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by bangaladore 273 days ago
In theory, but I'm not sure that's true in practice. There are plenty of mundane, non-groundbreaking tasks that will likely be done by those electrical engineers and the more people, the more space, the more tasks are to be done. And not to mention more engineers does not equal better engineers. And the types to work on these sorts of projects are going to be the best engineers, not the "okay" ones.

It's certainly non-linear.
2 comments
immibis 273 days ago
The more engineers you can sample from (in absolute number), the better (in absolute goodness, whatever that is) the top, say, 500 of them are going to be.
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bangaladore 272 days ago
That's assuming top-tier engineers are a fixed percent of graduates. That's not true and has never been.

Does 5x the number of math graduates increase the number of people with ability like Terrance Tao? Or even meaningfully increase the number of top tier mathematicians? It really doesn't. Same with any other science or art. There is a human factor involved.

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immibis 272 days ago
Suppose there's only one Terrance Tao. Then sampling from 5x the number of people increases the probability he's in the sample (by about 5x).

Suppose there's more than one. Then sampling from 5x the number of people increases the average number of him that you get (by about 5x).

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KerryJones 273 days ago
This is not necessarily true. Hypothetical, if most breakthroughs are coming from PHDs and they aren't making any PHDs, then that pool is not necessarily larger.
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tonyhart7 273 days ago
"not to mention more engineers does not equal better engineers."

funny that you mention this because many top AI talent from big tech companies are from chinnese Ivy league graduate

US literally importing AI talent war as highest as ever and yet you still have doubt

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bangaladore 272 days ago
You just said what I said. I didn't say that 100% of the graduates are stupid, but certainly not all high tier either. We aren't in extreme need of the average electrical engineer or the average software engineer. That's a fact. Look at unemployment rates.
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tonyhart7 272 days ago
I don't like this argument since you can apply this into any country on earth and the answer would be the same

You are trying too hard to be right meanwhile 40% top AI talent in big tech is chinnese

so higher number = more chance smart people is indeed true and your argument is just waste of time

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