FrankDrakman t1_ivfi5hq wrote
Reply to comment by AllanfromWales1 in The big data delusion – the more data we have, the harder it is to find meaningful patterns in the world. by IAI_Admin
Not at all. As an engineer, I understand we're building models, based on our incomplete understanding. As we learn more, we refine our models, but they are always only models, and as such, necessarily simpler than the real world, because they are based on principles abstracted from the real world, and not the real world itself.
There's no 'pretending' involved. We know they are models, we know they are only approximations, and we also know the approximations are good enough to get the results we want. And with that, we built the society you see around us.
Why do you sneer at the process that has resulted in immense wealth and better lives for billions of people?
JustAPerspective t1_ivfr760 wrote
Maybe all the cherry-picking & misinformation that gets churned out when non-ethical individuals start playing with that data. Or when inaccurate data is relied upon as factual rather than speculative.
FrankDrakman t1_ivfsebo wrote
Oh, you mean like Covid?
JustAPerspective t1_ivfxcm1 wrote
Like most things in society, actually. Integrity seems to be quite in short supply.
AllanfromWales1 t1_ivg0jlb wrote
> We know they are models, we know they are only approximations, and we also know the approximations are good enough to get the results we want.
As someone who works in an engineering discipline I think you are naive to assume that all engineers know this. Many I have dealt with simply follow algorithms and give little or no thought to what underlies them. I'd also suggest that if we had, if it were possible to have, more complex models the world would not be running headlong towards catrastrophe as we speak.
visarga t1_ivir19q wrote
No, models are tools, it's how you wield them. What I noticed is that models tend to attract activist types that have an agenda to push, so they try to control it. Not just in AI, also in Economics and other fields.
AllanfromWales1 t1_iviwmbq wrote
Every scientific paradigm is a model. We do not have direct access to underlying reality, we only have maps put together based on the observations we can make.
iiioiia t1_ivkge94 wrote
> No
It seems like the two of you mostly agree, no?
iiioiia t1_ivkfmyy wrote
> Why do you sneer at the process that has resulted in immense wealth and better lives for billions of people?
I am suspicious of anyone who speaks of their industry and every single practitioner within it as being purely rational, or essentially flawless. Of course, this "wasn't what you meant", but that's kind of my complaint.
Another aspect: presumably you're on Hacker News - I've observed people there "telling it how it is" for way over a decade, so I have a decent amount of exposure to how (a substantial sampling of) tech people think across a wide variety of ideas (including how thinking styles change depending on the topic), and how confident they can be in various beliefs (perceived as knowledge) they hold.
FrankDrakman t1_ivmc8nh wrote
I've never heard of Hacker News.
iiioiia t1_ivn12it wrote
Consider yourself lucky then! 😂
Actually j/k, you may like it.
[deleted] t1_ivpb6ov wrote
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