I just overcame my aversion to medium to read your article, then I read the rest. I have to admit I’m very impressed, not only with what you were doing back then, but the fact we were exploring the same corners before modern “data science” was even a thing! My parallel journey was on a different track from NLP though. I was exploring spike-train-based neural net architecture, unsupervised learning, and how to give neural networks “tools” to work with (not tool calls, actual tools like a paint brush and a virtual canvas, etc). Damn… I think I still have ancient videos of that on my YT channel.
My Intel Celeron™ CPU could never handle more than 4 layers of ~512 neurons maybe? I don’t really remember the specifics, but I think that’s why I stopped back then.
I think that’s why the 2000s were magical for me, although your “grandpa” comments are now hitting me right in the soul. Damn it. :P
I’m glad that you like it but sorry for taking you to the dark side :-)
You are completely right, in the early 2000 and before, sites where built to share, help and learn. The word “enshitification” describes perfectly the current landscape. Luckily there are some oasis, like the fediverse and other places, where we can still feel Internet as it should be.
You’re welcome. :)
I just overcame my aversion to medium to read your article, then I read the rest. I have to admit I’m very impressed, not only with what you were doing back then, but the fact we were exploring the same corners before modern “data science” was even a thing! My parallel journey was on a different track from NLP though. I was exploring spike-train-based neural net architecture, unsupervised learning, and how to give neural networks “tools” to work with (not tool calls, actual tools like a paint brush and a virtual canvas, etc). Damn… I think I still have ancient videos of that on my YT channel.
My Intel Celeron™ CPU could never handle more than 4 layers of ~512 neurons maybe? I don’t really remember the specifics, but I think that’s why I stopped back then.
I think that’s why the 2000s were magical for me, although your “grandpa” comments are now hitting me right in the soul. Damn it. :P
I’m glad that you like it but sorry for taking you to the dark side :-)
You are completely right, in the early 2000 and before, sites where built to share, help and learn. The word “enshitification” describes perfectly the current landscape. Luckily there are some oasis, like the fediverse and other places, where we can still feel Internet as it should be.