
Request for Technically Risky Projects - astro-codes
What technical projects do you think should exist in the world? What hard problems exist in your field? Where do you think the frontiers of science&#x2F;technology lie?<p>I&#x27;m interested in learning about hard technical problems you think are worth solving.
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manx
Creating a "Wikipedia of Arguments", one can refer to in public discussions.

It turns out that this is a way harder problem than I thought. I'm in this
space for some time now and am happy to talk about it.

Relevant links: [https://github.com/canonical-debate-
lab/paper/blob/master/RE...](https://github.com/canonical-debate-
lab/paper/blob/master/README.mediawiki)

[https://www.societylibrary.org/](https://www.societylibrary.org/)

~~~
jka
Let's hope that a well-constructed, well-behaved and well-participated
argument forum maintained over long enough timescales can lead towards better
outcomes for everyone. Best of luck with the project.

You might be aware of it already, but just in case, the most progress I've
seen in the area of web-based argument mapping has been Arguman (
[https://github.com/arguman/arguman.org](https://github.com/arguman/arguman.org)
). They're also following an open source model and there could be
opportunities to co-operate and/or share ideas.

~~~
manx
Thanks, I'm aware of it. There are quite a lot of tools in this space already.
Unfortunately, many are unaware of each-other and therefore making the same
mistakes and learnings over and over again.

Looking at all these tools makes it clear how difficult it is to create one
that actually "works".

Most of the researchers at the canonical debate lab created their own tool in
the past and are now discussing how a next-generation tool should look like.

~~~
jka
Cool. In some ways, that sounds like the software industry in a nutshell, to
be honest :)

Can you share a sense for what any of the core unsolved problems are? (I'd be
happy to read a mailing list / previous discussions if there's too much
background to be worth communicating in a comment here)

I've noticed that Arguman seemed to run into community management and spam
issues. More broadly speaking there seems to be a societal challenge in
getting people to trust and feel invested in honest debating and to accept
best-known truths.

~~~
manx
The core unsolved problems in my opinion are:

\- The argumentation data model

\- An attack/manipulation-proof community curation system (maybe similar to
StackOverflow)

\- A user-interface that can be used by anyone who is interested to
contribute, but powerful enough to work with the argumentation structure

There is a weekly zoom meeting every monday that is recorded and uploaded to
youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwMyf-
sRX2_Hqw-h9ba_S...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwMyf-
sRX2_Hqw-h9ba_StFt5jOKlpBcF)

~~~
jka
Late reply here, but thank you - I'll try to catch up on a few of those
recordings.

Edit: small clarification

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silentsea90
Way outside my field, but a platform for global climate management that links
current actions to future outcomes and accountability to nations and companies
would be very cool, assuming it is taken seriously by parties involved (which
is an even harder challenge). This is technically hard, but harder still from
a people perspective.

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sapientiae3
A Laser Mosquito Turret for homes, that uses a directional microphone to home
in on the target.I don’t believe that it would be difficult to build the laser
part, but the difficulty would be in making it safe for home use.

~~~
toomuchtodo
[https://photonicsentry.com/](https://photonicsentry.com/)

~~~
csomar
Isn't that a safety-hazard. The laser is probably strong enough to make you
blind if it hits you wrongly in the eye.

~~~
muzani
It's for industrial uses. There are more dangerous things, like chainsaws and
microwaves. You either design it to be safer (microwave) or keep humans out of
the way (chainsaw).

It sounds like parent commenter is working on the former.

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Dirak
An alternative to the html model for building websites. The html model is
antiquated for building web apps, and inconsistent across various browsers x
platforms. The direction of the spec imo is becoming an overengineered mess
that is increasingly controlled by the Google (see portals and web packages).

With the arrival of webgpu, I predict we'll begin to see end to end frameworks
for building web apps that own the entire pipeline of application state
management to drawing pixels on the screen.

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qlk1123
I have two regarding embedded software stack,

1\. Memory Safety C-language literally dominates embedded software stack,
while every on knows it is not memory safe and terrible memory bugs will be
found but not yet discovered.

2\. Compile time The whole GNU toolchain take minutes if not hours to make,
which makes CI/CD painfully long.

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runawaybottle
No one seems to trust vpns. I wonder if a VPN company almost needs to be law
technology. All of our attempts at privacy is technically sound but lacks the
backing of solid lawyers ready to hold it down. That’s got to be worth
something.

~~~
ta17711771
So the implied trust due to legal backing through same ownership as a law
firm?

Interesting.

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p1esk
Making large transformer based models like Jukebox [1] efficient enough so
that they can be trained on a single 8x GPU machine to the same level of
quality as the original model, in the same amount of time.

[1] [https://openai.com/blog/jukebox/](https://openai.com/blog/jukebox/)

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rapnie
Decentralized search in p2p / federated networks.

Privacy-respecting decentralized online identity.

~~~
ragerino
I am sure you know about Solid.

Just in case: [https://solidproject.org/](https://solidproject.org/)

~~~
rapnie
Thanks. Yes, I do. There is a lot of work in the field of decentralized
identity, but status is still far from a 'solved problem'. Work being done by
Rebooting the Web of Trust [0] (see their github repo's) and Identity
Foundation [1]. Besides Solid there's a bunch of interesting, related specs
evolving like Verifiable Credentials [2], Self Sovereign Identity (I hope for
impls without the blockchain).

[0] [http://www.weboftrust.info/](http://www.weboftrust.info/)

[1] [https://identity.foundation/](https://identity.foundation/)

[2] [https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/](https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-
model/)

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literallycancer
Typed language with extremely fast compile times suitable for use by neural
nets.

------
HelpEveryone
Spectacles that run 24/7

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_alex_
The "cold-start" problem of new social network sites

~~~
silentsea90
Apologies for the condescension, and with all due respect, building a social
network is a bit neo Silicon valley frothy.

~~~
cweagans
the idea of building another facebook is just...ugh.

however, a friend of mine has been working on a community site for fishing
enthusiasts for years. it's _extremely hard_ to bootstrap a community site of
any kind, even if it's not "social networking" per se.

~~~
muzani
I think the idea is to build a not-facebook. I'm working in social media too,
and there's a lot of things that FB does poorly.

The goal is usually media, centered around yourself. For some people, it could
be their line of work, or happenings in their neighbourhood. FB, prioritizing
growth, is like the BuzzFeed of social media, but we're starting to see why
that doesn't work.

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aciswhat
Fusion

