Opinion: rebutting the claim that good ideas are getting harder to find
What happened
On October 10, Hacker News featured an opinion piece rebutting the popular claim that all the simple ideas have been done. The author calls that view both wrong and insulting to the human spirit, and lists historical cases: physics in the 1890s, surgery in 1873 and psychology before 1920 each thought it was near its end, and the 1956 Dartmouth workshop assumed ten people could solve AI's basic problems in one summer. Ideas look obvious in hindsight but were hard to find beforehand, the author argues, and that gap in perspective makes people think they are at a point of idea exhaustion.
Written by AI from the coverage · updated 1 hour ago
Coverage
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- Hacker News front pageIdeas aren't getting harder to find, anyone who tells you otherwise is a coward
针对"所有简单想法都已被做完"的流行论调，作者反驳称这种想法既错误又侮辱人类精神。他指出，1890 年代物理学界、1873 年外科手术界、1920 年前心理学界都曾自认接近终结，1956 年达特茅斯会议更以为十人用一个夏天就能解决 AI 基本问题。作者认为，事后看显而易见的想法和事前觉得困难，会让人误以为身处想法枯竭的拐点。
Heat over time
Not enough continuous observations to draw a trend yet.