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Seems like the bitter lesson is still right: http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html

Solvency 2y ago
Whoa this guy says "computation" and not grammatically bastardized techbrospeak "compute" like some neckbeard equivalent of a caveman! For that alone I commend him.
- jorvi 2y ago
  Compute is.. I don’t know the exact English grammatical term but it’s like water. Computation is not. “I have 1000 flops of compute” - works. “I have 1000 flops of computation” - doesn’t work. “That compute failed” - doesn’t work. “That computation failed” - works. They’re different.
  - Solvency 2y ago
    Literally not true. Compute is a verb. Computation is the right word in all of those cases. Or computational <noun>.
  - thewakalix 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    As far as I know, it’s usually called an uncountable noun. …but ‘computation’ is also uncountable, and your second sentence seems to be perfectly fine to me. Your examples do not constitute an argument. You haven’t articulated the (purported) difference between the two words; you’ve just decided arbitrarily that some sentences don’t work, and not elaborated or explained at all. I can make up words too, and provide example sentences: “karrotz are delicious” works. “carrots are delicious” doesn’t. “inside the karrotz” doesn’t work. “inside the carrots” does. I don’t actually think there is any difference. The above comment about ‘brospeak’ was snarky but I do think it’s more of a cultural phenomenon than a semantic one — unless someone is willing to kindly explain the difference rather than just rolling their eyes! What exactly is wrong with the sentence ‘this would require huge amounts of computation’? Saying ‘compute’ seems more to be a synonym of ‘computation’ that’s caught on recently than a useful gap-filling addition to the language. Again: reasoned arguments please. Or just ‘we think it sounds cool so we use it’ — that’s fine, too. EDIT: pondering briefly, perhaps one could argue the difference is something like ‘you can own compute, but you can’t own computation.’ ‘Compute’ is the capacity to carry out computation. …although ‘compute’ seems to be used to refer to the ‘abstract’ computation being done as well as the computational resources, so I don’t know. I’m stretching it. To be honest I’m not sure it’s a useful (or even real) distinction. I think it’s a matter of fashion, and that’s fine and normal.
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nialse 2y ago
For those who were oblivious to it, like myself, the bitter lesson is written by Richard S Sutton who invented reinforcement learning a long, long time ago.
tomrod 2y ago
This is an earth-shattering read.
pbronez 2y ago
I can’t access the article there… SSL error and then timeout. Here’s a link to the most recent WayBackMachine snapshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20240321091803/https://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240321091803/https://www.incom...
- port443 2y ago
  There's no SSL at all on that site, since it's http not https. Your browser is breaking the link.

Solvency 2y ago

Whoa this guy says "computation" and not grammatically bastardized techbrospeak "compute" like some neckbeard equivalent of a caveman! For that alone I commend him.

jorvi 2y ago
Compute is.. I don’t know the exact English grammatical term but it’s like water. Computation is not. “I have 1000 flops of compute” - works. “I have 1000 flops of computation” - doesn’t work. “That compute failed” - doesn’t work. “That computation failed” - works. They’re different.
- Solvency 2y ago
  Literally not true. Compute is a verb. Computation is the right word in all of those cases. Or computational <noun>.
- thewakalix 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  As far as I know, it’s usually called an uncountable noun. …but ‘computation’ is also uncountable, and your second sentence seems to be perfectly fine to me. Your examples do not constitute an argument. You haven’t articulated the (purported) difference between the two words; you’ve just decided arbitrarily that some sentences don’t work, and not elaborated or explained at all. I can make up words too, and provide example sentences: “karrotz are delicious” works. “carrots are delicious” doesn’t. “inside the karrotz” doesn’t work. “inside the carrots” does. I don’t actually think there is any difference. The above comment about ‘brospeak’ was snarky but I do think it’s more of a cultural phenomenon than a semantic one — unless someone is willing to kindly explain the difference rather than just rolling their eyes! What exactly is wrong with the sentence ‘this would require huge amounts of computation’? Saying ‘compute’ seems more to be a synonym of ‘computation’ that’s caught on recently than a useful gap-filling addition to the language. Again: reasoned arguments please. Or just ‘we think it sounds cool so we use it’ — that’s fine, too. EDIT: pondering briefly, perhaps one could argue the difference is something like ‘you can own compute, but you can’t own computation.’ ‘Compute’ is the capacity to carry out computation. …although ‘compute’ seems to be used to refer to the ‘abstract’ computation being done as well as the computational resources, so I don’t know. I’m stretching it. To be honest I’m not sure it’s a useful (or even real) distinction. I think it’s a matter of fashion, and that’s fine and normal.
  - deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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nialse 2y ago

For those who were oblivious to it, like myself, the bitter lesson is written by Richard S Sutton who invented reinforcement learning a long, long time ago.

tomrod 2y ago

This is an earth-shattering read.

pbronez 2y ago

I can’t access the article there… SSL error and then timeout. Here’s a link to the most recent WayBackMachine snapshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20240321091803/https://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240321091803/https://www.incom...

port443 2y ago
There's no SSL at all on that site, since it's http not https. Your browser is breaking the link.