[cocktailpeanuts]

There was a time not too far back when people used to be considered a "genius" for their ability to memorize things well.

Nowadays nobody thinks of them as geniuses.

Also, people used to be considered geniuses for knowing a lot of things.

Nowadays information is just a Google search away, so knowing a lot doesn't really mean as much as it used to. What matters more nowadays is your ability to learn synthesize the things you know to come up with creative solutions to things.

Basically the "memory" part of human brains have become commoditized without us even realizing.

It's still very early but I do think there have been some subtle but significant step forward in the last couple of years. The most important being: machines are capable of doing certain things better in ways humans can't comprehend easily. I think this is a glimpse into the future where the "creativity" aspect of our brains will become commoditized, also without us realizing.

This doesn't mean machines will take over, just like machines didn't take over the world because they have better memory. But I think this will result in many humans taking advantage of this aspect to exert influence on rest of the humanity.

[andrepd]

> Also, people used to be considered geniuses for knowing a lot of things.

This is still true, and in the eagerness to dismiss "memorization" as a thing of the past you overlook the obvious. For example, anything you care to know about, say, C++ programming or quantum field theory is available to you on the internet. But does that mean you can write a C++ program as if you had already learned it? What if you want to write a C++ program and you have to look up everything? You will do a very poor job if at all, and you will take a lot of time.

So yeah, until looking up stuff in the internet is as quick as effective as looking stuff up in your brain (the quick may happen but the effective I don't think so), then it still is a very worthy skill.

[jayd16]

But you've just proven cocktailpeanuts point that its about the ability to use the knowledge, not simply recall it.

[adharmad]

The ability to use knowledge does not come out of thin air. It is unlikely to find someone who knows how to program C++ extremely well, or solve problems in Quantum Field theory, but does not remember most of the language constructs or mathematical equations.

Continuous practice involves putting in the hours at practicing an art or a science, which by itself builds muscle memory about the language syntax/equations etc. It is unlikely that one can remember one but not the other.

[jacobolus]

“The best geologist is he who has seen the most rocks.” – H. H. Read

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Well, in that case:

"All science is either physics or stamp collecting" -Ernest Rutherford.

[andrepd]

You can't use the knowledge well if you have to look everything up every time, that's my point.

[skybrian]

Memory still matters when it matters. For example, when learning a new language. In general, good real-time performance is going to require practice and memorization. It's the trivial stuff you rarely need that's less valued.

There are some other things that I think are less valued these days:

- Informed speculation counts for less when you could do a search instead. Maybe a good thing?

- Cleverness counts less when there are memes everywhere. Jokes are ever more cheap and disposable.

On the other hand, good judgement of what you find still counts.

[cocktailpeanuts]

> For example, when learning a new language

That's a good point, because I think this "ability to speak multiple languages" will become commoditized too through technology. You already see pieces of technology that enable you to communicate in realtime (although clunky and not accessible enough at the moment)

I agree that "realtime" aspect would be the last wall that will stand to distinguish humans from machines, that is, until humans can find ways to inject circuits into the brain (which is already being explored by multiple entrepreneurs and scientists)

[YeGoblynQueenne]

See my post above. We have very good translation dictionaries, that list all the meanings of words in two languages you might ever need. Why isn't that multilingual ability being commoditized? And why is it still not possible for most people to speak many languages as well as their native one?

[cocktailpeanuts]

I am going to assume that this was a question you asked out of true curiosity and not a rhetorical one.

Technology has commoditized a lot of things historically. Just because you don't see something happening, doesn't mean it won't happen in the future.

Also did you read the comment you just replied to? Because that's exactly the answer to your question. Currently the language translation has not been commoditized because we still have the last mile problem. There is always certain threshold technology needs to cross before it becomes widely spread. Currently using those dictionaries and google translate are still too slow and you can't interact in realtime that way. Once you can directly hook circuits into your brain (or something with a similar effect), this this will change.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Also did you read the comment you just replied to?

Sure. Did you read the posting guidelines?

[lloydde]

> Nowadays information is just a Google search away, so knowing a lot doesn't really mean as much as it used to.

You give Google search too much credit. What is a click away is still largely superficial information on any topic and the popular (or specific data set) is often extremely biased or downright incorrect.

[cocktailpeanuts]

"First world problems"

[yladiz]

It is not a "first world problem" to want to search for accurate and unbiased information.

[cocktailpeanuts]

I guess you didn't get the metaphor "first world problem".

Go back a couple of decades and you'll find central authorities and organizations with agenda to manipulate the public could easily do so because the rest 99.99% didn't have access to information.

People who wanted truth had absolutely 0 way of attaining the truth back then. Now you're complaining about how it's "hard" to search for accurate and unbiased information. It's not even THAT hard, you just need to google a bit more, sure it's not easy for everyone, but at least there's a way.

[lloydde]

Context matters and the context of my assertion was "Nowadays information is just a Google search away, so knowing a lot doesn't really mean as much as it used to."

Knowing a lot still means a lot ;)

I do generally agree with you though I'm hesitant to use the term "truth". There is a part where it is first world solution: a lot more information is now also available to citizens in the first world.

But you are wrong that it is not that hard or that it is an issue of googling a bit more. In many areas Google's improvements in these decades has been incremental. And if your search term matches hot commerce terms then likely no amount of googling will get you where you want to go.

[cocktailpeanuts]

Yeah i take back my words about how it's not that hard. I think I'm relatively good at google myself, sometimes I wonder how people who're not good at searching can live their lives. For example, most of the times "being a good programmer" means being able to come up with the right search query to search for your problem on stackoverflow. Most of the times you don't even know what to search for.

That said, I've been comparing the current status with how it used to be before the Internet, so I guess we're pretty much on the same page.

[polskibus]

Google made fact recollection less important than before. However, Google itself prefers people who do well on whiteboard interview, which could be solved perfectly by some Google searches! Memorization of historical facts is one thing, but training your memory for fast retrieval of facts and associations is still highly valued. Therefore it is still important to train your memory to the extreme. You'll do something better if you do it more than once.

[amelius]

> Google itself prefers people who do well on whiteboard interview, which could be solved perfectly by some Google searches!

I don't see the problem if these problems can also be solved without relying exclusively on knowledge.

As an outsider, I'd say that Google's hiring strategy is pretty successful.

[polskibus]

Good luck passing the interview without thorough CS education, of which a lot is achieved through memorization and memory training. Your interviewer would never be patient enough to wait for you to figure things out in a couple of months.

[cfmcdonald]

How do you synthesize knowledge that you haven't memorized? How do you know in advance that you can usefully synthesize A and B (and that therefore you should look up B, which you don't know)?

[abhi3]

>Nowadays information is just a Google search away

Knowing what is credible and what is not on the internet is a skill in itself. If you don't have that skill you'd likely be telling people all about how Bush did 9/11 or how hillary killed a DNC employee.

[rcpt]

That part can be automated to. See https://fullfact.org/blog/2016/aug/automated-factchecking/ for example

[nopinsight]

AlphaGo is better than humans at seeing patterns and making inferences based on simulations of possibilities, within a limited and perfect information domain. Several professional Go players have described AlphaGo's play as 'creative' and 'beautiful'.

What if technology similar to AlphaGo can be generalized to domains with imperfect information (Libratus from CMU recently beat top Poker players. DeepStack which is NN-based achieved a similar feat.) and to other domains (DeepMind is working on Starcraft.)? What are our remaining competitive advantages against machines?

What are future geniuses supposed to be like or to do (assuming your presupposition)?

[imranq]

I would argue that memory is even more important now since it allows you to think of new things and connect things in your head. Even if we had a neural chip that gave us all of Wikipedia, it would not be the same as intentionally studying something and memorizing it.

While it's a lot easier to get superficial knowledge, the ability to do something deeply is an incredibly valuable skill that is powered by memory. Heck even Euler, one of the greatest mathemeticians of all time had a phenomenal memory and could recite any verse from the Aeneid at will - I don't doubt that memory was a critical component of his success.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Basically the "memory" part of human brains have become commoditized without us even realizing.

So, explain this to me like I'm 5. If Google search means you don't need to remember any knowledge any more, why is it that possession of an English-Greek dictionary does not render one capable of speaking both languages fluently?

You can look up all the words you want. Assume you have a grammar of each language at hand, also. Do you think you would be able to speak fulently or understand a fluent speaker of a language you don't know?