They are similar in that you have some data stored somewhere, and you can query it as though it was data stored inside a 'conventional' database that has it's own storage that it manages itself.
But whereas Presto/Trino/Bigquery/etc are server-based where queries execute on a cluster of compute nodes, duckdb is something you run locally, in-process.
Moral standard is progressing. No matter what spectrum of politics you are, it is way different than 200 years ago.
With an AI program... how is it going to evolve?
intelligence is a lottery at birth, assuming the education system is good enough at identify talents of all kind. and with the world especially Asian countries better at this, I think we do need more human to maintain the current talents pool.
There is a part of genetics, like most things, but if you look at past geniuses, there is a common pattern, wealthy enough families able to afford tutors.
No, it certainly does not. Obviously, a higher socioeconomic background means increased resources and dedicated attention to education which certainly helps, but genius, in the true sense of the word needs a good starting foundation, and that probably has a significant genetic component.
Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Ramanujan were all child prodigies without exceptional access to tutors and other educational resources.
If tutoring could produce geniuses (160 IQ) we would have a billion dollar industry around it instead of snake oil companies like Luminosity.
Einstein actually did have a tutor (Max Talmey). Any access to tutors at the time was exceptional, as the majority of families could not afford that.
Einstein was also raised in a family that can not be described as average.
His father had an interest in mathematics and founded 2 electrical engineering companies
His mother was well-educated and worked as a piano player. She made Albert begin violin lessons at the age of five.
It seems to me that Albert Einstein did not grow up under average conditions. His family had some financial issues, but was able to give him a good education.
The only reason that tutoring is not more widely used is because it has scaling issues.
You need one very experienced, patient and skilled tutor for each kid. The cost would be unbearable except for the wealthiest families.
And of course, while it will consistently improve the skills and mental abilities of the tutored kid, it won't produce a genius every time, there are many out-of-control factors, including genetics but also related to early life, bacteria and viruses infections can slow/stunt the growth of an immature body, and impact all its functions.
i don't agree with the genetic argument but with your other point.
producing geniuses is not a billion dollar industry because we don't yet even know how to teach to that. but that doesn't mean that we could not improve teaching and peoples potential massively.
china used to have a billion dollar tutoring industry (ok, i don't know if it was a billion, but china is huge so it's possible) until a change of laws shut it down.
but this chinese tutoring industry was not aimed at producing geniuses. instead it was aimed at exploiting parents, extracting their money without providing any real value except putting pressure on the children to perform.
It was aimed at improving performance on state mandated standardized tests. They were effective, but if everyone did them, the curve was just shifted and no one seemed to benefit in particular (but society is arguably better off if everyone is higher IQ).
that was what they were selling, but apart from the problem of everyone doing it, there were also many shady operations to outright scams that never even intended to provide the value they promised.
yes, but this only goes as far as being able to explain the difference between humans and other animals. it doesn't at all explain the differences between different humans because other factors are so strong that so far we have not been able to isolate genetic differences as a factor in human intelligence. even twin studies have been flawed in this regard.
If we had to wager whether there was any genetic component to intelligence differences among humans, I think the safe wager is on “there is some” over “there is none”.
yes, but i'd also wager that it is completely drowned out by other factors. if genetics improve my intelligence by 1% and teaching can improve it by 10% then what's the point?
those genetics will only be a factor among those receiving no teaching at all, or those who receive the maximum teaching possible. but they will hardly factor in in the middle of the bell curve where every genetic advantage by one person can be outdone by another one putting in more effort. the difference then between you and me will be that your genetic advantage will allow you to reach the same result as me with less effort. there is practically no benefit for you. or the advantage is so small that we won't even notice most of the time. if at all.
any model that relies on genetic advantages as a factor only works if we assume that those naturally more intelligent automatically bubble to the top and are not held back by other factors, all which have the potential to nullify any advantages they may have had
I disagree with the last paragraph. If there are four factors that all combine to create an outcome, we don’t ignore factor 1 just because factors 2-4 can nullify any advantage.
My garden grows based on light, CO2, macro nutrients, and water. We don’t say “CO2 is not a factor in plant growth because deficits in water, nutrients, and light can prevent it from showing in overall outcome.”
but that depends on how large the factor actually is. if it were 10% or more, then sure. but the fact that the very existence of a genetic factor is put into question, suggests that the factor, if it exists, is so small that it really is negligible.
another reason why we can ignore a genetic factor is that we can not influence it. or, that trying to influence it carries serious ethical implications.
it is also to small to serve as a tool to predict future performance.
the potential of humanity is largely underutilized. the reason we need geniuses now is because our current way of teaching is not enabling peoples potential as well as it could. it doesn't even take individual tutoring. better teaching methods such as montessori, project based learning, smaller groups (say a 10 to 1 ratio in class compared to the 50 to 1 ratio i see in china and other countries i have visited) would be a massive increase in the quality of education creating a potential way beyond what a doubling of the number of geniuses could ever achieve.
research is mixed about small class sizes (maybe 1 in 10 as you said, on 1 in 5, would be beneficial but there is very little difference between 1 in 20 and 1 in 50). Not a rebuttal, just adding some info
Lots of people get tutored without becoming geniuses, hence tutoring isn't enough to make geniuses. Also many geniuses didn't have tutoring, they need wealthy enough families to afford public school which used to be a high bar but today most people gets it even if you include poor countries.
> they need wealthy enough families to afford public school
Note that what the UK origin term “public schools” means is not the same as what that means in other countries, which can confuse these discussions in a global forum. (In the US, we’d call that “private school”.)
Many of these sites have terms that give the site owner a license to do the activities that would happen when training AI’s. In theory, some terms look like they could even bundle the data for AI training or run that phase themselves. It’s actually a good, market/public-benefit opportunity I hope they act on, esp HN and Arxiv.
I didnt read enough to see if any random person using the site had a license to do anything they want with any copyrighted content on the site vs just reading it. It did have a lot to say about copyright, though. Two quotes were interesting:
“z-lib.io the site doesn't provide any piracy copyright infigrment contents and you shouldn't use site for illegal copyright piracy.”
“Company respects the intellectual property of others and asks that users of our Site do the same. In connection with our Site, we have adopted and implemented a policy respecting copyright law that provides for the removal of any infringing materials and for the termination of users of our online Site who are repeated infringers of intellectual property rights, including copyrights.”
(Note: One of those quotes is also on the About Us page.)
They respect copyright, claim to not violate it, ban violating it, and will take down violators and their uploads. It would seem z library has a stronger stance on copyright protection than the AI community.
I can't agree more. I'm from China, and did Math Olympiad before as well and ended up in US. And most of good ones are here as well, except those would works well with that system.
