John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by foobiekr on Thursday November 14, 2019 @08:56AM (#21535345)

I’ve worked with legends in a specific space that is less consumer-y than games and graphics and less weirdly-desperate attention-seeking than ML and so the people therein are every bit Carmack-level but less visible. As they have aged out and wealthy’d out of working time, almost all of them have chosen to retire.

These are extremely high performing individuals who have made global impact. Shutting down for people like this is very hard and 100% of them have sent out mails much like Carmack’s Facebook post when the end came. Even the style and verbiage are similar.

None of them made a dent in their tinkering-phase project and moved on to normal above-average low-engagement hobbies. They are done.

I read his FB post as a pretty standard retirement announcement as a result. I think he’s telling us he is done.

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by jjoonathan on Thursday November 14, 2019 @09:58AM (#21535813)

I don't see any reason to be so dismissive.

Scientific pursuits have an extremely steep risk profile and are systematically underfunded because nobody knows how to capture the value that comes out of them. If someone wants to chase one on their own dime, we should celebrate that contribution to society rather than dwell on the fact that the median (even 99th percentile) outcome is that the project goes nowhere and the person continues on to retirement proper. The mean outcome could be very different and the benefit of the doubt costs us nothing, so why not give it?

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by foobiekr on Thursday November 14, 2019 @10:55AM (#21536385)

I’m not being dismissive at all; it’s an alternate read on what he wrote and honestly closer to what he seems to be saying than the people reading this as his intending to go full bore.

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by chrchang523 on Thursday November 14, 2019 @11:30AM (#21536746)

Carmack is only 49. I'd agree with your interpretation if he was 10+ years older, but he is still young enough to take a real swing at this.

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by tirewarehouse on Thursday November 14, 2019 @12:13PM (#21537169)

It may not be your intent, but you are coming off as very dismissive.

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by staz on Thursday November 14, 2019 @09:05AM (#21535396)

by that standard Carmack retired a few times already and always came back with something interesting

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by mav3rick on Thursday November 14, 2019 @09:02AM (#21535381)

You cant project your colleagues on a third person.

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by foobiekr on Thursday November 14, 2019 @09:11AM (#21535444)

You can observe common properties of the way people at similar skill levels behaved however.

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by mav3rick on Thursday November 14, 2019 @06:45PM (#21540823)

How do I know op's standards are the same as Carmack's ? What I consider great maybe average after all ?.

Same could have been said when Carmack said he wanted to work on VR. "it's a retirement letter"

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by matz1 on Thursday November 14, 2019 @09:13AM (#21535462)

Why? Its a reasonable assumption.

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