zlacker

>practically all the important work in the world is done by private companies

LOL, another one thinks the US is the entire world.

>>romwel+(OP)
The comment about access is related to a US company. The relevant legal jurisdiction and framework is the US. If it were a French company, the relevant jurisdiction would be... France. You may not realize this, but OpenAI is a US company.

The comment about all the important work in the world being done by private companies was indeed a global comment. You may not realize this, but covid vaccines were made by astrazeneca (UK), BioNTech (Germany), several US companies and others. Defense companies are located in every major economy. Most countries have power systems which are privately owned. Commercial planes are mostly built by one large French company and one large US company. All the large producers of cars around the world are private companies - big ones exist in the US, Japan, various European countries, Korea and China.

>>daniel+J1
It looks like you have a problem understanding the meaning of the word "all".

Specifically, you are confusing all and some.

>>romwel+E51
"practically all" was the initial statement. The second mention is a reference to that statement.

A basic education in economics (and manners) might be in order.

>>daniel+7S1
>A basic education in economics (and manners) might be in order.

Oh, I apologize. I have idiotism allergies.

>"practically all" was the initial statement

Yeah, and my original statement still stands.

Go open a history book or something. Or find out what "N" in "NSF" stands for, or realize that China exist.

>>romwel+sA2
NSF budget is 10 bill or so out of a 20+ trill economy, less than a tenth of a %. Even if you thought 90% of work wasn't important... 10 bill out of 2 trill is tiny.

>>daniel+LD3
So you measure importance of work by the amount of money spent on it?

My do you have some peculiar ideas.

>>romwel+a34
Re-read it. I'm measuring the amount of work by the amount of money. Total GDP = total work. 10% of GDP = 10% of total work. GDP is a decent proxy for total work... Add reading comprehension 101 to econ 101 and then it will compute.

>>daniel+l54
Re-read what you wrote yourself.

You were using the NSF budget as a measure of importance of its work.

You also compared it to the GDP, which only makes sense if you think that all work done is equally important. How very socialist of you.

>Add reading comprehension 101 to econ 101 and then it will compute

What you say "computes" only after adding Dunning-Kruger to the mix.

>>romwel+Sq4
Nope, the calcs above assume all NSF work is important, and they show how little work they do as a % of all the work. Then as a % if we assumed 90% of all work (keeping all NSF work important) wasn't important.

To calculate a %, both the numerator and denominator have to be the same units.

>>daniel+ol5
> and they show how little work they do as a % of all the work. Then as a % if we assumed 90% of all work (keeping all NSF work important) wasn't important.

Great, you're simply saying that pretty much all of science has the same importance as 10% of all other work being done. And you consider budget as a measure of output.

All that in the context of a conversation about technological breakthroughs, mind you.

By that metric, someone like Richard Feynman has produced less important work than your average run-of-the-mill engineer with a slightly higher salary.

Did you time-travel here from the USSR? The leadership there had similar ideas back in the day.

This is becoming very entertaining at this point.

>>romwel+kF6
Econ 101 is your friend.

>>daniel+0Y6
It is. So is the reality.

Highly recommend, A+++, 10/10.

"Impact is hard to measure, so let's take budget as a proxy" has got to be the hottest take of the year, and yes, I'm aware it's January.