Excuse my rant. Nobel-prize winning CEO of DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, was on 60 Minutes and floored me when he predicted: We can cure all diseases with the help of AI. [The end of disease] is within reach, maybe within the next decade or so. I don't see why not. “I don’t see why not” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. As I’m sure you know from working on problems, “I don’t see why not” moments are usually followed by, “Actually this is going to be a bit harder that we thought…” If you want to call me a skeptic, that’s fine. But “the end of disease” in the next decade is some ostentatious claim chowder IMHO. As one of the YouTube comments says: The goodies are always just another 5-10 years ahead, aren't they Generally speaking, I tend to regard us humans as incredibly short-sighted. So if I had to place a wager, I’d put my money on the end of disease not happening in the next decade (against my wishes, of course). But that’s not really how AI predictions work. You can’t put wagers on them, because AI predictions aren’t things you get held accountable for. “Yeah, when I said that, I added ‘I don’t see why not’ but we quickly realized that X was going to be an issue and now I’m going to have to qualify that prediction. Once we solve X, I don’t see why not.” And then “once we solve _Y_”. And then Z. “Ok, phew, we solved Z we’re close.” And then AA. And AB. And AC. And… I get it, it’s easy to sit here and play the critic. I’m not the “man in the arena”. I’m not a Nobel-prize winner. I just want to bookmark this prediction for an accountability follow-up in April 2035. If I’m wrong, HOORAY! DISEASE IS ENDED!!! I WILL GLADLY EAT MY HAT! But if not, does anyone’s credibility take a hit? You can’t just say stuff that’s not true and continue having credibility. Unless you’re AI, of course. Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

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In April 1945, as US soldiers overtook Merkers, Germany, stories began to surface to Army officials of stolen Nazi riches stored in the local salt mine. Eventually, the Americans found the mine and began exploring it, ending up at a vaulted door. Here’s the story, as told by Greg Bradsher: the Americans found the main vault. It was blocked by a brick wall three feet thick…In the center of the wall was a large bank-type steel safe door, complete with combination lock and timing mechanism with a heavy steel door set in the middle of it. Attempts to open the steel vault door were unsuccessful. Word went up the chain of command about the find and suspected gold hoard behind the vaulted steel door. The order came back down to open it up. But what to do about this vault door that, up until now, nobody could open? One engineer looked at the problem and said: forget the door, blow the wall! One of the engineers who inspected the brick wall surrounding the vault door thought it could be blasted through with little effort. Therefore the engineers, using a half-stick of dynamite, blasted an entrance though the masonry wall. To me, this is a fascinating commentary on security specifically [insert meme of gate with no fence] But also a commentary on problem-solving generally. When you have a seemingly intractable problem — there’s an impenetrable door we can’t open — rather than focus on the door itself, you take a step back and realize the door may be impenetrable but the wall enclosing it is not. A little dynamite and problem solved. Lessons: You’re only as strong as your weakest point. Don’t miss the forest for the trees. A little dynamite goes a long way. Footnote to this story, in case you’re wondering what they found inside: [a partial] inventory indicated that there were 8,198 bars of gold bullion; 55 boxes of crated gold bullion; hundreds of bags of gold items; over 1,300 bags of gold Reichsmarks, British gold pounds, and French gold francs; 711 bags of American twenty-dollar gold pieces; hundreds of bags of gold and silver coins; hundreds of bags of foreign currency; 9 bags of valuable coins; 2,380 bags and 1,300 boxes of Reichsmarks (2.76 billion Reichsmarks); 20 silver bars; 40 bags containing silver bars; 63 boxes and 55 bags of silver plate; 1 bag containing six platinum bars; and 110 bags from various countries Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

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