It seems like we're seeing evidence that the class system is alive and well in the UK. Listen to his posh accent, and look at the easy way he casually hangs out with Stephen Fry: http://vimeo.com/52014691
I suspect the story behind this is simply "upper-class child with family connections finds success."
From the video, he also seems like he's greatly overhyping the whole thing (as is everyone else, of course). Genetic algorithms are not even remotely close to human intelligence, quantitatively or qualitatively, so his claims to that effect are nonsensical and misleading.
One common strain I see with child prodigies, or whatever you want to call them, is that their accomplishments are often greatly exaggerated and they usually don't end up contributing as much as many who make great contributions later in life (few famous historical scientists and artists, with the exception perhaps of Mozart, were what we would consider child prodigies, and many were quite the opposite). I don't know if it's caused by resting on their laurels, burning out, or them just not being as good as they claimed, but it doesn't seem like a healthy model at all.
Summly in particular doesn't come across as being all that complicated - genetic analysis of text is a well-researched and thoroughly trodden part of applied complexity theory - but rather a smart business move made by investors and businessmen mostly behind the scenes. D’Aloisio comes across more as a poster boy than anything - he's put up as this child prodigy, but I've never read or heard anything particularly new, profound, or even that interesting from him.
Not forgetting Mendelssohn as the prime example. Neither Mozart nor Chopin wrote anything comparable in stature to the Octet written when Felix was 16 years old. It's one
of the those pieces where within a minute or so you simply 'know' you're listening to a work of genius. Yes, entirely o/t especially on this site. Sorry!
I don't like that the word 'child prodigy' is thrown around for this. For Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, etc. you simply have individuals who were all offspring of musicians, who started at young ages, who both listened to music played by their parents for hours and practiced it for themselves for hours more. Likewise with mathematicians, programming prodigies, etc.
And, Chopin's later work is indeed much more mature -- compare the difference for example between the Nocturne in E minor which he wrote when he was 19, and Nocturne in C-Minor, No 21, which he wrote shortly before his death. The difference is pretty stark -- and even non-musicians can sort of detect the growth. I can say likewise for most composers, their craft honed with time -- it's difficult for me to think of any composer who composed something tremendous in the very beginning just out of nowhere -- that kind of stuff doesn't happen.
I'm not sure calling Mozart and Chopin prodigies qualifies as throwing terms around [lightly]. With so much recorded music being created over the millennia (since the invention of musical notation), these two, among a few others, stand out as undeniable geniuses of their craft. It also so happens that they started to make waves very early, which wasn't that easy to accomplish in an artist's lifetime back then, especially when you consider that Chopin gave only some 30 public performances in the last 19 years of his life spent in Paris and away from oppressed Poland. Chopin was seven years old when he composed two critically-acclaimed Polonaises, in G minor and B-flat major. Would you really not call him a prodigy?
The techcrunch article[1] mentioned SRI as a partner.
Just a wild guess, but maybe all the "intelligence" of the app is courtesy SRI, which has proven expertise in the machine learning & natural language processing fields.
Now, for the rest of us: we've got some bootstraps to pull, because we can achieve success too, if we work hard enough (yes, that's sarcasm, not purple koolaid)
The class system is alive and well in the USA too. Less easily recognized perhaps, as the myth of the American Dream(sm) with its "look at these successful underdogs" is the perfect misdirection. Dig a little deeper and you'll most hugely successful startups came from money (i.e. "friends and family" rounds under rule 506).
That's the impression I got from day one. Him or his parents had connections to get someone interested from day one.
I am also very curious about this so called "algorithm".
For all I know, it could be a very well made genuine admin interface plugged into multiple turks. That is what I would have done.
Indeed. I haven't tried the app in months, but downloaded it shortly after launch, and it unequivocally sucked. The summarization simply wasn't effective and often gave incoherent information or incomplete sentences.
This story seems to boil down to an individual that created a moderately-functioning app who's success was enabled by his family connections and amplified by a media industry voracious for this kind of shit.
"Now we've wasted $10,000 as we dont have the article to accompany the efforts. / That puts us in debt and we can't pay that back for ourselves so now I'm going to have to go without food for the next month."
What an elevator pitch! If this Yahoo! thing doesn't pan out....
I was commenting on his desperate sounding emails when clearly he was not in personal financial peril. After reading more about the project and his background, he seems talented enough.
>It seems like we're seeing evidence that the class system is alive and well in the UK.
Yes of course it is, I think anyone in the UK would know that. But do you imagine you're making a contrast here? The class system is alive and well in most places. Do you know what Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They all grew up well to do.
Christ, get over the class thing. Yes, if you have parents and good connections you've got an advantage. Yes, these traits are often a result of class historically. But trying to use class as an excuse for your own failure is not valid in this day and age.
>But trying to use class as an excuse for your own failure is not valid in this day and age.
If it's a factor, then it's perfectly valid. All this talk about "it's your own failure" only serves to stop anybody from attempting to change the overall class thing (not by his individual, outlier, success: systemically).
I don't see many rich black entrepreneurs coming from Mississippi or Alabama, for example. Or from "white trash" trailer parks. Or the latino California population.
Mostly upper and higher middle class white and asian families with mucho dinero.
Do you see anything different?
Let's take the top 100 successful startup founders of the last 10 years and check their backgrounds.
Can't really comment, I have no understanding of USA's class system, but as I said, coming from a wealthy and connected background is no longer exclusively for the upper classes. Passive aggressive reverse snobbery is pointless.
The parent of your comment is exactly the other prong of the faux meritocracy argument. One side is this story about the 15 year old kid who "made it". That's the carrot. The other side is, "yeah, if you don't make it, its your own fault. Just work harder, smarter, etc." That's the stick.
So, the implication is that we are living in a meritocracy. If you happen to be astute enough to point out how ridiculous that is on its face, then the response is that you're whining and you should be able to overcome anyway. Nothing needs to be addressed in the system and nevermind that the game is rigged. You just need to be less of a loser.
No. The upper classes have lived on the same estate for 5 generations, can trace their family back to the Doomsday Book, don't work in the "have a job" sense, had a massively disproportionate wealth up to the first world war and possibly still do (or, conversely, are massively in debt against their crumbling mansion which they won't give up a. out of principle and b. because no-one wants it) and inherit usable practical clothes that their grandparents wore.
That's a very narrow definition which would even exclude people like Alan Sugar who has an actual lordship and knighthood as well piles of cash.
It's not an especially useful definition anyway, if your family has a lot of money it doesn't make much practical difference whether they got that via inheritance or via starting facebook you will get similar advantages either way.
What? There is no way that anyone could consider Alan Sugar to be upper class? Was that an attempt at a joke? There's some sort of deep cultural disconnect going on here. Are you English?
"Practical difference" What are you talking about? Rich is rich. Upper class is upper class. Traditionally / historically being upper class has implied money. Having money has never implied upper class.
Are USAians so disconnected from the concept of "the rest of the world" as to fail to realise that an English article about class has nothing to do with USAian concepts of class?
The number of downvotes and poor quality of debate has been really quite shocking.
I suspect the story behind this is simply "upper-class child with family connections finds success."