Please don't. Just give 1M to fund 1000 new labs, with potentially 1000 news ideas. - ThreadSky

jbarbosa.org • 71 days ago

Please don't. Just give 1M to fund 1000 new labs, with potentially 1000 news ideas.

This vision demands substantial scale. The institution would need to launch with at least $1 billion to achieve the critical mass necessary for both breakthrough science and sustainable operations through spinouts. More on why here: 13/14 bsky.app/profile/thet...

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kamdh.bsky.social•71 days ago

Yes. This is the correct response.

neuralreckoning.bsky.social•71 days ago

Yeah, not a good idea to put a huge amount of resources into one idea when a field is still at the point where most ideas are wrong.

seanescola.bsky.social•70 days ago

I believe the proposal is not to fund one idea, but rather build an incubator for many ideas that, after the initial investment, pays for itself sustainably in perpetuity. It also addresses the gap in funding dedicated to intelligence science per se. It’s a problem that #NeuroAI grants go to the NIH

neuralreckoning.bsky.social•70 days ago

My bad! Interesting idea to explore new models. I don't think $1bn is enough to do what he wants to do in that case.

davidamarkowitz.bsky.social•71 days ago

A lot of people said the same thing about MICrONS spending $100M on neural circuit mapping. However, without that investment, we wouldn't have a fly connectome to guide new ideas. And we wouldn't have (even richer) maps of cortex https://www.microns-explorer.org/ Big science can be transformative.

jbarbosa.org•71 days ago

That's a successful case indeed but there are other failed cases like the HBP.

There's empirical evidence that smaller groups are more beneficial for science:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00581-4

1/2

jbarbosa.org•71 days ago

Also, I find your motivation slightly inconsistent: if we are at a threshold of understanding intelligence then why not focus on something else equally or more important but really needs a big push to get closer to the threshold?

2/2

davidamarkowitz.bsky.social•71 days ago

I'd also encourage you to consider the perspective in my earlier thread below. Academia teaches us to think small to conform to how the system works. This stifles innovation in its own way. https://bsky.app/profile/davidamarkowitz.bsky.social/post/3lcxwy7xsmk23

jbarbosa.org•71 days ago

This view is inspiring, thank you for mentioning it.

It's still my opinion that "figuring out intelligence" sounds like a research plan designed to please tech moguls, but it's my understanding that this would be public money.

seanescola.bsky.social•70 days ago

The article describes a “privately funded and self-sustaining entity” and specifically eschews reliance on public funds

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