Comment by throw__away7391
2 years ago
Which means anyone who isn’t engaged in the hype cycle looks bad by comparison.
Still I would distinguish between genuine optimism and cynical exaggeration. If you go back and read what was being said in and around the 70s about technology and watch the demos they gave…it always makes me feel a little sad for them. People really thought so many things were right around the corner, e.g. if a computer can beat a human star chess player, surely understanding natural language or driving a car will be easy. There were so many things being made like primitive robots that could follow a line painted on the floor, that in a controlled environment seemed so promising but the realization of the vision would take decades longer than predicted. Without their efforts we would not be where we are today.
True. I think the optimism and grandiosity of the engineers with gems in their eyes keeps the passion going to work hard - some are just are terrible at grounding ourselves in reality. Genuine science needs to take more foothold, skepticism and curiosity over certainty of accelerated outcomes or non existant (heck even fraudulent in some situations) capabilities