It’s sorta suspicious that I only realized those now, after I officially dropped the project
You should try dropping your other idea and seeing if you come up with reasons that one is wrong too! And/or pick this one up again, then come up with reasons it’s a good idea after all. In the spirit of “You can’t know if something is a good idea until you resolve to do it”!
In general, I wish this year? (*checks* huh, only 4 months.) of planning this project had involved more empiricism. For example, you could’ve just checked whether a language model trained on ocean sounds can say what the animals are talking about.
In general, I wish this year? (*checks* huh, only 4 months.)
Nah I didn’t loose that much time. I already quit the project end of January, I just wrote the post now. Most of the technical work was also pretty useful for understanding language, which is a useful angle on agent foundations. I had previously expected working on that angle to be 80% as effective as my previous best plan, but it was even better, around similarly good I think. That was like 5-5.5 weeks and that was not wasted.
I guess I spent like 4.5 weeks overall on learning about orcas (including first seeing whether I might be able to decode their language and thinking about how and also coming up with the whole “teach language” idea), and like 3 weeks on orga stuff for trying to make the experiment happen.
Congratulations on changing your mind!
You should try dropping your other idea and seeing if you come up with reasons that one is wrong too! And/or pick this one up again, then come up with reasons it’s a good idea after all. In the spirit of “You can’t know if something is a good idea until you resolve to do it”!
In general, I wish this year? (*checks* huh, only 4 months.) of planning this project had involved more empiricism. For example, you could’ve just checked whether a language model trained on ocean sounds can say what the animals are talking about.
Nah I didn’t loose that much time. I already quit the project end of January, I just wrote the post now. Most of the technical work was also pretty useful for understanding language, which is a useful angle on agent foundations. I had previously expected working on that angle to be 80% as effective as my previous best plan, but it was even better, around similarly good I think. That was like 5-5.5 weeks and that was not wasted.
I guess I spent like 4.5 weeks overall on learning about orcas (including first seeing whether I might be able to decode their language and thinking about how and also coming up with the whole “teach language” idea), and like 3 weeks on orga stuff for trying to make the experiment happen.