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> His work is a net negative for the world.

Bit early for this very Hacker News type blurt.

Eg: Personalized medicine, predictive medicine, protein folding, climate modelling, smart grids, fraud detection, disaster response, food production modelling, etc.


Many of those are unfulfilled promises of the type that have been around for 30 or 40 years at least. And climate modelling: what's the point? You can't predict climate change from history. That's the whole point of the research.

So then wait until those promises have been fulfilled, as has so often been the case in Nobel prizes. Remember Higgs?

But the negative effects have been clear. Might just as well give the Nobel Peace Prize to Zuckerberg.


I don't think there is a take I can disagree with more strongly. New technology can always be used for good or bad. His work in ML sets the course for a better future in spite of the people who use it for ill, whether advertisers or warlords.


> New technology can always be used for good or bad.

Always? Like atomic bombs?

> His work in ML sets the course for a better future

That very much remains to be seen, isn't it? So far, the negatives outweigh the positives.


Atomic bombs are a product of atomic energy. So are atomic energy, cancer treatment, electron microscopes, etc.

I disagree the negatives outweigh the positive. Spellcheck, Google maps traffic, and electricity distribution are three applications I've used this morning. We dont tend to think about the successful applications, instead focusing the solely negative use like adtech.


> Atomic bombs are a product of atomic energy

Not really. There's no need to extract Pu-239, and it's quite a step to actually do that and then build a device that can create a large yield.

> Spellcheck

I wrote (several) spell checkers 30 years ago. One of them might still be in use. It's not deep learning.

> We dont tend to think about the successful applications

That doesn't take away the negatives, and certainly doesn't outweigh them at this moment to warrant a Nobel prize. In physics.




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