It seems like AI is good at finding what's popular (video views/ad clicks), but it doesn't seem to be very good at science/engineering (drug discovery/self driving cars/radiology).
Have a look at how driving a taxi has changed. (And I include the likes of Uber here.)
The hard part for humans used to be knowing all the roads in a city and selecting the best route quickly and reliably. Almost any adult can do the actual second-to-second driving reasonably competently in almost any city on the planet.
Now, we have outsourced the 'hard' part to Google Maps. But we are still far from a machine that drives in arbitrary locations on the globe. As far as I know, Waymo has the most mature system currently in development, but requires absurd amounts of precise mapping data for any location they want to drive in.
And let's not even talk about the even more 'trivial' task of chatting to the passengers.
> [...], but it doesn't seem to be very good at science/engineering (drug discovery/self driving cars/radiology).
Technology has already automated huge chunks for science and engineering. We just don't call any of the already solved chunks by the name of AI anymore.
I'm guessing low expertise programmers whose main contribution was googling stackoverflow will get less valuable, while high expertise programmers with real design skill will become even more valuable.
Googling Stackoverflow itself can sometimes be a high expertise skill, simply because sometimes you need a fairly good understanding of your issue to figure out what to search for. A recent example: we had an nginx proxy set up to cache API POST requests (don't worry - they were idempotent, but too big for a query string), and nginx sometimes returned the wrong response. I'm pretty sure I found most of the explanation on Stackoverflow, but I didn't find a question that directly addressed the issue, so Googling was a challenge. You can keep your job finding answers on Stackoverflow of you are good at it.
unfortunately companies don't make interviewing for real design skills a priority. you'll get weeded out because you forgot how to do topographical sort
Certainly but the higher expertise isn't a requirement for most dev jobs I would argue; If you are developing custom algorithm and advanced data structure, you are probably in the fringe of what the dev world do.
Otherwise I am struggling explaining why there is such a great demand for devs that short courses (3-6 months) are successful, the same courses that fail at teaching the fundamental of computing.
COVID went wild basically everywhere. There were a few strong exceptions: China (apparently), Australia, New Zealand and some others. What these had in common was very strict police enforcement, which led to some dramatic scenes like people getting welded into their houses in China, or houses in Australia getting broken into by police on suspicion of too many people gathering.
In my _opinion_, lockdowns didn't work elsewhere because most cases are not from casual public transmission in places like stores, restaurants etc. Rather, events like kickbacks, dinner parties, and practices like in-home workers (nannies, cleaners etc) continued throughout the pandemic, or resumed shortly after the original March 2020 shockwave. While strident police enforcement of physical distancing could eliminate cases, and seemed to in a few places, the half measures used by most of the world did little-to-nothing positive while being an economic and cultural disaster.
Personally, I never caught COVID and rarely socialized during the pandemic. All the cases I heard of stemmed from the kind of thing I mention above: private dinner parties, nannies and so forth, rather than casual public transmission.
You, or any individual may have taken social distancing seriously but it's clear many or most did not, including people on both political "sides", up to and including governors, members of congress etc.
Here in Japan they've never really had lockdown. Restaurants have remained open the entire time, just asked to close at 8pm. I could/can walk by them at 7pm and see them full of people talking and eating without masks. I was invited by Japanese friends the entire time (didn't go) and would see them posting pictures of their restaurant dinner gatherings on Facebook.
Further, as a comparison, Tokyo Metro has 38 million people, California has 38 million people. Tokyo Metro has ~6500 people per square mile, California has 240 per square mile. Tokyo Metro had and still has people commuting in very crowded trains every weekday. California mostly people drive cars. California closed restaurants. Tokyo Metro never closed restaurants.
Yes, Tokyo is going through a "spike" right now but compared to California it's still tiny. Compare Tokyo Metro's current "spike" (~2k people per day) with any of California's spikes at 40k per day, 20x more.
Some people will claim testing but that doesn't fit the facts either. Deaths from COVID in Tokyo Metro. California 62k death, Tokyo Metro, 2k dead. And, if you believe the attribution of death by COVID is bad then all you have to do is look at the death rate from all causes and see that Japan is doing much better than the USA
I have no idea what Japan did right or got lucky with. Various speculations abound. Japanese don't shake hands, hug and kiss friends. Japanese may be commonly taking some medicine for unrelated things that happens to provide protection. Japanese might have more people with genetic immunity. Japanese mask compliance might be higher. Japanese aren't obese (I'm sure there's some other non-obese country they can be compared to). Japanese have a different diet (not sure what other countries have similar diets)
I recognize that even with restaurants open it's possible just the various other factors are/were enough to keep R low enough.... I really have no clue. Personally I mostly stayed locked up. I live alone. Saw less than 1 person a month in person, usually an outdoor walk with masks on.
This is super interesting. My entirely unqualified gut reaction is that this is cultural- that Japanese people take infectious disease seriously and test+quarantine after experiencing symptoms or traveling at all, having already handled SARS outbreaks before, and many Americans are still debating whether the pandemic is real, and that behavioral difference is enough. I don’t know how to test that.
But it could also just be as simple as Americans being less healthy.
On the other hand Japan has an older median age than most other countries. We know that age is a crucial risk factor for COVID-19 so on that basis they should have had a higher death toll, but didn't.
My guess is that the low obesity rate is the critical factor, but that remains somewhat speculative.
People discuss the range of social <-> lockdown techniques as if they're generically effective or not, when really I think think the effectiveness of the same strategies varies vs how high the current community state of infection is, as well as a hysteresis of what level of infection you're coming from.
If you can act earlier, maintain a external boundary, and maintain a low enough level to trace then I think you can stay in a very good state with minimal inconveniences. But once the infection rate has passed a certain level, more stringent strategies are needed to get back to the same low state.
What you're saying is consistent with my hypothesis. Ie that casual public transmission on subways and in restaurants is low. Rather, it's "behind closed doors", at extended private gatherings, via domestic workers and so on. Those are the only such cases I have direct knowledge of (California USA). It could be that Japanese don't gather as much, or have chosen to skip it during pandemic.
You might be right. I don't think that fits with seeing restaurants open and unmasked (since you need it off to eat and drink) but maybe the sum total of meeting in person is still much lower than "behind closed doors". The news (when I used to watch it) certainly highlighted that going to hostess club had a few spreader events like where 80% of the people in the club got COVID. I don't know how common that was, I just know it was in the news last may/june (don't watch the news much)
The strictness of the enforcement in China has been overstated in the media. Strict, but not that strict. Source: here during the Chinese lockdown, have compared notes with those in other cities.
In the UK (which has pretty good test capacity) the infection rate slightly lags the lockdown restrictions as you would expect from a working policy, so I think it can be successful.
I think there is a proper level of conviviality/cordiality and fun that you can bring to work without getting too personally invested. A lot of first-time employees may have trouble with this balance, but after a tough break or two you learn the ropes.
This is why I strongly believe that you shouldn’t stay at your first tech job for too long (Max 4 years).
As the first job, there is a lot of emotional attachment (totally normal) but it gets in the way of making rational decisions. In particular, most people will harbor somewhat unrealistic career goals while being at the lowest rung of the corporate ladder and thus being the most disposable.
Additionally, interviewing at and getting other jobs makes it so that the process isn’t unknown or scary.
Oh definitely, I'm not saying that you should always act like a utilitarian robot, and being a nice and fun person at your workplace can help you avoid burnout.
I just think that you should always remember that, at the end of the day, it's still a job. If you remember that fact, it hurts less being laid off, and it's easier to quit a job if/when it becomes toxic.
This is it. Free market at work. If you live in Tulsa, OK you won't have easy access to as many $150k jobs. The goal of the company is to get the best quality of work for the lowest price. Why would they pay extra?
People move, and these policies give people an incentive be in certain places. Paying more in SF is saying, "Please move to a city where you'll have more opportunities outside this company." The company is shelling out five or six figures to increase your cost of living, bid up SF house prices, and increase your likelihood of leaving the company. And even the other way around -- "Don't move somewhere you'd rather be, where you'd be happier and more loyal. We'll cut your pay if you do."
When looking at an individual employee's decisions, these policies don't seem to help the company. I think they only really make sense when thinking about populations, where people are less mobile and more fungible.
It's not selfish to be out and about if you are young and healthy. The recovery rate for 20-30 YO is 99.99%+, and if you are healthy it's likely higher[1].
It's on the same order of risk as driving. Many young people die driving every year, yet we still do it plenty, with reasonable precautions. If you take reasonable precautions, are young and healthy, it is a risk worth taking to many.
We also outlaw speeding because speeding increases the odds that you kill someone else. Catching COVID, even if you recover, increases the odds that you kill someone else through a chain of infections. Remember that R is above 1 in most locations in the world right now. Tens of thousands of people are dying a day right now because not everyone is taking the precautions they have been asked to take. In countries with high compliance, death rates are very low. Mass death is not inevitable.
Note that the OP said it was selfish to be out and about, not against self interest. So your statistic is irrelevant to the point made. Selfish means you're benefiting yourself while harming others. That's exactly what happens if you catch COVID, pass it on, and then recover. You're fine. Others may not be.
> We also outlaw speeding because speeding increases the odds that you kill someone else.
We could go further and outlaw cars that don't have speed governors. That would save lives. Lower speed limits would save more lives as well. Now we have a balance between freedom and safety.
> Tens of thousands of people are dying a day right now because not everyone is taking the precautions they have been asked to take.
That was true during the flu season of 2018 as well. The excess deaths from COVID are higher, but not orders of magnitude higher (more like 3x) [1]. The response is off the charts, economically and culturally devastating. Not the right balance.
The reason excess deaths are only 3x higher is because of our precautions. If we let it burn through the US, millions would die and the ratio would be more like 100x (30,000 vs 3 million). Obviously depends on some hard-to-model assumptions. Your conclusion might be right, but your argument is terribly misleading.
(Plus, letting it burn through the whole population comes with downside risks of more mutations.)
From your statistic, I would conclude that it is not self-destructive for young people to be out and about. Whether it is selfish is another matter entirely. Taking an action that is beneficial to oneself, but harmful to others, is typically described as selfish.
Edit: To be fair, the same argument can be made in reverse as well, that it is selfish for older people to insist on universal lockdowns, which primarily benefit themselves. To that, I would argue (1) that death is not the only negative result from covid-19, and (2) that the relative magnitudes of benefits and harms need to be compared.
California and SF are doomed, but the recent news of HPE and ORCL moving are not a big deal. IMO these are stationary phase companies trying to cut cost. They are not growing revenue, they are not really dynamic companies anymore. Who cares? The swashbuckling SV types never would have worked at these companies anyway. Stability-seeking workers in other states are a much better fit for these companies. Win-win-win.
> The bottom is still decently high even in Midwest cities
Yes, and I also see the push for remote work also affecting the demand side of the software labor market as well as the supply. There will be even more push for good collaboration/communication work process software. It's still a fast growing market.
Yeah, that is mentioned as "one of the downsides of renewables".
That is like saying, "one of the downsides of using a cooked noodle as a fork is that it doesn't hold its shape". It's disqualifying until that issue is sorted.
The value of solar right now is that it provides energy at the hottest, most energy use part of the day. But there is a tipping point where marginal solar is not really valuable for a grid anymore. California and Germany are at that point.
Hopefully we get cost-effective day-scale energy storage, it's not going to happen in the next few years unfortunately.
It's certainly not disqualifying until we are at far far far higher levels of renewables on the grid. Getting to 80% generation would take very little storage.
And people overestimate how much storage costs. In Texas, even with super cheap natural gas, there are more GW of storage in the interconnection queue than there are of natural gas plants. That's at today's prices, in a market where everybody competes on their own costs!
And greater than 95% of new solar projects in California include storage, and something like 25% of projects outside of California include storage along with the renewables.
We don't absolutely need to deploy storage right now, but independent agents are still doing it, because they make money by deploying storage at current costs.
It isn't. Your base load stations close and you are left only with the intermittent reweables and natural gas. South Australia is the only energy market in that place right now and the prices paid there would destroy any industrial economy.
"Renewables, natural gas and a couple of nuclear plants" is the UK situation, with normal electricity prices. Almost all the coal is closed permanently.
People will keep saying it won't work long after it's already been done.
