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When do "brains beat brawn" in Chess? An experiment
Stephen Richards2y10

I think this is a really useful and thought provoking experiment. One thing that worries me, is that large corporations may find it easier and faster to give the AI brawn than brains. Why play fair when in competition when you have a money and machine advantages? I think this will be especially so with not so good AIs, and the advantages will remain after the brains part improves. So in your analogy, what about giving stockfish 3 extra queens? A second question is how does it do against stockfish with just 2 extra queens?

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My experience getting funding for my biological research
Stephen Richards2y20

So assuming you are paid of an NIH grant subject to the 69% indirect, that’s ~$100,000 a year?

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Technological stagnation: Why I came around
Stephen Richards3y10

I’m not sure you are talking about technology advancement but rather the gifts of different hydrocarbon ages. Your IR1 to me is better described as everything we could do with coal. IR2 is everything we could do with oil. IR3 seems different to me, if humanity invented true AI -will we be literally gods?

Also there is the issue of order of magnitude improvements only being noticeable when they pass the human scale and seeming irrelevant either side. Commuting to work in a flying car might be fun, but flying my desk home at the speed of light is far faster and vastly more practical, not to mention shrinking my work desk to a fraction of an SSD.

Finally it seems like a get of my lawn/kids these days post. Romans had chariots and roads and indoor heating, cars and interstates are impressive in scale and speed, but so is flying my office desk.

What will be the next big driver of technology innovation? (Especially as 8-10 billion people may have to go through more expensive hydrocarbons over the next 50 years slowing down the technological feedstock) My guess is abundant green electrical power, and slightly improved batteries combined with ai and crop improvements to feed us, these will be held back by resources per person declining (oil per capita peaked in the 70s I think, good wood is expensive), and climate change issues.

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Why was progress so slow in the past?
Stephen Richards3y40

Brad Delongs book that’s about to come out seems to be aimed at this question (at least from information about it before reading it)

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What is the best day to celebrate Smallpox Eradication Day?
Stephen Richards3y20

Quite by accident I was at the Jenner house museum (Berkeley, England - worth a visit if you’re in the area) that day and they had a note celebrating the anniversary, but I think they celebrate all year around.

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