I don’t mean to come across as super optimistic with respect to strong A.I., or even A.I. in general. I should have written ’50 years give or take 50′. It’s just that i think my field’s progress rate is determined by the inflow of methods from other fields, and that the current problems it faces are insoluble using current ones. I think people who aren’t immersed in the field get a mistaken impression about this because papers and press releases must communicate an artificial sense of progress and certainty to succeed. Word in the trenches is that we’re mired in an intractable mess of unknowns.
As an example—take Aubrey de Grey’s SENS program. He lays out all these alterations he thinks he can make to fix the problem of aging. But he seems to think of biology as modular and easily mutable. A biologist expects each individual step he proposes to face dozens of unforeseen problems, and to have many, many unpredictable knock-on effects, over a wide range of detectability and severity. Dealing with them all isn’t doable right now, while single grad students take 5 year to determine a few of each genes many interactions and functions.
As for burnout—I’d agree with you if this was a recent development. But I’ve felt this way for years. It’s just that now action is required. It’s possible I’ve been burnt out for years. This has been suggested to me—my working environment is exceptionally poor—which is something I can say semi-objectively due to the number of people who have quit and/or echoed my feelings on the matter. I’m trying not to let those feelings influence me too much however.
I don’t mean to come across as super optimistic with respect to strong A.I., or even A.I. in general. I should have written ’50 years give or take 50′. It’s just that i think my field’s progress rate is determined by the inflow of methods from other fields, and that the current problems it faces are insoluble using current ones. I think people who aren’t immersed in the field get a mistaken impression about this because papers and press releases must communicate an artificial sense of progress and certainty to succeed. Word in the trenches is that we’re mired in an intractable mess of unknowns.
As an example—take Aubrey de Grey’s SENS program. He lays out all these alterations he thinks he can make to fix the problem of aging. But he seems to think of biology as modular and easily mutable. A biologist expects each individual step he proposes to face dozens of unforeseen problems, and to have many, many unpredictable knock-on effects, over a wide range of detectability and severity. Dealing with them all isn’t doable right now, while single grad students take 5 year to determine a few of each genes many interactions and functions.
As for burnout—I’d agree with you if this was a recent development. But I’ve felt this way for years. It’s just that now action is required. It’s possible I’ve been burnt out for years. This has been suggested to me—my working environment is exceptionally poor—which is something I can say semi-objectively due to the number of people who have quit and/or echoed my feelings on the matter. I’m trying not to let those feelings influence me too much however.