I got paid minimum wage to solve an impossible problem
9 months ago by Occhioverde to c/programming
Probably could've mentioned at some point in that whole article that Albert Heijn is a supermarket chain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Heijn
it doesn't matter. Also if it was Walmart would you also have suggested it?
My problem was that "Albert Heijn" is a dude's name. It does not exactly scream "we're talking about a real physical building".
For all I knew, the impossible problem we're solving could've been on a mathematical plane, named after mathematician Albert Heijn. "Sweeping" just as well can be used in an abstract sense.
Obviously, I did think of physically sweeping a physical floor first and foremost, but especially with the rest of the blog post being so entirely abstract, I had doubts on that for far too long, which did not make it easier to understand.
The article is nice and the finals observations are saddly so true :/ :(
Even LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT optimize for the wrong thing. They optimize for sounding confident. For sounding like they know the answer. Not for being right. Not for being honest.
Fun read, but odd title for someone punching well above their weight for literally no incentive other than the relish of the challenge. Minimum wage =/= maximum effort... What was the meme about the guy fabricating a set of scary cardboard monsters to cower near? Similar energy.
It makes much more sense if you read the last third or so of the post.
They convert their examples of algorithms optimizing for different or wrong things into direct social commentary on how social media algos optimize for rage, as this is more profitable than something that would optimize for... you know, improving society... many elements of modern tech driven society are optimizing for the wrong thing.
The entire set up of the post is 'i am a computer scientist and my job is i sweep floors in a grocery store'.
That entire setup is a society nonsensically 'optimizing' what it does with workers of various skill sets.
This person did this because they are immensely bored and underutilized, they are underemployed.
IE, the labor market / education system is very badly optimized.
A better optimized society would have them writing a post with them describing a more consequential, practically useful code adventure.
More to the point:
Yes, many elements of modern tech driven society are the way they are optimized for rage, buts that is only because rage drives engagement and engagement makes a select few people very rich.
As long as we allow individuals to become insanely rich and or powerful, this. will. never. change.
It's not that hard, simple rules, ban billionaires. Set a hard cap on personal wealth and anything you earn over that goes 100% to taxes.
Fun read, great lesson.
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"technical correctness is worthless if you’re solving the wrong problem."
100% agreed
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