Idk, football players actually make a bunch of people happy and entertained. 80% of the United States wishes this tech never existed.
What they're working on is just making peoples jobs, skills obsolete and trying to invent machines that will concentrate the worlds wealth into the hands of the people who own those machines.
Very few people interpret football so much that the actual frontier work of the best players matter. Out of 30 friends I know who like football only 1 of them could explain what’s going on in the field technically. For most people, pro players are replaceable.
Popular entertainment and unique progress of human civilization can’t be really compared either
I'd argue that professional sport is the closest thing to a true meritocracy - doesn't matter who your Dad knows - you ability is there for all to see on the pitch.
And at the team level - if cosy cliques form, again - team performance doesn't lie - hard work, team work and talent is ultimately what delivers results on the pitch.
The other interesting part of professional sport is that the 'workers' have managed to capture more of the value than is traditionally the case - this is precisely because they are so hard to replace.
If you think professional footballers earn too much and are interchangable - feel free to try and get in the team.
Sadly most science and engineering is very capital intensive.
So take this scenario - I'd argue that if you want to make progress in the field of these particular ML models, then you are going to need resources ( compute/data etc ) that is beyond most individuals capability to muster. ie you have to join a company with resources ( or persuade somebody to give you them ).
Right now there is one of those scenarios where capital is chasing talent - and so talent, if they are so inclined, is able to make the most of that.
But in normal times that's typically not the case - most of the time scientists are chasing the capital ( directly or indirectly in the form of a job in a well resourced company ) in order to be able to science, rather than the other way around.
Having the whole world connected to top sports players also costs a lot of money, it doesn’t happen naturally
To become a good scientist you don’t need much classic capital, you need a good environment. And for ML you only need one computer for yourself or you can rent online
There are still big inefficiencies for those who have capital to discover good scientists / engineers. Lots of them are unknown.
But if there are top ones famous it will bring more people to study those fields
> There are still big inefficiencies for those who have capital to discover good scientists / engineers. Lots of them are unknown.
The way it works in academia is that scientists compete with each other for the limited capital ( grant funding and jobs ). Not the other way around.
> But if there are top ones famous it will bring more people to study those fields
Is the problem lack of talent in these fields or the narrow allocation of capital?
Is it really true that Noam is the only person in the world that could have done what he did or where their in fact lots of people who would have succeed given the same opportunities?
That's not to devalue what they did or the impact - and I'm all for recognising the contributions of scientists to society - but the reality is, for the most part, talent competes for capital rather than the other way around.
I'd also point out that I suspect the high profile appointments of people like Noam and John to OpenAI and Anthropic is as much to do with adding star quality to the IPO as much bringing in talent ( and that's not to diminish their talent ).
> Having the whole world connected to top sports players also costs a lot of money, it doesn’t happen naturally
The existence of pay-per-view sports TV wasn't a pre-requisite for professional football - that existed way before - clubs self funded from gate receipts, local business sponsorship - they grew out of the local communities.
Sure, global TV has brought in the big money, but it wasn't required for the game to exist - but the opposite is true - pay-per-view sports TV is very dependent on sports like football.
> To become a good scientist you don’t need much classic capital, you need a good environment.
Pretty much all scientists learn their craft doing a government funded PhD in government funded labs using government funded equipment. ie governments provide the capital. People simply aren't self taught.
> And for ML you only need one computer for yourself or you can rent online
In theory - but modern AI is so resource intensive, good luck competing with the likes of Google/OpenAI, even Deepseek like that.
> No, the way it worked in the past for pro sports wasn’t enough to have those players worldwide famous and gossiped all the time
So? The point is football doesn't require this. It's not necessary for football to happen. The first Fifa world cup was in 1930.
> We disagree on learning science and engineers, this doesn’t require physical capital, it only requires human capital
Try building a bridge without any money. Try detecting the Higgs Boson without CERN. Sure Peter Higgs can come up with the idea of the Higgs Boson with little capital ( though somebody still paid for his living expenses - he wasn't a self funded gentlemen scientist ) - but that's the exception - most of the work is like CERN - and requires significant equipment and capital.
Idk, football players actually make a bunch of people happy and entertained. 80% of the United States wishes this tech never existed.
What they're working on is just making peoples jobs, skills obsolete and trying to invent machines that will concentrate the worlds wealth into the hands of the people who own those machines.
Very few people interpret football so much that the actual frontier work of the best players matter. Out of 30 friends I know who like football only 1 of them could explain what’s going on in the field technically. For most people, pro players are replaceable.
Popular entertainment and unique progress of human civilization can’t be really compared either
> For most people, pro players are replaceable.
I'd argue that professional sport is the closest thing to a true meritocracy - doesn't matter who your Dad knows - you ability is there for all to see on the pitch.
And at the team level - if cosy cliques form, again - team performance doesn't lie - hard work, team work and talent is ultimately what delivers results on the pitch.
The other interesting part of professional sport is that the 'workers' have managed to capture more of the value than is traditionally the case - this is precisely because they are so hard to replace.
If you think professional footballers earn too much and are interchangable - feel free to try and get in the team.
I only said top scientists and top engineers deserve as much fame / respect / gossip as top football players yeah
Sadly most science and engineering is very capital intensive.
So take this scenario - I'd argue that if you want to make progress in the field of these particular ML models, then you are going to need resources ( compute/data etc ) that is beyond most individuals capability to muster. ie you have to join a company with resources ( or persuade somebody to give you them ).
Right now there is one of those scenarios where capital is chasing talent - and so talent, if they are so inclined, is able to make the most of that.
But in normal times that's typically not the case - most of the time scientists are chasing the capital ( directly or indirectly in the form of a job in a well resourced company ) in order to be able to science, rather than the other way around.
Having the whole world connected to top sports players also costs a lot of money, it doesn’t happen naturally
To become a good scientist you don’t need much classic capital, you need a good environment. And for ML you only need one computer for yourself or you can rent online
There are still big inefficiencies for those who have capital to discover good scientists / engineers. Lots of them are unknown.
But if there are top ones famous it will bring more people to study those fields
> There are still big inefficiencies for those who have capital to discover good scientists / engineers. Lots of them are unknown.
The way it works in academia is that scientists compete with each other for the limited capital ( grant funding and jobs ). Not the other way around.
> But if there are top ones famous it will bring more people to study those fields
Is the problem lack of talent in these fields or the narrow allocation of capital?
Is it really true that Noam is the only person in the world that could have done what he did or where their in fact lots of people who would have succeed given the same opportunities?
That's not to devalue what they did or the impact - and I'm all for recognising the contributions of scientists to society - but the reality is, for the most part, talent competes for capital rather than the other way around.
I'd also point out that I suspect the high profile appointments of people like Noam and John to OpenAI and Anthropic is as much to do with adding star quality to the IPO as much bringing in talent ( and that's not to diminish their talent ).
You are working around the reality : Noam’s name is good on paper, just like a pro footballer player. His name re assures investors, reduces risks.
This is good.
I don’t care that some are jealous of him because they think they are as good as him in linear algebra.
> Having the whole world connected to top sports players also costs a lot of money, it doesn’t happen naturally
The existence of pay-per-view sports TV wasn't a pre-requisite for professional football - that existed way before - clubs self funded from gate receipts, local business sponsorship - they grew out of the local communities.
Sure, global TV has brought in the big money, but it wasn't required for the game to exist - but the opposite is true - pay-per-view sports TV is very dependent on sports like football.
> To become a good scientist you don’t need much classic capital, you need a good environment.
Pretty much all scientists learn their craft doing a government funded PhD in government funded labs using government funded equipment. ie governments provide the capital. People simply aren't self taught.
> And for ML you only need one computer for yourself or you can rent online
In theory - but modern AI is so resource intensive, good luck competing with the likes of Google/OpenAI, even Deepseek like that.
No, the way it worked in the past for pro sports wasn’t enough to have those players worldwide famous and gossiped all the time
We need to make science more popular
We disagree on learning science and engineers, this doesn’t require physical capital, it only requires human capital
> No, the way it worked in the past for pro sports wasn’t enough to have those players worldwide famous and gossiped all the time
So? The point is football doesn't require this. It's not necessary for football to happen. The first Fifa world cup was in 1930.
> We disagree on learning science and engineers, this doesn’t require physical capital, it only requires human capital
Try building a bridge without any money. Try detecting the Higgs Boson without CERN. Sure Peter Higgs can come up with the idea of the Higgs Boson with little capital ( though somebody still paid for his living expenses - he wasn't a self funded gentlemen scientist ) - but that's the exception - most of the work is like CERN - and requires significant equipment and capital.