alt Hacker News>What is the goal?
Be the definitive first past the post in the budding "AI" industry.
Why? He who wins first writes the rules.
For an obvious example: The aviation industry uses feets and knots instead of metres because the US invented and commercialized aviation.
Another obvious example: Computers all speak ASCII (read: English) and even Unicode is based on ASCII because the US and UK commercialized computers.
If you want to write the rules you must win first, it is an absolute requirement. Runner-ups and below only get to obey the rules.
Replies
okay, but what advantages do these rules bring to the winner? what would these look like in this context?
i guess what i'm asking is: what was the practical advantage of ascii or feet and knots that made them so important?
The aviation and maritime industries use knots because the nautical mile is closely tied to longitude/latitude.
A vessel traveling at 1 knot along a meridian travels one minute of geographic latitude per hour.