there can be just one of them. It just means falling into a well you cannot get out of, and that an outside observer can't distinguish you from the well either. Okay, so I made that up. But whatever the best way to describe it may be, nothing about that inherently prefers fulfilling all our dreams to torturing us forever or something else entirely, that's quite orthogonal to something being a singularity.

<comment><USER3> In this context the term singularity means a point in time in the future where certain technologies become available and open up such vast possibilities that it's impossible to predict what will happen beyond that point.

<comment><USER31> Have you seen old sci-fi? If that's the definition of singularity then we've been there for some time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'll admit I fall into the camp of not believing the "Johnny Depp Transcendence AI" is right around any corner (neither is an Martian apartment complex for that matter). But I also believe it's the journey to such AI that's important. Even if we will never reach this ultimate goal.

We're already reaping the benefits of what we have learned from this struggle. And I think we gain so much insight into ourselves as we try to reverse engineer the most important part of our meat vehicle.

<comment><USER33> > we must strive to be more than we are

To what end? Is a computer with our collective brains as AI orbiting a sun more or less than what we are? what should we be striving for as an ultimate utopian end to progress? Does/can such an end even conceptually exist?

<comment><USER3> I think the answer can be venturing out into space. It's a logical next step for mankind.

<comment><USER33> Why? Truth is we're hoping to find a miracle out there when it appears that it's all just rocks and nuclear fireballs. What do we do after space?

<comment><USER21> Survive a cosmic event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> We have been dreaming this dream a long time now and are no closer really. I'm sure you've all done this - one of the very first things I ever made was what was known way back then as an 'expert system'. It determined which particular disease you had by means of a series of interview questions from 'Robodoc'. I drew flowcharts and planned it all out with the limited set of diseases, symptoms and remedies available to me and was as you can imagine nothing more than an horrendous spaghetti of if-then-else (or maybe even switch-case statements) the fall through answer (when all diagnoses failed) being 'take two aspirin and go to bed'. Even then I thought 'bah not enough data - <USER2> bane of the computer scientist!' I think I was about eight at the time. Looking back now I think it was cute. Anything other than flu and rabies and you were in trouble. Is Robodoc closer to Watson than Watson is to HAL? People are conflating AI and machine learning. They think AI is already here. Personally I don't think any one team or project will ever solve AI as real intelligence is an emergent property.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think many continue to underestimate human beings. It reflects a curious mix of lack of self awareness, a certain capacity for self aggrandizement and hubris, reductionism of basic human tasks and confusing under-achievement in others with general human potential.

A lot of the current hype far from demonstrating a firm grasp of the problem rest on reductionism and betray a shallow child like perspective of humanity.

AI is going to take a far greater understanding of ourselves and our environment that we currently possess and like all advancement it will be exciting when and if we achieve it. Self driving cars will happen, but in far constrained and controlled environments than our roads today putting a perspective on current capabilities.

Car manufacturers have been extremely slow to adopt technology and have been stuck in a time warp for nearly 20-30 years. Had they been faster a lot of the tech and sensors that deliver better situational awareness in self driving cars today would have made our roads far safer than they currently are.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wouldn't compare AI to mars colonization. AI is coming in strong, we've made tremendous progress - mars colonization is still in its infancy / theoretics. AI's a constant-moving target of a definition; by all accounts, we've "achieved" AI already if you'd ask someone from 50 years ago. Art, music, conversation, research, ... If he wants to say "what if the Singularity never happens," that's fine and good - but it just seems weird to me to say "what if AI never happens." It's like saying "what if self driving cars never happen" just because he's not yet driving one.

False-starts: in this regard, AI is like VR. VR had its own winter too, after Virtual Boy and the like. We're in VRs second stand; same as AI. And in both cases, both are making a very strong case, and making lots of money. I'd put my money on both horses now.

</comment><comment><USER37> The classic AI (as in the AIMA book), it seems, got it right - heuristic-based search, guided by feedback (to improve an heuristic) is what intelligence is in general. Every living organism posseses intelligence (by the process of trial-and-error, which is a search, to "learn" an "optimal" heuristics with selection by the process of evolution) of some kind relative to its environment. This is how a bacteria fought viruses, for example.

The problem is to find a good-enough heuristic, or to "extract" one from the actual (not imaginary) features of the environment and "train" it. This is, roughly, how ensimes has been made.

This second goal is murderously hard, because to select right set of features which adequately represent some aspects of reality (as it is, not as we imagine or know it is) is where humanity is still failing miserably.

</comment><comment><USER38> At this point, the velocity is too great to stop AI before it can solve most of the problems listed in this post (which are, from today's vantage point, relatively low-hanging fruit).

I can see an argument that we might not make it to super-intelligence but we'll still solve a bunch of problems on the way. Weird post.

</comment><comment><USER39> Though there may be real limits to AI, the author's superficial treatment of the matter includes few facts, and no understanding of how the techniques and mathematics underlying modern machine learning are substantially different than what researchers were focusing on in the 80s.

<comment><USER40> >substantially different than what researchers were focusing on in the 80s.

??

Weren't the neural network stuff and evolutionary algos all hip in mid- eighties?

<comment><USER39> Simple perceptrons, yes. Feed forward, RNNs, CNNs, SVMs, gradient methods, and the rest? Not so sure about that. I know that genetic algorithms do sometimes get discussed today, but they are a small part of the community discussion, IMO. Not to mention that research in non-linear optimization and attendant numerical methods definitely made some breakthroughs in the 1990s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> AI is amazing. Hype isn't.

Look at something like smartphones. We all pretend that the iPhone invented the segment... but I had a shitty PDA that was a 2nd cousin to the iphone a decade before, and a functionally equivalent if not polished iPaq in the 2003/2004 timeframe. I used Google maps on a AMPS data plan in 2005.

AI is a tool, and just like with "natural intelligence" that we walk around with in our heads, its foundational but only transformative when we apply intelligence to solve problems. There's no magic.

</comment><comment><USER42> The Judgement Day scenario is a strawman. Of course humanity will not be replaced by killers robots over night.

When we learn how to connect our brains to computers - without our eyes, ears and hands as bottlenecks in between - humanity's views about the world and life itself might change significantly. Strong AI is not even required for that to happen. There will be brain mines in rural Chinese sheds.

</comment><comment><USER43> I like that some people dare to challenge AI _and_ get upvoted.

There were def some achievements in AI the last decades but when I look how the brain works--or to be more precise: Nobody has a clue how our brain works, we only know that it seems to be so different to a semiconductor and before we do not know more about the brain how should achieve real AI?

</comment><comment><USER44> Isn't A.I. already 'real'? I use Amazon's & Netflix's recomendation systems everyday?

<comment><USER42> "You just ordered a lawn mower from us. Here are more lawn mowers for you"

"You might like this movie because you have watched other movies with _the_ in the title before"

<comment><USER44> I guess this comment means you consider making good recomendations a simple problem? Or maybe not real A.I?

<comment><USER45> I think he means those problems are real AI, and current solutions stink.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Machine learning is American version of the "5th generation computing" : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer)

</comment><comment><USER46> Interesting links, though blaming AI does not "solve the problems of today" seems naive. It does.

P.S. Funny that google suggests to search for "what can't we do without AI" instead of "what can't we do without AI" ;)

</comment><comment><USER47> "If"?!?

Don't worry, uninterrupted exponentially improving AI certainly will not happen.

Exponential growth requires a uniform medium to support it, which -- of course -- it quickly exhaust.

The idea that smart AI will produce smarter AI which will produce even smarter AI seems wildly simplistic and I'm surprised it has any traction. Why assume it would be a linear progression... a given advance might require a leap that even the smarter AI can't make directly. Or, the problem may become exponentially more difficult at a rate outstripping the advances. And those are just really simple objections. In the real world, progress on big things is messy and complex.

</comment><comment><USER48> A dream can't be failed. A dream is a dream.

<comment><USER49> Some dreams are nightmares.

<comment><USER50> It's still a dream, just not a very pleasant one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> > A flatworm can dream. Can't ze?

What was that at the end? was that tumblrspeak? Isn't "it" used for animals and this person forgot because "ze" spent too much time talking with people better left alone? Likely.

In any case, I stopped reading at that point, I guess after the "second shift" comment (as a male living alone) and the false claim of jobs not being created to replace the old ones, those two letters were just too much baseless moralizing.

</comment><comment><USER11> I imagine the AI of the future will have a good laugh when it stumbles onto this thread. If it can laugh...

</comment><comment><USER52> TLDR: Don't assume singularity will come along and solve growing "today" problems.

</comment><comment><USER11> What are people going to do when AI learns to write alarmist click-baity blog posts?

</comment><comment><USER53> We are an organic based AI. It is possible.

<comment><USER42> We will make humans brains more computer-like instead of making computers more human-like. Some day, the last cyborg will replace their remaining flesh with metal. Strong AI the hard way.

<comment><USER28> Uh, ever heard the statement that premature optimization makes changes harder further down the road?

The problem with the body/mind system is the insane level of interconnection and feedback loops. "We made you 20% smarter!, uh, sorry about the 60% incident increase in cancer though". The size of the problem space when dealing with human minds is astronomical, we will likely need intelligent systems to solve the problem, which means the silicon Strong AI will come before the Wetware AI.

<comment><USER21> If we figure a way to copy wetware AI, the interconnection problem is pretty much solved. Cancer again? Get a new body.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The problem with AI is that the word has become layman-y.

AI at a glance seems so heavily focused on both technical aspects (ie. computing power), and modeling a human's cognitive train off thought.

So many neural networks around which outwit/out-strategize humans, but how about other aspects humans use to solve problems.

People doing something "crazy", based on a "gut instinct" for example.

I have yet to see a serious neural network (company/research) that models "gut feelings", because in the "real world", many people have found success and solved problems/made decisions in every branch and form based on a "gut feeling".

To add a few more to the list, I'd love for someone to give me a link to a neural network emulating the following traits which very much have proven to drive humans to advancement and problem solving:

\- intuition

\- motivation

\- "taste"(opinion)

\- empathy; A judge reducing or increasing sentence based on the intricacies off an isolated situation, and not on pure objectivity (IE. 1 murder 5 years, 2 murder 10 years etc.) The law seldom is this absolute, precisely because off human traits, and being able to acknowledge and take into account this variable is a case off empathy moreso than math / logical deduction. Nuance by it's very definition is not absolute.

\- inspiration

\- hope

etc.

A different perspective:

Imagine your on a springboard at the pool for the first time.

You don't have any memory off you doing a jump on your brain's "hard drive", so the uncertainty and the fear off jumping is valid.

A computer might end up in a crash, because it loops infinitely false, until a memory is found containing the info that a jump can be successful, which will never come.

However, you look behind u, and there is social pressure to jump. The fear off being laughed at intervenes in this loop, and u make the jump.

Humans rarely "crash", because we are not as bound to logic as a computer.

This is why a computer excels in terms off reliability with math. Because a computer is absolute, 1 + 1 will always result in 2 on every calculator ever, but as soon as unknown parameters are introduced, it becomes that much more difficult to keep it running.

Our emotional side is as double edged as can be, without it we would crash if we can't logically solve something, but equally reduce reliability ("human error"), when emotions overrule logic entirely.

Off course one might say, just solve it with an automatic breakout after 10 iterations, but now you wrote an (conscious) edge case. Humans improvise.

I think almost every person has been in or witnessed a situation, where they (logically/rationally) concluded that "he should not do it / bad odds", then proceed to see this person make it anyway resulting in succes.

TLDR;

AI has seen many advancement, modeling a humans capability off functions that can be compared to a humans prefrontal cortex, but the hippocampus, amygdala, cerebellum to name a few are parts which I have yet to see a promising existing computer version off, but are vital to our ability to become as a race to the point where we are at.

As a final anecdote, there was this guy which through an accident had his brain split between the front and the rest (emotional parts). Nurses came in with 2 meals to choose from, but he could no decide.

The nurses found this peculiar.. "just pick one", but he just froze, BSOD on them. He said there was no logical reason to pick one or the other.

He's absolutely right, there isn't, yet he'd die if he doesn't pick one. Our brain never ends up in absolute false. When it does, emotions pick up and solve it, perhaps imperfectly, but "life goes on".</comment>


Ask HN: What strategies do you use to accelerate your learning as veteran dev? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN -
A new developer can pick up any decent programming book or take any decent online course and reasonably expect to be introduced to many new concepts to chew through.
However, as time goes by and the new developer masters the common introductory concepts, such endeavors become less efficient.
What strategies do you leverage to overcome this challenge? Additionally, as a veteran developer, how do you use your self-study minutes most efficiently?
Thanks!
In peace, Mike <comment><USER3> Find good examples, re-implement examples, combine multiple examples and tweak until things break then look for explanations and trace through source code to figure out what is actually going on. Copy working tweaked example onto paper with pen or pencil.

Repeat as necessary.

Similar process for new algorithms but typically less thrashing around.

When doing this for work I usually try to track down an accessible expert earlier in the process and ask them to explain it to me as if I am a complete novice.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are two things I do.

1- I start with coding to learn not learning to code. This approach helped me to put my thoughts into actual code so for example I want to learn how to request data from database I started by learning how to create a database and the specific codes to print that request and from there you branch to different things along the way and after that you could look for basics course about that subject to to learn different ways and extra information.

2- I look for templates or things like that and deconstruct them and look through the code and to try it myself then you code start to re-code this template from start to finish by yourself.

3- I try find the source of pages I like and use inspection to learn how things were construc toted.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My current strategy is to take thorough notes whenever I pick up a new programming book.

I organize my notes by topic (i.e. "node.md", "swift.md", "git.md", "statistics.md", "cpp.md").

If it is the 3rd book I've read on JavaScript, I'll find myself speed reading my way through it, only slowing down when I encounter something unfamiliar.

In order for the above strategy to work, I need to make time for regularly reviewing all of my notes via spaced-repetition strategies so that I have a good understanding of what's in my notes and what isn't. (I use pandoc to convert my .md files into pretty html files.)

The above is definitely time consuming, so I'm eager to hear about how others tackle this problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> A very recognizable problem! While I'm definitely still trying to figure this out for myself, here are a few of my thoughts and experiences:

1) books usually trump courses books are much easier to browse through. pick and choose what you need. Do make notes, or in 6-12 months it will be like you had never read it at all. Courses seem nice in that they offer varied learning - a lecturer, assignments, a forum for questions, a shiny certificate at the end.. but you have little control over pacing, and there just aren't enough solid ways to judge beforehand if the course is any good. Trudged through many hours of bad/repetitive content before I understood this :)

2) don't memorise specifics, understand design choices if you haven't done so already, I can really recommend looking into how languages are built - <USER2> are the paradigms / design choices. I'll even recommend a MOOC: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming- languages](https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages). A focus on design makes it much easier, at least in my experience, to pick up a new language and become an 'expert' at it; nobody will turn to you for help writing a loop or grokking a few conditionals (I hope). But understanding, let's say, prototypal inheritance in JS and how this differs from other languages, or the effect of having (or lacking) functions as first-class citizens, figuring out what are the language core concepts and what is just syntactic sugar - this let's you reason about languages and problems on a whole different level.

3) if you have the opportunity; coach/teach trying to teach stuff to a few interested souls is a stellar way to force yourself to order your thoughts. Pick something that's right at the edge of your audience's skill level, and explain it in the cleanest, concisest way you can. It's a win-win, in my experience.

4) create something the hardest part about learning a new language is not the language specifics, but learning the ecosystem. What are the tools and libraries you must use or avoid, what is the right dev setup, how do you build/deploy, and in some god-forsaken cases, how do you even version control a project? The only way to really learn this imho is to just start building a small project.

These are only partial solutions; it still takes a lot of time and effort, and I probably haven't come close to maximising efficiency of self-study :). Don't forget to have fun though!

Looking forward to reading more about this.</comment>


Show HN: Open source automatic inbox organization tool  - <AUTHOR>

About the project: http://www.anotherinbox.net/
Source: https://github.com/caffo/anotherinbox/
Anotherinbox is a ruby powered automatic inbox organization tool. I've created it to replace the defunct Otherinbox Defender (http://mashable.com/2008/09/08/otherinbox/), and I've been using it for more than one year. Any feedback is welcome. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links

About the project: <http://www.anotherinbox.net/>

Source: <https://github.com/caffo/anotherinbox/></comment>


Serious doubts about the App Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/143265621 <comment><USER2> Wow, he hits the nail on every major sore spot, although I think I would have mentioned the iPhone Developer program portal as a huge issue as well, especially the 100 device/membership/year limitation and the way it was implemented.

It's quite frustrating to _want_ to spend more time on iPhone development but hitting a brick wall everywhere because Apple just doesn't seem to really care about making the experience better. And it's really saddening because their engineers are clearly awesome folks I love to have a drink with or talk to, but they just can't help much. WWDC, despite the one disastrous app store session, was the only chance I and many other developers got to personally hound engineers we didn't know to fix/workaround a lot of issues that nobody cared about. My one single problem (big enough that we couldn't ship the app until it was fixed) that was lounging in ADC and DTS support hell for _months_ was fixed in under 1 hour (most of that waiting) by a single very awesome person there. Some of these things just shouldn't be waiting as long as a year for the one week in the year WWDC happens, but I guess we just have to live with it. I'd even pay more to get these problems fixed. But some of them have existed for...well...a year now. And new problems keep popping up that make me want to rip my hair out (like 17+ ratings for all apps with built in browsers and similar? what the hell!).

I've heard about and seen experiences with other mobile platforms that are equally as bad, but it's really disappointing when Apple comes out with this phone that changes the smartphone market but then just keeps this backwards and nonsensical attitude towards developers.

<comment><USER3> > Apple just doesn't seem to really care about making the experience better

They do. They're just not moving fast enough to please everybody.

Case in point: For months, ad-hoc distribution would fail unless you made up a config file with a special key (get-task-allow), fed it through gcc, and attached it to Xcode via some bizarre build settings. Just recently, this trick became documented in the official "how to build things" manual, even though ad-hoc builds have been broken without it since forever. (Also, nobody seems to know what exactly get-task-allow does, although there are reports that it maybe affects debugging. Somehow.)

For months, you had to put exactly the right incantation into the bundle identifier in order for things to sign correctly. Maybe you have to put in the part before the first period, or maybe you put in the part after. (Wait, you didn't include a period? Wait, not period, you're supposed to include an asterisk in there. WTF Apple added a period !? Wait, you expected a Unicode character to work just because that was how it was documented?) Maybe Xcode doesn't tell you when you've done it wrong. Maybe iTunes connect doesn't tell you when you've done it wrong, and you get an app rejected because the documentation is fail. This has all since been fixed, although it's still more complicated than it should be.

The iPhone is just a series of secret handshakes, and everybody winks very hard. If you are okay with that, and are okay with searching the forums for undocumented Apple bugs every few days, you will be fine, and possibly make lots of money, because there are lots of people who are not willing to wink hard and look the other way, and so you can bill $150/hr.

Don't get me wrong, I get angry too, and have little fits of rage at Apple for some stupid, stupid problem. But at the end of the day, I get a pretty good check for not much work, I write things that I'm proud of, and occasionally Apple fixes their bugs. Good project, good paycheck, good stack: pick two.

<comment><USER2> > They do. They're just not moving fast enough to please everybody....

Problems with adhoc and provisioning in general were somewhat understandable and are (sorta) being fixed and documented all over the place, which is not what I have a gripe with minus the occasional issue that makes me want to rip my hair out and wonder why it's not any better. It's that situations change and then Apple announces some arbitrary change with seemingly good intentions but with disastrous effect on apps in the store now. You see things like the change where any app with UGC should now be rated 17+ lest Apple reject updates until you change it to 17+...who on earth thought that was a good idea?

So then when I do have this occasional issue that makes me want to rip my hair out, combined with all these new problems that arise _and_ that nobody at ADC is particularly helpful when problems do arise (I _still_ have unanswered emails to Apple that are over a year old), I wonder if I'm being paid enough to deal with this :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pardon my ignorance, but is there anything preventing people from installing apps without going through the App Store?

<comment><USER5> the only legitimate way to install iPhone apps is through apple's own app store. you can go the jailbreak route, but that's dodgy and error-prone, and you'd only be targeting the fringe that way.

<comment><USER4> It sounds like this is the area where developers are going to have to innovate if they don't like working under the App Store's conditions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> See my post from yesterday, it's pertinent...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=707050>

</comment><comment><USER7> From the post:

"Because it's working for them. They're making a killing taking their 30% commission on the 1.5 billion copies of $0.99 top-25 games that they've sold. Who cares if the App Store discourages good developers from putting serious effort into it? Apple doesn't need to care. And, clearly, they don't."

Yes, it's working for them. They are making money hand over fist. They don't care about developers because it's not in their interest to care. I know an app store dev with a top 100 app and he makes $5/day. The top 10 apps are making their authors rich and the rest of the apps are just trying to win that lotto.

<comment><USER8> Top 100 in his category? Or top 100 overall? I find that impossible to believe overall, and not surprising by category. There are a lot of less popular categories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As much as it sucks, I do see the reasoning behind giving apps with internet- content an adult rating.

While it's true that Safari, Youtube, and even Mail can be used to access unsavory material the difference is these apps can be restricted by parents, individual third-party apps cannot.

Aside from having parents block all third-party apps, which neither Apple nor developers want, the only option is to have a "your kid could potentially access adult content" rating.

Everything else in this article is fair comment though. If Microsoft/RIM/Palm get their act together I can easily see many developers defect.

<comment><USER2> If that was the label that went on the 17+ apps that are 17+ for _third party content_ that would be fine - like for apps that would get a rating like 4+ otherwise. But it's not. Check out <http://itunes.com/app/downloader> for an example. The 17+ label for apps with mature content in the app and the 17+ apps rated as such for _possible access_ to mature content are not even the same - at least the former is labeled only for the kind of content that is in the app, not the whole free-for-all.

...not to say that the 17+ rating should serve as the rating for "there might be adult-themed third party content", but that maybe apple should have one rating for the app itself and then a warning for the third party content...and a whole section in parental controls to enable/disable these particular apps with these warnings instead.

<comment><USER10> Alternatively, I wonder if Apple could put a hook into the iPhone's browser api such that any use of a browser in third-party apps can be restricted from parental controls.

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately the browser isn't the only place to access user-generated content. Take for example a Twitter client, just by nature of being a Twitter client and _theoretically_ having access to the public timeline with mature content is enough to get a 17+ rating. Or...name any app that would need a browser built-in, presumably because the user would come across many links while using the app (and of course the dev wants to provide a better user experience via not having to quit the application)...where would the links come from? It wouldn't be just the browser that needs restricted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As far as AppStore is the shortest way from developer to paying customer and iPhone outsells any similar mobile platform (more than 20M iPhones sold vs. 1M of Android phones and <0.5M of Palm Pres) this will continue.

<comment><USER12> Probably, but I'd expect some part-time developers to defect just to have a better experience. It's not like everyone makes a ton of money on the App Store anyway. It took me significant frustration and annoyance to get my app out, only to have 100 people buy it. If there was a mobile platform that was fun to develop for, I'd switch to it immediately and make stuff there.

<comment><USER13> I don't know about other developers, but "defect" might be the wrong word. At any given moment, I'm developing for at least 3-5 different platforms, so adding another mobile one, in addition to the iPhone, would make more sense than ditching one for the other.

...maybe it would even help get an app approved faster, if it was a hit on another platform first?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is really a shame that all of these issues exist around such an amazing piece of technology. I am avoiding creating an app for the iPhone because I flat out don't like the fact that they have the final say in what users can get on their phone.

The device is a mobile computer and I can install any program I want on my laptop so why shouldn't I be allowed to install anything I want on my iPhone?

The only way I can see of this changing is for the users to change their opinion and side with developers. Only, then will Apple be forced to change anything. I hope that users realize how much they could benefit from more apps from more developers and less Apple control.

Until then I will start looking into Android...

</comment><comment><USER15> While most of the points may be valid.

"Almost no app updates were approved during the entire month of June with no explanation."

This is because they were launching 3.0 and all apps needed to be capable of running on OS 3.0.

</comment><comment><USER16> It really makes one wonder why an alternative to the App Store hasn't sprung up yet, and I don't mean Cydia.

It will of course be popular among the geeks first, but hey, how else have most of the web applications started out?

Bring on the democracy!

<comment><USER17> Apple don't allow that.

You aren't allowed to make an app that allows other apps to be installed. The App Store is the one and only way to install apps, forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have pretty much given up on iPhone development .. for now. Hopefully things will change, but when I compare the experience of gathering 10,000 users on Android in a single release after an hour, with waiting for Apples blessing for weeks and weeks, I'll take the former, thanks.

The nail on the head issue is this: Apple are making buck$ from all this. They don't care a damn. Android, well .. Google may have its nefarious plans for us all, data-wise, but at least I have a lot more control, as a developer, over what happens. And frankly, I think the feedback cycle with Android users has been a much more positive one than with the iPhone crowd.

I sure hope Apple loosen up a little, though I won't be counting on it. I'll just focus on Android as my primary platform for now. Its better for me, and better for my users: and thats what really matters.

<comment><USER17> If freedom is what you want, the android has plenty of it.

While Apple prevents any sort of app that provides a runtime or scripting language, Google developers have released something that lets you code Android apps on the phone itself in real time in a selection of different scripting languages.

The contrast is stark.

<comment><USER19> You can code your app in whatever scripting language you want, but it can't download and execute code arbitrarily. For example, the unity game engine for iPhone uses mono & C#/javascript for all it's game programming/scripting. But when you use the app, the app doesn't act as a player but as a standalone application.

<comment><USER20> This is a quite common misunderstanding among iPhone developers.

For instance, I'm starting to use TinyScheme embedded in my code. Pretty sweet.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CouchDB in production - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2011/01/20/couchdb-in-production <comment><USER2> They mentioned that they also used MongoDB. I'd be curious to know their use cases for Mongo vs Couch.

<comment><USER3> He says they use Mongo for Geo queries. It'll be interesting to see if they keep using it now that the GeoCouch R-Tree index has eclipsed Mongo's geo-hash capabilities.

<comment><USER4> I work at Signal with John. I hadn't heard of GeoCouch before, so thanks for the tip. The service that uses Mongo isn't core to our application, so we're probably unlikely to change. MongoDB has been working quite well for us so far.</comment></comment></comment>


Dow down 530 points - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^dji <comment><USER2> Wow, 530 points in a system where a $10 stock going to $1 (-90%) is weighted the same as a $200 stock going to $191 (-4.5%) — 9 points in each case.

In other news, the Dow is down 3% today. Doesn't sound as much like the end of the world as 530 points now does it?

<comment><USER3> > In other news, the Dow is down 3% today. Doesn't sound as much like the end > of the world as 530 points now does it?

A 3% daily drop is a pretty major daily drop in the Dow, so I'd say in the context of "drop in the Dow", either is quite significant.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: App Academy or College Degree? - <AUTHOR>

The Dilemma: I've been accepted into the fall class for App Academy.  I have a year left of school for Chemical Engineering at a top 10 engineering school.  Do I finish off my degree, or go for App Academy?
I know it's dependent on me, and I am heavily leaning towards App Academy.  I am having trouble convincing my parents that it's the best option for me however.  I will finish my degree part time in SF, or come back with a couple of years experience and finish school while freelancing.
Questions, comments, concerns, and criticisms are appreciated and welcome.
Edit:  I have a potential plan in my head.  Go to App Academy, work for a year, then go back and finish off the degree while freelancing/working remotely.  I've been shopping this around, and it seems to be decent compromise.  I need to find people who have done it though.  If you have done this in any way, I would really appreciate a conversation with you!  If I get to SF (or anywhere else), I'll buy you a beer. <comment><USER2> Finish off your degree. Domain knowledge is about 1000pct more valuable than what App Academy is going to teach you (That's nine weeks to get you started with iOS dev right?). I went the "Drop out and do it yourself" route 10 years ago and looking back it was a big mistake. I would say it set my career back a good five years. It's only one more year. Get it done now.

<comment><AUTHOR> App Academy's founders estimate that their graduates will be able to pull 80-90k as an entry level iOS developer. I am looking to transition into software development, and the remaining classes I have left are controls, Lab 2, and senior project. I believe I have the relevant domain knowledge to do any basic intersection of both fields - for example, I plan to create a better simulator (more user friendly) for process modeling. The current program we use, "Aspen", uses the same engine from the '70s and has a horrible interface - it is impossible to debug. Also, I am very interested in modeling Thorium nuclear power plants, and I will definitely need a software background for this. I am using App Academy as a stepping stone to my future career as a software programmer with an understanding of engineering fundamentals. Sorry if that was long-winded.

<comment><USER2> Well It sounds like you have already made up your mind. I still think you should finish your degree now while you are on a roll.

We saw these kinds of quick boot camp style schools during the last dotcom bubble and a lot of people got taken advantage of and wasted a lot fo time and money. (Not saying that's exactly what this is - App Academy seems to have some good people teaching)

Do you have a bunch of years of programming experience already? If not 10k and 9 weeks is not going to make your an iOS programmer and it sure as shit is not help you write simulation software of thorium reactors.

App Academy guys: I work down the street from you. I'll buy you all lunch and you can try change my mind if you want. Contact in profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> With the rest of summer and winter/spring breaks, you have maybe 8 more months of school. Just finish! You can spend 20 hours/week on ChemE classes and spend the rest of your time freelancing or studying CS. Take advantage of your school's resources and take some CS classes to round out your SW engineering knowledge (algorithms, data structures, theory, software engineering, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> One thing I'm scared of is that I probably won't have an opportunity to go to San Francisco for a long time if I finish my degree. Assuming I have a job offer, it will be very tough to say no and move to SF at that point versus now. Does that make sense? Also, financially, App Academy will be less than tuition + board, and I could be supporting myself by January, which is a huge goal of mine. I have taken a couple of CS classes already on OpenCourseWare, and will certainly be taking more.

If I go to App Academy, I will certainly finish my degree, just not for 2-3 years.

<comment><USER3> You go to a very good school. You'll land on your feet in SF afterwards. Michigan + self-directed learning >>> App Academy.

It's a very difficult lifestyle adjustment to go back to school after you leave. You're almost done.</comment></comment></comment>


Yahoo Query Language will be retired on January 3 - <AUTHOR> https://developer.yahoo.com/yql/ <comment><USER2> I will miss this like I miss Yahoo Pipes.

I really just want a grep for the internet that runs at scale. With open logic so I know exactly what it's doing.

<comment><USER3> > _like I miss Yahoo Pipes._

I try to scratch that itch with [https://www.pipes.digital/](https://www.pipes.digital/). It's a bit different and not fully complete, but it's also a flow and block based visual editor that can manipulate RSS/XML data. Maybe have a look?

<comment><USER4> Looks very nice!

At $20/mo there are alternatives (Zapier comes to mind) that may cover your needs as well. There's also Node-RED for those wanting something self-hosted (though it won't be as straight-forward).

The interesting thing about Pipes for me was that I could correct small things quite easy (and read my feeds later using Google Reader -oh, those were the times!-), and besides it being free it was maintained by a "familiar" site. At this point I'd rather invest my time in a tool I can control!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are there open source alternatives to this? I only found out about it once it was announced it would be getting shut down sometime back. It seems interesting at the very least. I feel like someone could remake this, it's basically SQL for "requests" or something similar or am I wrong?

<comment><USER6> Anyway, I prefer CSS selectors nowadays for querying html

        var text=await fetch('https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18785255').then(r=>r.text())
        var d=new DOMParser().parseFromString(text, 'text/html');
        d.body.querySelector('.comment-tree').rows

<comment><USER5> Yeah I hadn't even considered just using JS. Makes sense if you're in the browser. Maybe with headless Chrome this is much more likely a solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They might as well announce Yahoo will be retired. There is nothing left at this point.

<comment><USER8> Feel the same way and that's coming from someone who used to drive this car:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyjohnstone/sets/721576332...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyjohnstone/sets/72157633260803469/)

<comment><USER9> I'd love to hear the story behind that, haha.

Were you paid to drive that? Were you just a huge Yahoo fan? An early employee?

<comment><USER8> The backstory was Yahoo! Buzz Marketing paid for the wrapping on their car for several employees they selected over the years. You didn't get paid for having it done, but there were unofficial perks that came with it (along with several strict rules, like something as simple as getting pulled over could cause you to be terminated, depending on circumstances).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow! I just realized that Yahoo still exists!

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if this can/will be open sourced in some way. It was always such a cool idea, it'd be a shame for it to just disappear.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is already [https://github.com/yahoo/yql- plus](https://github.com/yahoo/yql-plus)</comment></comment>


Cancer Drug Proves to Be Effective Against Multiple Tumors - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/health/cancer-drug-keytruda-tumors.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=none&state=standard&contentPlacement=19&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F08%2Fhealth%2Fcancer-drug-keytruda-tumors.html&eventName=Watching-article-click <comment><USER2> I hate these articles. They give people a lot more hope than they probably should.

Keytruda/pembrolizumab is not new. It's the same drug that Jimmy Carter famously took for his melanoma. It and Opdivo/nivolumab are PD-1 inhibitors that are amazing developments in treating late-stage cancer that doesn't respond to chemotherapy.

They're also not the miracle that news articles like to breathlessly push. This one does a decent job of pointing out that this is the first time a drug has been approved to treat cancer based on its genetic profile, rather than the type of cancer. That's an awesome development!

But then you get language like this:

"All carried genetic mutations that disrupted the ability of cells to fix damaged DNA. And all were enrolled in a trial of a drug that helps the immune system attack tumors.

The results, published on Thursday in the journal Science, are so striking that the Food and Drug Administration already has approved the drug, pembrolizumab, brand name Keytruda, for patients whose cancers arise from the same genetic abnormality."

Compared to the abstract:

"Objective radiographic responses were observed in 53% of patients and complete responses were achieved in 21% of patients."

That's around the 30% success rate these drugs usually have. They're great, and they can change your life - if you're one of the lucky ones. If you have a family member that needs this treatment, I hope it works.

But it's a lot of money and a lot of hope for a treatment with some rough side effects that for the average patient will either do nothing or give them a few more months to live.

It's a development, a great one, but the reports really need to rein in their enthusiasm. I'd be curious to see the entire statements the doctors in the article made, because I imagine they were more tempered than the selected quotations imply.

<comment><USER3> Shame on the author, who really should know better given her background[0]... The bar for science journalism, imho, is dirt-low. As long as it doesn't claim vaccines cause autism or climate change is bunk, it seems to pass as valid.

I feel like when articles like this get written, it's the success of the university's PR team. Frankly, I think this kind of behaviour by universities actually hurt them in the long run.

[0] "Gina Kolata is a reporter at The Times, focusing on science and medicine. Her training is in science: She studied molecular biology on the graduate level at M.I.T. for a year and a half and has a master's degree in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland.

Her work at The Times has led her to be a Pulitzer finalist twice — for investigative reporting in 2000 and for explanatory journalism in 2010."

(via [https://www.nytimes.com/by/gina-kolata](https://www.nytimes.com/by/gina- kolata))

<comment><USER2> It's not just the reporter, and I wouldn't want to single her out.

"Important incremental progress in ________" just doesn't get an article in the Times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That is awesome. I hope that the people who worked on this drug make a lot of money. I would rather people who cure cancer become billionaires than people who write selfie-taking apps.

<comment><USER5> ¿Porqué no los dos?

<comment><USER6> Because the world really only needs two selfie-taking apps, and that's me pontificating generously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a great move toward biomarker-driven, tumor-site agnostic targeted therapies in oncology. I attended ASCO 2017 last week, where LOXO showcased data from larotrectinib in a variety of adult and pediatric indications with Trk-fusions. The waterfall plot is fairly impressive, and I'd be shocked if this drug was not the next to be approved across cancers based on biomarker status alone. A decent summary about it here: [https://endpts.com/loxo-takes- center-stage-at-asco-with-its-...](https://endpts.com/loxo-takes-center-stage- at-asco-with-its-groundbreaking-shot-at-a-biomarker-based-cancer-drug- approval/) Company presentation here: [https://www.loxooncology.com/docs/presentations/Hyman_Larotr...](https://www.loxooncology.com/docs/presentations/Hyman_Larotrectinib_ASCO_2017_FINAL.PDF)

</comment><comment><USER8> And together with that, the FDA is adopting to precision medicine, adding new ways of testing drugs:

[http://www.xconomy.com/national/2017/05/30/woodcock-new- appr...](http://www.xconomy.com/national/2017/05/30/woodcock-new-approvals- show-fda-is-adapting-to-precision-medicine/#)

Which could open new paths, not only in cancer but other types of diseases.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is great, but in general when it comes to cancer, we need to focus more on putting in fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems primarily, and then building better fire fighting equipment secondarily.

Much of cancer is caused by smoking. Not only lung cancer but 12 different types have been implicated by smoking, IIRC. In the US warning labels have been on cigarettes for more than 50 years, yet people still start smoking.

In NYC, they implemented WHO's MPOWER program with great success. This includes raising the cost of tobacco through tax, banning smoking in public places, very, very strong anti-smoking ads and more. Yet, the Federal tax on tobacco is only about $1.

<comment><USER10> And next, we introduce a "big portions" tax on fast food meals and a minimum steps-walked-per-day quota for every US American?

Imho smoking, just like drinking or binge eating, are symptoms for far more common problems with wich everybody deals differently, like stress and mental imbalances.

Add to this the fact that some people seem to be genetically more prone to addiction [0] and there is really no easy solution to any of this. In that regard, raising taxes on tobacco feels like a real sucker move because nicotine is considered more addictive than heroin[1].

While it might outprice the addict from his/her drug, it doesn't deal with the actual problem and most likely will result in the addict looking for something else to feed his/her addiction.

[0] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715956/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715956/)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/magazine/nicotine- harder-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/magazine/nicotine-harder-to- kickthan-heroin.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER9> > "...like stress and mental imbalances."

About half of tobacco consumed in the US is by people who are mentally ill and/or alcohol abusers because they are self-medicating for their illness. They are very heavy smokers. 90% of people with schizophrenia, 60% of those with severe depression.

That said, we should be helping these people with other treatments instead of smoking.

Also, there are other ways of dealing with stress (such as exercising) that using cigarettes. I live in NYC which can be very stressful, but only about 14% of adults and 7% of teens smoke.

<comment><USER10> >That said, we should be helping these people with other treatments instead of smoking.

Indeed, but that would require a far more holistic approach than just dealing with the issue of smoking, it would require us to admit that stress and mental illness are becoming increasing factors in our modern urban lives but not everybody is equally equipped to deal with that, sadly it feels like we are a long way off from that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >"Mismatch-repair deficiency predicts response of solid tumors to PD-1 blockade"

I looked in the paper [1] and didn't see any plot of "mismatch-repair deficiency" vs "response of solid tumors". Neither did I see any plot like "model predicted response" vs "actual response". I'm not really motivated to look into it any further, but be careful with this one.

[1] [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/06/07/scien...](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/06/07/science.aan6733)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm between two sides on this. Access to new life saving medications is fantastic and therefore should be celebrated. On the other hand, cost of the drug makes it inaccessible to a wide range of people.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can explain: do we as a society aim to improve public health on the cheap, or go headfirst into personalized medicine, knowing that we will be spending way more?

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure people dying of cancer suddenly stop caring about philosophical questions about resource allocation. This is an unequivocally good thing - like that other expensive miracle drug, Harvoni.

<comment><USER14> To save the time of others looking this up:

> Harvoni is used to treat hepatitis C genotypes 1, 4, 5, or 6. This medicine > is for use in adults and children who are at least 12 years old or who weigh > at least 77 pounds (35 kilograms).

source: [https://www.drugs.com/harvoni.html](https://www.drugs.com/harvoni.html)

<comment><USER13> It cures Hep C, works faster and better than the current, horrible treatment, and because of that, costs $100,000 for a course of treatment.

It's a fucking miracle.

<comment><USER15> Current US cash price is $33,000.

([https://www.goodrx.com/harvonihttps://www.goodrx.com/harvoni](https://www.goodrx.com/harvonihttps://www.goodrx.com/harvoni) )

There is also increasingly coverage from Medicaid programs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wait, does this mean that these cancers were cured? If this drug makes the cancer completely visible to the immune system, wouldn't that mean that every last cancer cell would eventually be destroyed?

<comment><USER17> We don't know that "this drug makes the cancer completely visible to the immune system". It could easily be that, say, 0.1% of the cancer cells don't become visible for some weird reason, or they accidentally develop a protection against the immune response. It would look like complete elimination of the cancer on scans and in blood markers, but could come back in a few years.

Only way to know for sure is to wait.

<comment><USER16> Ah, that makes sense, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I asked repeatedly about these mines of treatment for my uncle. No doctor listened. I'm voided now.

<comment><USER19> You don't talk to random doctor. You talk directly/contact docs running the trails. They will tell you what is possible. If isn't possible in the US for brain-dead/financial/bureaucratic reasons, once you get the details look for reputed cancer centers abroad who are willing to do it. You will be surprised how many docs will respond to you over email.

<comment><USER18> The doctors in charge of my uncle didn't and that is the largest issue.

Other researchers did, a good percentage did, some didn't but I can't expect 100% time spending for my email so that's ok. I was surprised but you're right they do answer a few times.

Back to the issue: if first medical caretakers don't listen, then your family won't listen, because they trust the hospital religiously, albeit schizophrenically too [1]. Which means someone will die sooner than necessary.

[1] scary disease put everything back to primitive human emotions. My family, and even I, were constantly dancing between "they don't do enough" "thank you so much". My aunt even thought nurses would poison her husband if she rubbed them the wrong way. But in the end, hospital gets the vote, and somehow when death wins.. doesn't matter who was right or not.

<comment><USER20> My dad was lucky to get a drug for his lungs he has an uncommon deadly disease called IPF (and also COPD). It was a combination of doctor, insurance and drug company but in the end he was approved and was given the drug. People networking is as important in health as IT it's who you know.

I know I was "researching" (Internet, I'm not a doctor) everything you get desperate when you hear your family member only has a few years. You even consider alternative mumbo jumbo think well maybe it may work.

Studies and trials are rare in my small town and region but if you can I'd search, ask, impose, network do whatever it takes have no shame!

You didn't mention if your uncle was still living if so I wish you and your uncle good luck and good health.

<comment><USER18> Well, I wasn't clear above, but sadly nature reclaimed my uncle, he's now ashes. I thank you very very much for asking and wish you the best of luck. It's a very weird and sensitive subject.

About your comment:

1) indeed networking is massively important. You talk to someone out of the blue, it's hard; you say you've been directed by <acquaintance> and the discussion is now relaxed and open.

2) indeed, you have to forget about shame. Just insist politely. It's hard at first but with time it goes.

3) I feared becoming too emotional and trusting things that would reinforce my belief. So I stuck on the usual venues: pubmed, nih, nci, etc etc. And even then, every topic or paper, I would check citation, publication date, previous or more recent validation/invalidation. Research lacks counter studies and sample so one academic paper is not enough.

After this screening, I then pinged various people about these findings and what they thought about it, to again, not pursue my own dreams. The issue is, 10 doctors ~= 10 point of views.

3) clinical studies were barely starting in my uncle case (one doctor told me about israel), he was against this because he thought he would be a guinea pig suffering for their profit. Which isn't false but we could have delayed death a bit. We all felt it was way too quick.

ps: all of this just gives hint about the complexity of the real world. So many pieces working at the same time, politics, economy, research, companies, doctors, networks .. nothing fits perfectly, and if you have to turns the gears on your own it takes deep faith to never stop. I wish I did more, but since it's the first time, I couldn't know if I was crazy and foolish or if I should harass doctors a bit more. My opinion is now clear: never stop; be sensitive, but never stop. (that's also the quality of a leader.. which is as old as important in human groups)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CDC Weighs Advising Everyone to Wear a Mask - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/health/cdc-masks-coronavirus.html <comment><USER2> "masks don't work" and "save them for health workers" was always nonsensical and covering for the fact we had not prepared for a known threat. I don't just mean Wuhan in January, but pandemics generally were a known problem. It's not a black swan event. I get the "noble lie" argument considering the situation we found ourselves in, but that has long term consequences, seeds confusion and erosion of trust.

Asian countries have shown the way here. Let's get moving on adopting social norms and habits around mask usage.

<comment><USER3> _" Masks don't work" and "save them for health workers" was always nonsensical and covering for the fact we had not prepared for a known threat._

Of course it was.

But they weren't considering the possibility that the people they were charged with "protecting" would be capable of independent thought.

<comment><USER4> I don't think the CDC/WHO recommendations started as a noble lie, just as a medical/bureaucratic orthodoxy, consistently expressed before any shortage.

The orthodoxy drew too sharp a distinction between airborne and droplet modes of transmission, it didn't anticipate the possibly extensive asymptomatic spread of this new virus, and it tried, given the low bandwidth of public health messaging in the old days, to speak simply and authoritartively in favor of the interventions with the strongest evidence for the largest effects. Even to healthcare workers, the emphasis in the setting of something like flu was on handwashing. Masks in clinic went on coughing patients, not us. For a public less consistently exposed, the number needed to mask to prevent a single infection was judged too low to bother. Masks in Asia were seen as public health theater, like spraying fog machines in the streets. And maybe most dangerously, most complicating a reversal, expressing an understanding of this mildly counterintuitive finding - covering faces doesn't stop respiratory viruses - was taken as a mark of scientificness. (And remember, it's still largely true, the effect is probably fairly small, N95 or cloth mask no matter. The virus spread well in places with mask-wearing, and dampened more quickly there for reasons other than masks.)

The CDC/WHO people are under pressure to change deeply held and strongly stated beliefs in public, and then to live with the implication that their confident error cost lives. Relative to that, communicating that we should wear masks, but leave the respirators for medical workers, is easy peasy.

For fun background on the orthodoxy, including a case where a single flu patient infected dozens of people on a plane in the 70s without managing to persuade people of some meaningful amount of airborne/fine aerosol spread: [https://twitter.com/rkhamsi/status/1244659064350670848?s=19](https://twitter.com/rkhamsi/status/1244659064350670848?s=19)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >One concern, which Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, voiced in an interview with CNN, is that such a recommendation could cause even worse shortages of N95 and other medical masks for health care workers, who need them most.

If there is indeed a scarcity of masks, isn't this question a no brainer? Of course the masks should be allocated to hospital workers, who are exposed to coronavirus for 8+ hours a day, rather than everyone else, who might only come in contact with the coronavirus some part of the day, if at all.

Also, if there's a scarcity of masks, is there a reason why existing supplies (eg. in warehouses) or incoming shippments can't be commandeered/seized by the government under eminent domain?

<comment><USER6> I'm increasingly of the opinion that there's no such thing as a "no brainer" when it comes to giving instruction to a broad group of people (and "broad" might be as small as n=10).

You know the rules of program optimization? (#1 Don't #2 (for experts only) Don't yet). I suspect that illustrates the issue that experts are having here. _Yes_ , in any program there are optimizations to be done that can change margins that matter. But without deeper experience even the average _practitioner_ is unlikely to have good judgment about this. So the experts have to balance the effectiveness of higher-resolution explanations where details will get lost in translation (likely degrading any marginal gains to be had) with a low-resolution blanket rule that sacrifices potential gains for an acceptable average.

Several kinds of masks appear to be several degrees of marginally effective, but it's probably very difficult to give this guidance to the public without some segment of it hearing "I need N95 masks" and scrambling after supply, because "Any mask might be helpful to get me to be conscientious about touching my face and provide a marginal droplet barrier, N95s are for people spending time with the sick" is a higher resolution message that's subject to a lot of social/individual entropy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a shortage of N95 masks, but even a home made mask works wonders. If you are infected and wearing a mask, when you cough, your chance of infecting others is much lower.

</comment><comment><USER8> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22734159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22734159)

</comment><comment><USER9> Finally some sanity from CDC. Early on there's evidence that people got infected but they didn't know it, yet they can infect others. The only logical conclusion is everyone should wear mask. See the Asian countries that are doing that got the virus pretty well controlled. I was surprised CDC didn't err on the safe side.

You don't need to recommend everyone wear N95. Surgical face masks or homemade masks works too.

</comment><comment><USER10> The ship is sinking and there aren't enough lifeboats.

History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes

They are likely waiting until there isn't a supply issue. People will rush out to buy masks of all types.

<comment><USER11> any face covering helps though.

one positive is that universal mask use will make facial recognition a lot harder.

<comment><USER12> Which is handy until you actually need the police to find an actual criminal.

<comment><USER11> well widespread facial recognition technology has only just recently been available to law enforcement and the police have been catching criminals since their inception. it might be a useful law enforcement tool but it is hardly a requirement for them to be able to catch someone.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Condoleezza Rice Joins Dropbox's Board - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/09/condoleezza-rice-joins-dropboxs-board/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> After the outrage generated by Brendan Eich's $1000 donation to prop 8, I would hope Dropbox associating with one of the people behind the Iraq war draws a similar response. If anyone's deserving of ostracization, it's war criminals who are effectively above the law.

<comment><USER3> She was Secretary of State not Secretary of Defense. I would hope this whole Eich fiasco doesn't start a conservative witch hunt in SV. Not that the Eich thing was really a conservative/liberal issue, but people may try to turn it into that.

<comment><USER4> Heh, may as well get all the facts straight here. She was National Security Advisor in the lead up to, and first two years of Iraq. The Secretary of State at that time was Colin Powell. She became Secretary of State in 2005.

Furthermore, being Secretary of State would not absolve her from any responsibility that people believe she may have. Secretary of State is incredibly important to any major conflict, probably right after Secretary of Defense. You may recall that Colin Powell worked quite hard trying to sell the Iraqi War abroad.

That said, I don't want a witch hunt either.

<comment><USER5> You mean the same war that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton also sold to the American public?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow... so... it looks like I won't be doing business with Dropbox.

... I imagine they want an "in" with defense/govt contracts and who better than someone who knows how to get government money spent.

Regardless, if you feel or have felt your data was safe from prying eyes on dropbox-- after this I'd go somewhere else before that no longer holds true...

I imagine a conversation like, "oh yeah, we'll use Dropbox, we've got $150 million no bid contract ready... but we're going to need something hooked up at your data center. For reasons of national security we cannot tell you what it is or what it's doing..."

... though I suppose in general, if you thought data was safe in the cloud you're already lost.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Dropbox needs people with international experience to help it at once deal > with foreign governments that have blocked its use — China, for example — > and as it works to spread a product developed in one country to others that > are culturally different.

That seems like a pretty weak reason for hiring her on it's own. Would make more sense to hire her on the grounds of having some clout in Washington so your file sharing service doesn't end up doing a "Megaupload"

<comment><USER2> You're most likely right, but if they were to say that outright it would be much harder for her to exercise said influence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The techcrunch article suggests that she was picked for her international experience. It seems to me that if they wanted someone to help make things go smoothly abroad, they could've picked a somewhat less controversial and polarizing figure.

On another note, given her former role in government as national security advisor, this might raise eyebrows regarding domestic spying and how that affects any privacy that Dropbox claims to provide.

Then again, I have no doubt that they already considered these things, and chose her anyway. So maybe she is the right person for the job.

</comment><comment><USER9> How can anyone in 2014 seriously not think that's a slightly suspicious vibe? Regardless of whether you think these people are war criminals or not, or what their role was within in former administrations. It is clear she is connected to things at the highest level.

If you are a person who still trusts these power players; I would sincerely love to know why...

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure I consider this a positive for Dropbox.

Nor am I sure why they would do this other than they like to suck up famous people... Guido Van Rossum for instance.

Surely there are less controversial figures that have an intimate knowledge of international relations and less associated baggage. They probably come at a better price too.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is this a move to get Dropbox on every government machine?

</comment><comment><USER11> It's unbelievable the number of people commenting in this thread that don't comprehend the role of the Secretary of State.

<comment><USER12> Colin Powell was SoS for the 1st term, when we invaded. Rice was National Security Advisor to the president.

<comment><USER11> My point is that her tenure in the executive branch extended beyond her involvement in the Iraq War. As SoS, she was also involved in Africa policy, led a push for proactive diplomacy, etc.

In addition, the comments about hiring Rice to secure government contracts is absurd in the opposite direction.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple has filed an interesting location-based app patent - <AUTHOR> http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/05/apple-reveals-a-powerful-location-based-service-for-the-iphone.html

<comment><USER2> Wasn't this sort of thing discussed back in the heyday of Palm, when their devices started to get some wireless connectivity?

I seem to remember thinking about the potential of just such a system back then, even though I never did anything with it. I hope that Apple can (and will) do something more useful than just think about it. =)</comment>