wedrifid comments on Fast Minds and Slow Computers - Less Wrong

26 Post author: jacob_cannell 05 February 2011 10:05AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 06 February 2011 06:25:38AM 2 points [-]

C++ is the slowest-to-compile mainstream language, so it's probably not the best example when discussing the ultimate limits of compilation speed. It heavily favors trading off compilation speed for abstractive power, which probably isn't a good deal for a THz brain that can afford to spend more time coding (this is complicated by the fact that more code leads to more bugs leads to more iterations).

This is especially the case given that THz brain does not particularly need to worry about industry acceptance or prevalence of libraries. C++ trades off compilation speed for abstractive power in an extremely inefficient and largely obsolete way. It isn't even all that powerful in terms of possible abstractions. At least relative to a serious language.

Comment author: jacob_cannell 07 February 2011 06:03:27AM 2 points [-]

C++ trades off compilation speed for abstractive power in an extremely inefficient and largely obsolete way. It isn't even all that powerful in terms of possible abstractions. At least relative to a serious language.

What do you have in mind for a serious language? Something new?

I think the advantage of C++ for a hyperfast thinker (and by the way my analysis was of a GHZ brain, not a THZ brain - the latter is even wierder) is the execution speed. You certainly could and would probably want to test some things with a scripting language, but 1khz computers are really really slow, even when massively parallel. You would be wanting every last cycle.

One other interesting way to make money - you could absolutely clean house in computer trading. You could think at the same speed as the simple algorithmic traders but apply the massive intelligence of a cortex to predict and exploit them. This is a whole realm humans can not enter.

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