Thread closures and controversy versus reality. Spoiler [Fact on the ropes]

[Neutron]

That date clue would place it back in the 1990's, when the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed.
"The End of History" was declared because 'they' had become just like 'us' (the Western liberal democracies).
But by 2003 I had pulled out my old copy of "1984" to reread the parts about the way in which history was rewritten or denied.
The West had provided weapons to Muslim militants because they opposed the USSR, and sold arms to Saddam Hussein because he was our "friend" in the battle with Iran
I won't discuss the politics of why this happened, too controversial, but it is a fact that it did.
I reread "1984" because these facts somehow ceased to exist after 11th September 2001 and then the invasion of Iraq.
They were 'disappeared', the same way the Chilean junta used to 'disappear' people, as a transitive verb.
Orwell saw that politically convenient double think was just as possible in the West as anywhere.
'We' had become like 'them', and not the other way round.
So I'd say he was fairly accurate in the end.

On the topic of future/dystopian fiction.
Like many people I read SciFi in my youth, and like many, I was always a bit disappointed that the future never really seemed to arrive.
"Where's my Jet Pack? Why doesn't my car fly?" as the meme says.
But this year it finally felt like the future.
You can buy jet hover boards that look so perfectly like a comic book illustration that I had to check if they were CGI.
View attachment 85632

The bushfire skies in Australia looked like "Blade Runner" and then we walked around in masks like some apocalyptic Outbreak movie.
But somehow I expected more like "2001"
And less like "Idiocracy"View attachment 85631
Idiocracy "State of the Union" clip

David

I too wished a lot of things to happen. But this age itself isn't lack of amazement. However, I find some amazing breakthough too big or intellecturally too distant to be easily appreciated. I personally just figured out very recently the difference between automation and ai-powered self-driving technology. Despite people often use automation to describe the later (fuzzy control system), the difference is huge. Then I suddenly start to feel exciting about the tech. Before, I thought it was just another BS way of re-"inventing" the world.

 

[Vasr]

Despite people often use automation to describe the later (fuzzy control system), the difference is huge. Then I suddenly start to feel exciting about the tech. Before, I thought it was just another BS way of re-"inventing" the world.

The latter is also "re-inventing the technology if not the world" but more effective due to far more computing power available now than for the earlier AI work (production systems and perceptrons and such). AI became fashionable again after massively parallel computing became available cheaply to tackle not just polynomial complexity but some non-polynomial hard solution spaces. So, far more applications now.

 

[mafelba]

I wish I could remember more about an essay I once read years ago before the era of the smartphone, but IIRC, the gist was that Adolus Huxley ("Brave New World") had it right, and Orwell was wrong, that our oppression would come not in the form of Big Brother, but more as a friendly salesman, and that the truth would not be hidden from us, we'd simply be too caught up in trivial matters to care.

Huxley's stock is soaring right about now

 

[Neutron]

The latter is also "re-inventing the technology if not the world" but more effective due to far more computing power available now than for the earlier AI work (production systems and perceptrons and such). AI became fashionable again after massively parallel computing became available cheaply to tackle not just polynomial complexity but some non-polynomial hard solution spaces. So, far more applications now.

My friend in CS actually told me that AI currently being pushed forward by two genius scientists. His argument was that, the purpose of adopting Fuzzy system is to reduce computational cost needed to address over-complicated problems that would be otherwise unsolvable with today's limited computing power. The industry is now on fast track mainly because these two great minds happened. But I do know stuff like neural network dated back to 60s, and they used that to create codebooks telecommunication used today.

PS. Codebook is an interesting piece of technology used to compress audio in wireless transimission. It is a collection of systhetic sound samples that can be used to reconstruct a person's voice over the phone. It's built into phones, and during calls your voice is decomposed and only matching lookup tables are transmitted in the air, so calls don't take too much bandwidth. Then receipient phone will reconstruct your voice using synthetic sound. Of course it isn't high fidelity, and that's why people often feel that others sounded somewhat unlike themselves over the phone. But if you actually know the guy you talk to over the phone, the brain will fill in missing details so that it sounds more realistic. So basically, we never actually heard the voice of people we talked to over the phone, but always synthetic sound that resemble the voice of those people. That's why some phone scammers try to pretend to be someone their victims know. HD voice over LTE allowed better quality audio, and 5G is even better.

 

[North_Sky]

I feel more free now than when I was @ college.
I was just too busy then to be free.

My neighbor lost her cat this morning.
I feel sadder for her and the cat.

The students today, this year, it's not their best year ... I feel sad too for them.

 

[Vasr]

My friend in CS actually told me that AI currently being pushed forward by two genius scientists. His argument was that, the purpose of adopting Fuzzy system is to reduce computational cost needed to address over-complicated problems that would be otherwise unsolvable with today's limited computing power. The industry is now on fast track mainly because these two great minds happened. But I do know stuff like neural network dated back to 60s, and they used that to create codebooks telecommunication used today.

Fuzzy logic has been around since the 60s along with neural networks, machine learning and all the concepts that have led to the current advances in AI around what is called "deep learning". Your friend probably meant Yoshua Bengio and Geoff Hinton (also Yann LeCun) who have been recognized for this particular advance with considerable impact. But the primary concepts behind this go back to the development of the Perceptron (that I mentioned earlier) by Frank Rosenblatt in the 60s.

Deep learning is, in simple terms, a parametrized neural network (with multiple layers) to capture non-linear patterns in data. It has to crunch huge amounts of data and requires lots of computing power to arrive at the parameters (learning). The emergence of GPU chips with massive number of parallel computing cores makes this possible since the computation can be easily parallelized. On a different note, this massive parallelization is why in our PC video players, decoding (just dumb no learning here) of H.265 encoded video hardly puts any load on a GPU doing this while doing this in the CPU brings it to its knees (unless it is built into the internal GPU).

Better models of complex systems with these techniques lead to better decision processes and reasoning in those applications and so more intelligent AI in increasing number of applications.

The class of methods that prune the problem space "smartly" to reduce complexity and hence computational needs is just a niche slice of the AI techniques in use. Not what is causing the major advances in AI. Dirac claims this is what is powering their DLBC calculations (along with other obligatory buzz words).

Nvidia is making more money from the deep learning advances using more and more of their computing cores than catering to the gaming crowd with video cards (who are also benefiting from the increasing number of compute cores being packed into the chip).

 

[Wombat]

The shutting down of Covid threads was timely, it seems, given today's news. Anything more said would be deemed 'political', would it not?

 

[Vasr]

Not starting a discussion on Covid-19 but I thought this chart which I don't think has been posted earlier would be very informative to all. No politics or controversy. These probabilities are over the entire population. Odds would be different based on age, weight, pre-existing conditions, etc.

 

[Neutron]

Nvidia is making more money from the deep learning advances using more and more of their computing cores than catering to the gaming crowd with video cards (who are also benefiting from the increasing number of compute cores being packed into the chip).

BTW, NV sold ai powered 5G vran and MEC ai platforms based on their EGX technology to China mobile in support of their 5G network. I think that’s the reason NV is being pushed up these days. The outlook is that NV’s vRAN could boost US 5G network too. Their gaming cards business is being edged out by server/telecoms business.

 

[Dave Zan]

...more said would be deemed 'political', would it not?

I consider it an illustration of precisely the limits of politics, even if "fact" is on the ropes in the punch-up of public debate, eventually reality bites.

Best wishes
David

 

[North_Sky]

OP, Dave, what type of music genres do you like listening to, and do you use headphones, a stereo hi-fi system, a computer, a DAC, a turntable, ... all that jazz.

 

[Neutron]

I am staying tuned for the whatever-virus "no big deal" thing.

 

[oldsysop]

Codebook is an interesting piece of technology used to compress audio in wireless transimission. It is a collection of systhetic sound samples that can be used to reconstruct a person's voice over the phone. It's built into phones, and during calls your voice is decomposed and only matching lookup tables are transmitted in the air, so calls don't take too much bandwidth. Then receipient phone will reconstruct your voice using synthetic sound. Of course it isn't high fidelity, and that's why people often feel that others sounded somewhat unlike themselves over the phone. But if you actually know the guy you talk to over the phone, the brain will fill in missing details so that it sounds more realistic.

TotalDac ?

 

[North_Sky]

I am staying tuned for the whatever-virus "no big deal" thing.

“When men have come to the edge of a precipice, it is the lover of life who has the spirit to leap backwards, and only the pessimist who continues to believe in progress.”

― G.K. Chesterton

 

[North_Sky]

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Quotes

• Professor Barnhardt : There must be alternatives. You must have some technology that could solve our problem.
  Klaatu : Your problem is not technology. The problem is you. You lack the will to change.
  Professor Barnhardt : Then help us change.
  Klaatu : I cannot change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other.
  Professor Barnhardt : But every civilization reaches a crisis point eventually.
  Klaatu : Most of them don't make it.
  Professor Barnhardt : Yours did. How?
  Klaatu : Our sun was dying. We had to evolve in order to survive.
  Professor Barnhardt : So it was only when your world was threated with destruction that you became what you are now.
  Klaatu : Yes.
  Professor Barnhardt : Well that's where we are. You say we're on the brink of destruction and you're right. But it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment. Don't take it from us, we are close to an answer.
  
  • Regina Jackson : What is your purpose in coming here?
    Klaatu : There is a gathering of world leaders not far from here; I will explain my purpose to them.
    Regina Jackson : I'm afraid thats not possible. Perhaps you should explain yourself to me instead.
    Klaatu : Do you speak for the entire human race?
    Regina Jackson : I speak for the President of the United States. Now, please; tell me why have you come to our planet.
    Klaatu : *Your* planet.
    Regina Jackson : Yes; this is our planet.
    Klaatu : No, it is not.
    
    • Helen Benson : I need to know what's happening.
      Klaatu : This planet is dying. The human race is killing it.
      Helen Benson : So you've come here to help us.
      Klaatu : No, *I* didn't.
      Helen Benson : You said you came to save us.
      Klaatu : I said I came to save the Earth.
      Helen Benson : You came to save the Earth... from us. You came to save the Earth *from* us.
      Klaatu : We can't risk the survival of this planet for the sake of one species.
      Helen Benson : What are you saying?
      Klaatu : If the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the Earth survives. There are only a handful of planets in the cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life...
      Helen Benson : You can't do this.
      Klaatu : ...this one can't be allowed to perish.
      Helen Benson : We can change. We can still turn things around.
      Klaatu : We've watched, we've waited and hoped that you *would* change.
      Helen Benson : Please...
      Klaatu : It's reached the tipping point. We have to act.
      Helen Benson : Please...
      Klaatu : We'll undo the damage you've done and give the Earth a chance to begin again.
      Helen Benson : Don't do this. Please, we can change. We can change.
      Klaatu : The decision is made. The process has begun.
      Helen Benson : Oh God.

 

[North_Sky]

Great flick ^

 

[Neutron]

"Where's my Jet Pack? Why doesn't my car fly?" as the meme says.
But this year it finally felt like the future.


David

I just came across this. It seems we do live in the future. But that guy didn't seem to have his equipment along.

 

[Thomas savage]

Some crazy thread drift , I can't see anything good coming from this thread . Likely it will degenerate further and cause issues ..

It's staying open for now but the lack of focus will open the door to proxy arguments about covid19 politics and probably climate change lol

I'd encourage you to all move on unless you have something relevent to the OP .

 

[leeroy 85032]

seems this thread is being stalked by a single arbiter of propriety...

 

[Vasr]

seems this thread is being stalked by a single arbiter of propriety...

That is pretty much a moderator's job description, no?