alt Hacker NewsBecause the Even Bitterer Lesson is that The Bitter Lesson is true but not actionable. You still have to build the inefficient ”clever” system today because The Bitter Lesson only tells you that your system will be obliterated, it doesn’t tell you when. Some systems built today will last for years, others will last for weeks, others will be obsoleted before release, and we don’t know which are which.
I’m hoping someday that dude releases an essay called The Cold Comfort. But it’s impossible to predict when or who it will help, so don’t wait for it.
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The principal of optimal slack tells you that if your training will take N months on current computing hardware that you should go spend Y months at the beach before buying the computer, and you will complete your task in better than N-Y months thanks to improvements in computing power.
Of course, instead of the beach one could spend those Y months improving the algorithms... but it's never wise to bid against yourself if you don't have to.
A colloquially is that to maximize your beach time you should work on the biggest N possible, neatly explaining the popularity of AI startups.
Yeah I get it. I just don't like that is always sorta framed as a can't win don't try message.