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Comment by mdrzn | Hacker News Reader

Wow.. I can't even imagine where we'll be in 5 or 10 years from now.

Seems that it's only "consistent" up to a minute, but if the progress keeps the same rate.. just wow.

Progress is not linear. For all we know, in 2027 things will slow down to a virtual halt for the next 30 years. Look at how much big science progressed in the first 20 years of the 19th century/20th century and look how little it has progressed in the first 20 years of this century. We are on the downlow compared to the last centuries and even if you look at crisp or deep learning, they are not as impactful NOW as let's say the germ theory of disease, evolution, the discovery of the double helix structure or general relativity was. Almost a quarter of a century gone and we don't have much to show for it.

For reference:

19th century

evolution by natural selection as science

electromagnetism

germ theory of disease

first law of thermodynamics

--------------------------------------------

20th century

general relativity

quantum mechanics

dna structure

penicillin

big bang theory

--------------------------------------------

21st century

crisp

deep learning

The things you list for previous centuries aren't limited to the first 20 years

19th century: electromagnetism, the voltaic pile, the double slit experiment for the light wave theory

20th century: general/special relativity, radioactive decay, discovery of the electron

21st century: crisp and deep learning

Hard to argue that the big science of the first 20 years of the previous century looks way more impact than crisp and deep learning put TOGETHER.

its called crispr, not crisp.

100 years later, sure. What about in December 1924?

>Look how little it has progressed in the first 20 years of this century

This is naivete on the scale of "Cars were much safer 70 years ago".

Can you please elaborate further? My point is that truly world shattering groundbreaking scientific progress has slowed down significantly this century compared to the previous ones (by comparing just the first 20 years of each century)

crispr variants have not particularly improved treatments.

But DNA sequencing and biologics have revolutionized medicine and changed lives.

Also, the computer as phone took it from 100M's mostly business users buying optical disks to 3+B everyday people getting regular system updates and apps on demand accessing real-time information. That change alone far outweighs the impact of anything produced by advanced physics.

As a result we, as developers, now have the power to deliver both messages and experiences to the entire world.

Ideas are cheap, and progress is virtually guaranteed in intellectual history. But execution is exquisitely easy to get wrong. Genie 2 is just Google's first bite at this apple, and milestones and feedback are key to getting something as general as AI right. Fingers crossed!

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