More precisely from what someone said above, meat packing plants are now allowed, but as a meat packer is not allowed. So they could have something like an office job at a plant (manager's assistant..? I don't really know how they're organized).
Is AI the problem here, or is this story a symptom of a bigger problem?
This is a somewhat long comment, but just thought I would share my thoughts.
The concern is that someone who has worked hard to create art wants use it to leverage it to obtain security in their life, and they are at risk of losing that leverage with new AI technology. Well, first of all, plenty of people work hard their whole lives for low compensation because their skills are not unique, and often don't have the time/capital/energy to build new skills even if they wanted to.
I question the way we live our life, there is a lot of suffering in the world because we are focused on taking from each other (in some cases using violence, in other cases laws). In the first world most people are expected to spend their childhood preparing to work away their adult life to earn minimum compensation enriching someone else, and in the third word most people are in extreme poverty, which the first world is happy to exploit for labor, resource extraction, brain drain, strategic military advantage, ect.
Artificial intelligence is about to make a lot of things that required difficult and unique training trivial. Making many more people redundant, and no longer unique/needed even if we do end up creating copyright laws enforcing that nobody can use someone's work to train the AI. Do we really think that we won't become redundant just because it doesn't train on our art/code? So like the artist here, we should all be wondering what is to come.
I think reason people are so worried is because we have it in our heads the way to conduct trade, and ourselves is by extracting value from one another. Instead of a culture of giving gifts without guarantee of reward, fostering relationships and caring for and understanding each other, we are trying to take from each other to ensure our needs/wants are met. The ultimate way to achieve security under this way of life is to create a dependence, become the owner of the assets/capital that can be used to take value/labor from others want/depend on what we have.
We act like we have only a few choices when it comes to how to live, religion, capitalism, communism, socialism, and so on. But we have the choice to try and understand the people we meet in life, and reach out to those who we don't know. Knowing each others needs/wants we can help each other out. We have the ability to be generous when we can, foster relationships, so that in our time of need we might be helped, by someone that cares (because we're there for them too). It's just that we listen to the advertisements telling us if we want to be happy, to buy more and more things (possibly at determent of our own health/well being), we listen to leaders that would have us go to war with each other, we listen to society telling us to focus on making more money, exchange labor for wealth, and use the wealth to obtain security/happiness.
What if instead we believed the most important thing was to live with balance with each other and with nature, and to communicate with each other to see how we can help. We do after all live in this world together, and when there is an imbalance we see the effects like poverty, stress/anxiety, addiction, theft, violence, wars, exploitation, hate, not to mention the obscene amount of time we spend working (40+hr/wk for 40+ years) to enrich someone that doesn't care about us.
Are we not living in a backwards way? Most people are dependent on a few, by culture, or by force (think of how this force is created - if you don't obey those with power/authority, someone else who does will threaten you with violence or revoke privileges). If someone breaks a law, or threatens our livelihood, we'll just take away their livelihood (or what little they had to begin with) - how well has this worked out?
With the advanced technology to communicate more easily than ever before, and provide what we need/want with much less labor/skill as before, and the wealth of knowledge available, it's time realize, that by giving to each other and helping one another, we will all be better off. Well, maybe not the extremely wealthy and powerful powerful people - but even they don't get to live in peace because someone is always trying to take their spot - think about all the wars fought because one authority is threatened by another, or all the companies trying to hold their grip in the face of more desperate innovate companies.
I'm not saying doing something different is easy, or straightforward, but it might be better. I think we don't need to ask anyone's permission to do it, we just start doing it within our own networks - building up each other, making new relationships, looking out for one another.
If you want your security to come from laws and by taking instead of giving, how long that will last, just how secure is that anyways?
I would add that the linux-ready boutique vendors like system76, tuxedo computers, framework are also options if you don't want to fuss with drivers and what not, but still want to run linux. I definitely agree that linux doesn't run super smooth on all hardware, but it's not hard to find hardware these days where it does run smooth.
I came across tuxedo computers randomly one day, and gave it a shot. Very impressed, and am extremely happy with my tuxedo pulse 15 gen2 - running their supported version of Ubuntu+KDE, that just works out of the box. Only thing I can complain about is that: speakers are not great (but I use headphones 90% time anyways), and KDE doesn't support independent resolution scaling (I need 125% for laptop display but 100% for external monitor), so it's a bit hacky to get scaling the way I want. However, everything else runs perfectly and smoothly.
It's best laptop I've ever owned for linux. It is quite, portable, moderate power laptop, for fair price. I gave my wife my Macbook air M1 over this one. While the M1 CPU/GPU is a little more powerful than Ryzen 5700U (8 core), I get more ram (32gb 3200mhz), bigger and faster disk (1TB 980 pro pci 4), more battery life (18hr idle, 10+ working) for similar price. It's also repairable, w/ removable standard components (not cpu tho). Linux running SMOOTH.
Basically with these type of vendors, you don't need to struggle or sacrifice (much) to run linux anymore. Tuxedo computers [1] has many more models worth checking out, like with high end GPUs or smaller/more portable (even one that support external liquid cooling and an rtx 3080ti lol).
That manages about 7 GiB/s reusing the same buffer, or about 300 MiB/s with clearing and refilling the buffer every time
(the magic is in using java’s APIs for writing to files/sockets, which are designed for high performance, instead of using the APIs which are designed for writing to stdout)
Application 1 - spectral clustering - an alternative to k-means for nonlinear clusters. Get a Distance matrix of your data, spectral decomp, run k-means on your k top eigen vectors and that's your clusters.
There's some tricks to getting it to work in practice like normalizing but it's a simple and powerful method. Also the matrices can get big so it helps a lot to use sparse matrix libraries for the computations.
I've never given a second thought about what the etymology of "spectral" in spectral decomposition is.
Somewhere in the back of my mind (and I guess many students of physics have the same notion) subconsciously i assumed it originates from eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian determining the atomic spectral lines . But I've never followed up on it and actually looked it up .
I might be wrong about the exact historical reason.
But the way I see it "spectral decomposition of A" is a way to express A as a sum of orthogonal, rank-1, operators. A = \sum l_i u_i u_i^T. Those l_i are the eigenvalues; u_i are the eigenvectors.
The eigenvectors look a whole lot like the "modes" in a Fourier decomposition. And if you plot (i, l_i), the eigenvalues are a bit like the "spectrum" (the amplitude of each mode).
In fact, the complex exponentials (the modes in the Fourier decomposition) are also eigenvectors of a specific operator (the Laplacian).
Math people are good at finding connections between things.
According to the almighty wikipedia, The connection is correct but it turned out to be an accident. David Hilbert who coined spectral theory was surprised when it was found to be applicable to solving quantum mechanical spectra.
If a spectrum is just a range of numbers, then the idea of spectrum should apply to many phenomenon. Many things can be described by a number. So, when matrix spectrum and atomic spectrum were formulated, perhaps spectrum was a word that was in vogue to describe a quantity. I think this is the explanation of the reason the same term is used for both. Because many connected phenomenon can be quantified. I know only a little about matrix spectrum and atomic spectrum, so take my thought with a grain of salt.
Interesting, as they mention, it looks like the main advantage to an approach like this is that it can make use of "special events" (e.g. stop/starts, bumps, turning) which can null out the drift.
Combining this with other covariates/sensors could also provide more correction and better detection of "special events".
I wonder if something like this applied on top of traditional methods that incorporate the dynamics would make a better approach since you get the advantage of using the known dynamics + learnable "special event" corrections.
I've been getting into his later work with Chiara Carletto: Constructor theory of information. It's an interesting way of looking at the world. Rather than using dynamical equations to describe the world, in constructor theory it is about looking at what things are possible and impossible with respect to information exchange. A constructor is something that can apply a transformation to something without itself changing (kinda like a catalyst in chemistry).
Marc Lewis, a neuroscientist has a nice book on the topic, which to me makes complete sense (and is grounded in sound science). His view on the topic is that addiction is nothing special, just a learned behavior. Hebbian learning states that neurons that fire together wire together (corollary: neurons that don't, the connection weakens). The neurons in the limbic system control emotions, attention, desire, and fear. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) controls planning, expectation, and long term planning. We are motivated to do things that we desire, or avoid things we fear, which is controlled by the limbic system (also involving dopamine release).
Let's take drugs for an example but this can apply to other behaviors like internet usage, eating, falling in love, becoming obsessed with a hobby, or cronic anxiety toward something (avoiding fear). When we take a drug (or do xyz behavior ) it gives us a positive feeling (pleasure, or comfort in avoiding fear) and probably a favorable outcome occurred, so we are likely to engage in the behavior again. Each time we engage in the behavior the connection between the limbic system and the stimulus that triggers it, strengthen. When the trigger happens the limbic system lights up and triggers the PFC to create a plan and imagine how good it will be (then a positive feedback will occur - this is craving). Over time more and more stimuli will become triggers. Also, if you don't use it you lose it, and the neurons responsible for long term planning will weaken their connection to the limbic system (also, shown in brain scans), making it harder for you to assert self control.
However, your brain is plastic, and you can also unlearn the behavior over time (studies also support this). Meditation can help because you can stimulate these neural pathways in a controlled environment. For example you can imagine how a trigger leads to drugs, then you can imagine how drugs leads to bad things while meditating - over time you can strengthen the connection from the trigger to the emotion and imagery of bad things happening. Ofcourse meditation is not the only thing that can help, but the main idea is that you want to make your brain associate the bad behavior with bad outcome, and strengthen the association of good outcomes with fear/desire circuit.
This article does a horrible job of explaining Turchin's ideas. It's not too many "brainy" people that are the problem. It's that if upward mobility becomes limited to those that have advanced degrees, and if there are an oversupply of people with advanced degrees, you will now have (at least) 3 groups of people: non-advanced-educated-but-not-good-enough, educated-but-not-good-enough, and elites.
The non-advanced-educated feel marginalized because it will be ridiculously hard for them to get the education, and as things get more expensive their livelihood will go down relative to the elites.
The advanced-educated-but-not-good-enough will feel marginalized because they spent their time and money and got nothing in return, and now have debt and degraded livelihood compared to the elites.
When enough people feel marginalized AND something happens that weakens the state's power/influence, political instability will occur.
It compounds in US/Europe with regards to education, given that these two groups are politically opposite of each other, and advanced education is becoming a barrier of entry to upward mobility.
Turchin's 2016 book Ages of discord explains these ideas in detail.
It's what happens when you have "advanced" degrees that are not actually useful in large numbers to society. We only need so many sociologists and critical race studies professors and political scientists. These jobs also happen to generally be supported off of societal productivity (i.e. taxes and charities) instead of growing the pie which means their supply is naturally limited.
Notice that even for STEM jobs which are strongly constrained by available capital, like structural engineering or petroleum engineering, the pay is substantially higher than the useless jobs and the competition is less. You don't have to go to an Ivy League to get paid $$$ in engineering.
If you want to lead a technical team or technical organization you should be technical. Developing people skills doesn't take a degree in gender studies. It merely takes giving a shit about improving and talking to people.
Non-technical leadership leading a technical company is why Intel is in the dire straits it is today. When you put a marketing person in charge of Xeon and they parrot about diversity instead of executing on the business it's obvious where the problem is. Notice all the competition is led by technical leadership: AMD is led by a PhD in EE, Nvidia a Masters in EE. Intel's former leadership was technical until they were pushed out by non-technical bean counters.
Technically, parts of the degree were wasted (everything to do with actual physics) and the maths education was just a side effect that could have been given more efficiently with a maths degree (or even some other kind of education).
Really? I got nothing with my top notch STEM PhD. Got hungry, homeless an sick.
But as mentioned by a friend. A STEM PhD must never be unemployed. There are always opportunities in the world. Be it in China or with Narcos in South America. There are opportunities. Never forget that! Nearly killed me that I forgot. There will always be one to pay you if you can deliver.
These forms of knowledge do grow the pie, they just haven't formed a monetization/product loop. The scarcity of jobs to fund their work (which we need vastly more of) is a market failure.
David Graeber (and others) make an adjacent criticism:
Lots of people would like to choose "caring" work. Teaching, healthcare, policy stuff, knowledge stuff, etc. Something meaningful and rewarding.
With rising inequity, only people who can afford higher education, who don't have to work to eat, can choose these "caring" career paths.
Some fraction of the resentment towards the "liberal elite" is from being denied access to these "caring" roles. Made worse by the obliviousness of people like me not even realizing there's a problem.
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I regard both Turchin and Graeber's theories as complimentary. I also hope that leftists like me will dig into these social phenomenon.
Until we understand better, I'm content with very cheap higher ed, with some professions being subsidized. For example, I'm happy to pay people to become doctors (specialists). Society needs more. Students shouldn't be penalized, having to wait +12 years before starting families (or whatever).
> Lots of people would like to choose "caring" work. Teaching, healthcare, policy stuff, knowledge stuff, etc. Something meaningful and rewarding.
> With rising inequity, only people who can afford higher education, who don't have to work to eat, can choose these "caring" career paths.
> Some fraction of the resentment towards the "liberal elite" is from being denied access to these "caring" roles. Made worse by the obliviousness of people like me not even realizing there's a problem.
Is there really a phenomenon of people angry to the point of causing social instability because they have to work in a bank rather than teaching calculus in high school?
You have another group, the advanced-educated-and-good-enough-but-not-connected-enough-so-they’re-stuck-behind -someone-who-is-less-qualified. I could imagine they’re the group that feels worst.
Turchin is, of course, free to think whatever he wants (I haven't studied his ideas). However, I can't see how my statement applies in any way to either Bannon or Trump.
Trump is unsuspicious of having advanced education and qualifications, but instead was born into a millionaire family which allowed him to pursue whatever he wanted. If anything, he would be the person blocking a position from someone qualified but not well connected. He even ended up being president, in case someone forgot.
Bannon apparently served in the Navy, got a Harvard MBA, worked at Goldman Sachs. His wiki page starts "Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker, who served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump". I'd say by most standards one would say he reached quite a number of things he set his mind to that most people don't. Again, hardly an example of someone who failed in his career because he was blocked by someone less qualified.
I am not interested in Turchin, I am not interested in a scholarly evaluation of Turchin's catalogue, I am not interested in studying 'Turchin's ideas' (all of which may be super interesting, but I have more pressing matters to attend to). I am instead interested in the ideas mentioned in another comment; I replied and added another one.
I never claimed to be perfectly aligned with your opinion. I just agreed that the person you were responding to was off, in that the issue isn't whether or not people are "good enough."
Trump circumvented the traditional process for becoming president by aligning with the underclass...
The elites made fun of him relentlessly. Bannon ran Breitbart out of a random townhouse basement and was denied press credentials by those empowered in the national association.
The elite tried to block both of them, and they were circumvented by interclass alliance. That's the entire idea of elite overproduction, which is what we are talking about.
Elite overproduction is basically when more people have the resources to grab power than the power structure allows to hold power.
Not arguing that trump is a victim, just saying he has been considered gauche and passé for a long while. Gauche and passé ends up just meaning "not elite."
If you make a million dollars a year running a plumbing business, you are rich, but you aren't elite. If you make 400k at Skadden, you are closer to being elite.
Again, completely different scenario than what I meant and discussed.
You can leave it to me to know what I meant when I threw "advanced-educated-and-good-enough-but-not-connected-enough-so-they’re-stuck-behind -someone-who-is-less-qualified" into the discussion, I don't really need an explanation of what I meant from someone else.
Any time I see a headline is from the Economist I go straight to the comments for the inevitable rebuttal of their oversimplifications or outright bias. Appreciate the book recommendation; just ordered it.
It's not like those "advanced-educated" that are left out are hating on the top elite of the advanced ("the great") that are "good". For starters, because those are too few, and they don't compete directly, plus they can see their merits.
So, usually it's "advanced-educated-and-perfectly-good" vs "advanced-educated-but-lucky-or-with-connections-and/or-family-wealth" where the discontent lies.
Thanks, good to hear there's more substance behind this than the article implies. The article lost any remaining credibility with me when the best example of radicalism they could find was Corbyn. As other comments here have said, that shows a strong lack of willingness to think critically about the current system - and a willingness to clutch at straws such as a theory about "too many educated people" to avoid that critical thinking.
