Beowulf Pioneer Lured From Cal Tech to LSU

An anonymous reader writes "Thomas Sterling, a pioneer of clustered computing, including /.'s beloved Beowulf cluster, has has accepted a fully-tenured professorship at Louisiana State University's Center for Computation and Technology, ditching his old post at Cal Tech. From TFA: "At LSU, he hopes to develop the next generation of high-performance computers that will give birth to true artificial intelligence. By making computer chips more efficient, Sterling believes he can change computing by "one to three orders of magnitude" that will transform how humans interact with technology.""

Comments

Apt

[mfh]

At LSU, he hopes to develop the next generation of high-performance computers that will give birth to true artificial intelligence.

2theadvocate was down when I tried to read their story, so mirrors please?

I'll comment briefly (WRTFA):

I am sick of the term next generation: it irks me. I think if you're talking about devoting the next twenty years towards developing true AI, then the focus has to be about the direction that could be taken, the nuts and bolts of it all, and what the setbacks could be. High performance computers are like high performance people, in many ways, or at least they should be. Incentives must exist for a metrological system to present itself into the true nature of self and this measure supercedes the facility of overexaggeration, to the point where no truly defined system can surpass the narrow view of purpose devoted by the creator, without being heralded as a foolish endeavour. The heavy processing of high performance computing works against the nature of AI.

True AI means that mistakes will be made by the creator and the subject, and emotions will exist in the subject to counter-attack development stumbling blocks, and assist in development, or improve development of wisdom and ultimate self-awareness comes only from experiences of contrast, pain and pleasure (for example). These precepts have never come into cause with a system yet, because each system is built as an object and not a person; each system is built for a financial purpose and not a scientific purpose.

Science and finance are enemies, strange bedfellows that hate eachother but rely on eachother, in a bad marriage, with nothing to lose and at times everything to lose. How can balance come to this nature, to enable true AI to come forward out of the ashes?

How is it possible at all? I don't see it. I see just another generation of the same thing, so perhaps the term next generation is apt?

Predictable career move

[obispo]

His is a predictable move. If after 9 years at Caltech he was still mired in an untenured, non-tenure-track position of "faculty associate", it's natural that he jumped at the chance of becoming a full professor at LSU.

This comment is neither an endorsement nor an attempt to disparage the guy's technical merits, as I don't know the politics going on at Caltech. At least in computer science at Stanford, getting tenure has gotten ridiculously unlikely in the last several years.