[GuB-42]

Yes, but ideas are (mostly) worthless. I mean, they are necessary, but that's the easy part, building the technical foundation that make it possible is the hard part.

The internet needs wires and routers, distributed computing need a good network (i.e. the internet), current-day AI needs GPUs and GPUs need silicon chips that defy the laws of physics. Really, looking at the EUV lithography process makes all of computer science feel insignifiant by comparison, everything about it is absurd.

The real progress is that now, we can implement the ideas from the 70s, the good ones at least. I don't want to diminish the work of the founders of computer science, there is real genius here, but out of the billions of people on this planet, individual geniuses are not in short supply, but the real progress come from the millions of people that worked on the industrial complex, supply chains and trade that lead to modern GPUs, among everything that define modern computing.

[1718627440]

As for this measure, Software is worthless as well, which is basically fully specified ideas.

[GuB-42]

"Fully specified" is the important part here, and the work that went into making the idea fully specified is where the value lies.

For this, we could look at intellectual property laws. Ideas are not protected. Neither by patents, nor copyright, nor trademark. If you want to make your idea worthy with regard to the law, you have to "fully specify" it, turning it into an invention (patent), or code (copyright).