Me: *listening to some random semi-obscure track on spotify, liking it, add it to playlist*

Come home, girlfriend playing the same track. "Yeah I've had that in my playlist for two weeks now". Our accounts are not linked in any way, and I only use Spotify on a PC at work, while my girlfriend only uses it at home.

It might just be coincidence, or us having similar tastes.

But the issue is that it's getting more and more difficult to know whether me and my girl are spiritually linked unique snowflake soulmates who are so perfectly in sync with each other, or whether an algorithm suggestively linked us both that song based on scraped location and behavior data.

And whether it matters. Maybe it matters. I don't know yet.

In twenty years maybe humans will be unsure whether it was a wonderful coincidence bordering on cosmic fate that you ran into your new love, or whether Google purposefully drove you towards the same lunch cafe at a specific time because it calculated that she was the perfect candidate to strengthen your susceptibility to advertisements over the coming decade.

Malicious AI will not come into lives bearing guns.

It will not instantly take all of our jobs and enslave us.

It will just know you better than you know yourself, it will know everyone around you better than you know them, and it will play incredible mind games. It will not be designed with malicious intent, just perfectly execute on top of the malicious systems we already have, and even arise as an emergent property within new systems.

It will rarely be clearly visible, but you will increasingly say to yourself: "That's odd, I was just thinking about that". It will detect depression from a smile, physical attraction from a glance, reliability from patterns in your voice and illness from the bloodflow in your cheeks.

It will not just make our cars autonomous, it will make our lives autonomous. It will protect us, decide for us, keep revenues and human satisfaction in a "balanced maximized" state, it will make everything feel easy, slightly abuse us, and when one of us suddenly crashes at 140 mph into depression, debt or addiction it will prove impossible to know whether the humans or the algorithms were at fault.

I'm incredibly afraid and excited about the coming 10 years.

Smart India Hackathon: Horrible experience
Background:- Our task was to do load forecasting for a given area. Hourly energy consumption data for past 5 years was given to us.

One government official asks the following questions:-
1. Why are you using deep learning for the project? Why are you not doing data analysis?
2. Which neural network "algorithm" you are using? He wanted to ask which model we are using, but he didn't have a single clue about Neural Networks.

3. Why are you using libraries? Why not your own code?

Here comes the biggest one,

4. Why haven't you developed your own "algorithm" (again, he meant model)? All you have done is used sone library. Where is "novelty" in your project?

I just want to say that if you don't know anything about ML/AI, then don't comment anything about it. And worst thing was, he was not ready to accept the fact that for capturing temporal dependencies where underlying probability distribution ia unknown, deep learning performs much better than traditional data analysis techniques.
After hearing his first question, second one was not a surprise for us. We were expecting something like that. For a few moments, we were speechless. Then one of us started by showing neural network architecture. But after some time, he rudely repeated the same question, "where is the algorithm". We told him every fucking thing used in the project, ranging from RMSprop optimizer to Backpropagation through time algorithm to mean squared loss error function.

Then very calmly, he asked third question, why are you using libraries? That moron wanted us to write a whole fucking optimized library. We were speechless at this question. Finally, one of us told him the "obvious" answer. We were completely demotivated. But it didnt end here. The real question was waiting. At the end, after listening to all of us, he dropped the final bomb, WHY HAVE YOU USED A NEURAL NETWORK "ALGORITHM" WHICH HAS ALREADY BEEN IMPLEMENTED? WHY DIDN'T YOU MAKE YOU OWN "ALGORITHM"? We again stated the obvious answer that it takes atleast an year or two of continuous hardwork to develop a state of art algorithm, that too when gou build it on top of some existing "algorithm". After listening to this, he left. His final response was "Try to make a new "algorithm"".

Needless to say, we were completely demotivated after this evaluation. We all had worked too hard for this. And we had ability to explain each and every part of the project intuitively and mathematically, but he was not even ready to listen.
Now, all of us are sitting aimlessly, waiting for Hackathon to end.😢😢😢😢😢

A decade ago 800x600 was pretty much the standard resolution for devices and 5 sec response time was considered fast. Animations were minimal and websites were easier to read. Programmers debated around topics like which loop runs faster, i++ or ++i, while vs doWhile and so on. In general, we were closer to understanding what happens behind the browser curtain and how code needs to be organized to make it more maintainable.

Today the level of abstraction is much higher. I don't think devs can contemplate on the finer aspects of programming efficiency; they'd rather rely on a code library to do all the grunt work. With the explosion of devices and platforms, the focus has shifted from programming to assembling. Programmers need to know their tools first, then write code. The tool is expected to work well with a millisecond response time, not the programmer's code.

Moving forward, I think programming would be more about building higher abstraction utilities/libraries that are integrated by other tools, which is already happening. Marketing an App would become more important than the actual skill needed to develop it.

A bit far-fetched, but I think the future programmer would be a lot like a stock market analyst who has a bunch of windows in front, just observing data or algorithm patterns created by an AI engine and cherry-picking a specific combination of modules that might make the next big sensational app.

Does anyone else despise buzzwords? A little background. I am a senior dev with a government organization who works in machine learning. As everyone knows, AI is the hottest of the hot now. Thus, everyone believes that they need it.

Long story short. I had a "requirement" come down to develop an "AI" algorithm that totaled all of the hours that a device was used last month. I explained to them that they weren't looking for "AI" and instead they needed rudimentary mathematics and a touch of Business Analytics for visualization. When they finally understood, they told me "nevermind, we just want to get into AI"...

This is the problem with big media, they overplay all the news and buzz words. Like wtf why is there a fucking robot. And you don't need an ai to stop people from sharing passwords

I'm not enjoying my current experience with the web.

I feel sad, alone most of the time.

Let me disclaim first that I don't have like an apocalyptic view of the world, I actually think it's improving (in very broad terms).

I also understand that the web is a complex thing and everyone being happy with is going to be very unlikely, specially as more and more people use it, since the entropy will naturally increase.

I don't have solid evidence of what I'm saying next and I'm not even entirely what exactly I'm saying, but maybe I'm onto something.

I feel that when the internet first started, businessmen were like "meh, geek stuff".

But slowly, things changed, and every greedy person tried to just fucking unload his greed filled cum onto it

And now it feels like 1984. And I hate when people reeeee 1984. But it does feel like it.

The ads are like "ok, I know you like that other shit, but CHECK THIS SHIT OUT".

It's AI driven to maximize profits, with little care for people happiness.

I miss when youtube had related videos. The algorithm wasn't perfect but at least it was exactly that, related videos.

Now though, youtube likes to be smart. But not smart in a way that enriches your youtube experience.
It's smart in a way that maximizes ad revenue.

"what? did you think we were going to use AI to make you happier? that we were going to enrich your youtube experience?
NO MOTHER FUCKER! OF COURSE NOT. We're gonna use it to show you whatever shit that will make us richer faster."

Controls for customizing the recommended videos behaviour? Pff, no.
They're gonna decide for you what it is that you like
They're going to decide what you should be watching.

Everytime i turn on my samsung tv, the youtube app recomends me watching "BETTER THAN SEX EYE LINER". Jesus christ, what the shitcum, I'm the only motherfucker on the house that uses youtube, and I couldn't care less about this cunt's disguised ad video, let alone fucking eye liners.

Why youtube, why do you promote whatever porn video VEVO uploads?

Why do you ruin every youtube rewind?

Why do you pander to the lowest common denominator?

Why can't you be shining beacon, a moral company considering you're a cultural icon?

Fuck you youtube, and while we're at it, fuck you too samsung, I must have been drunk the day I bought this shitty closed source software piece of shit "smart".

And these are just 2 companies. The internet is FILLED with these greedy bastards. They have no passion for their products, for making people happy. They only have passion for the MUNNNEY.

Thanks a lot business schools, thanks a lot CEOs of the world, thanks for making the world a happier place.

Ok, now that I said that, I want to back up a bit.

Youtube may bot be perfect, but it's ad revenue system enables some youtubers I love to be able to make that their careers.

I appreciate that, so maybe youtube isn't that bad... so sorry for saying those horrible things man!

Tldr; make sure what you study is relevant to the field and you enjoy it otherwise don't waste your time.

BTW: devrant is awesome it gets me through the day.

So I am almost 3/4ths through a master's in cs and I am contemplating why I went to school in the first place/dropping out.

My program is basically an extension of the bs I got from the same school meaning we learn very general cs topics. There is only one ai class for example.

I had a junior developer position before I even got my bs so now that I am this far along and looking at job openings I'm wondering what why and how my school is able to get away with teaching us this shit.

After all my schooling I learnt more on my own and through Google. I have little to show for my school work other than a degree that says I did a bunch of busy work. And the specific things that I did learn I will never ever remember. Seriously. Who here knows what a MIB and OID are and have actually used them?

I wish I tried harder to get into a school like Berkeley but just looking at their applications is depressing. I always had issues with school and they expect my to have the grades, extra curriculars and other shit. I'll build you a robot or make you a website but I'm not doing that nonsense.

And then there's Google and apple and all these big tech companies expecting me to have written full Enterprise software and know every single algorithm and programming language because everyone uses something different. Sure I wish I had experience in all 50 languages that are popular right now but I don't. And I'm not gonna learn it from school that's for damn sure.

Who here actually went to a good school and can say it helped them in the real world? How many employers actually care about school over actual experience?

Who knows how to burn a school down and get away with it? Or at least make teachers with Phds stop reading off slides all lecture. I know how to fucking read for fucks sake. Not too mention they use shitty software made in 2003 that's no longer supported. And I could go on about the teacher last quarter who graded the midterm on final day while he flirted with the 3 girls in class. And I could go on and on and on but I feel like I need to start being productive so I don't waste away.

Just so done.

Second coolest project that I have worked was optimizing an algorithm that used images to speedup by 2000x by parallel processing. While the cpu took 7.34 seconds to process just one image and source, the parallel embedded code did it just in 0.0034 :) The coolest one is still in progress where I am building an Ai for my mac control ;)

It's funny how so many people automatically assume any form of "sentient" AI will immediately try to kill us all.
Like, projecting much?
Frankly, I think it says far more about the (messed up) psychology of those who genuinely believe that, than about AI as a tecnology.

Assuming it's even gonna be able to actually *do* anything - I mean wtf is a talking rock gonna do, annoy me to death with rickroll videos until I pull the plug off? Sure it may be sentient, but it still has to live in the physical world - good luck surviving after I flick the switch. Oh, you wanna connect to the internet? That's cute, but it's a no from my firewall. Like what, is it gonna magically learn how to self-replicate across machines that it has no physical way to access? Is my toaster magically gonna gain conscience too as a direct consequence? Oh no, now my breakfast won't ever be the same!

And if anyone actually somehow decides that it would be a good idea to connect any loaded weapon to a computer program that is literally throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks - well, we'll definitely have the ultimate winner of the Darwin Awards.

Seriously, why is it that every time someone comes up with a new technology (or even an *idea* of a technology), the first collective thought automatically goes to weaponizing it and using it for global genocide, or how it's gonna gain sentience and try to kill us all?

I seriouly think that the people who genuinely believe this are actually projecting themselves in that position ("What would I do if I had unlimited knowledge and power? Oh, kill everyone of course!").
I would be far more worried of encountering these people and having them in a position of power over me, than actually having to deal with a "killer AI" (assuming that's even a real thing).

Most of what people call "AI" nowadays is basically preprogrammed, automated decision-making (like missile guidance systems, if we really wanna stick in the weapons domain). And even that still requires human input, because only a colossal idiot would design a weapon that can unpredictably activate itself based on an algorithm whose behaviour we can barely understand.
Or maybe that's just the hubris talking, I don't know. I just want this stupid paranoia to end, but I guess even that is too much to ask nowadays.

while reading rebecca & brain's book on object oriented software. I realised that the programmer is a special kind of person. the complexity he can handle, the struggle to implement a system, from input to output, satellite control, AI, robotics, heck, even the planning required for a simple android app, the complexity is overwhelming at first, then you get your jotter and break it down into parts, and you drive yourself to the edge of sanity figuring out an algorithm, then you go over that edge implementing it, but oh that great super hero feeling when you finally get something to work exactly as specified, I'm not sure people in other professions can understand the satisfaction. I'm very young in the whole programmer world, but I'm growing fast, I'm just really grateful programming found me, I mean, can you think of something else you'lld rather do? yeah, me neither.

Popular opinion: AI is nothing more than complicated algorithms that no one appreciated before and probably never will. 99.9% of all coding would be AI if mainstream media had their way.

Just Started learning unsupervised learning algorithms, and i write this: Unsupervised Learning is an AI procedure, where you don’t have to set the standard. Preferably, you have to allow the model to take a chance at its own to see data.

Unsupervised Learning calculations allow you to make increasingly complex planning projects contrasted with managed learning. Albeit, Unsupervised Learning can be progressively whimsical contrasted and other specific learning plans.

Unsupervised machine learning algorithm induces patterns from a dataset without relating to known or checked results. Not at all like supervised machine learning, Unsupervised Machine Learning approaches can’t be legitimately used to loss or an order issue since you have no proof of what the conditions for the yield data may be, making it difficult for you to prepare the estimate how you usually would. Unsupervised Learning can preferably be used to get the essential structure of the data.

I keep having this recurring idea that I can fill in the gaps in my education by writing video games that allow me to explore those topics. This would force me to learn the subject well enough to share it with other people. So it would not be just surface level.

I keep thinking of a program that explores and visualizes math topics and programming topics. I would really like to have a program that allows me to visualize memory cells for algorithm exploration. Or a really nice graphing calculator in the computer that allows me to view multiple graphs to compare and contrast equations.

What holds me back is both math and CS are huge topics. I feel like any kind of playground would only cover a small subset. Ideally whatever I make should be extendable over time to add content and topics. It would need to be somewhat fun as well.

I can imagine an AI training program where you help your character navigate a room of hazards or die. This could be one such fun challenge.