GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?
Since nobody asked, I&#x27;m reiterating my position that computers to effectively utilize parallel functionality simply aren&#x27;t available today. I&#x27;ve always wanted a computer with at least 256 cores and local content-addressable memories beside each core to send data where it&#x27;s needed. By Moore&#x27;s Law, we could have had MIPS machines with 1000 cores around 2010, and 100,000 to 1 million cores today, for under $1000.<p>Contrast that with GPU shaders where one C-style loop operates on buffers separate from system memory, and can&#x27;t access system services like network sockets or files. GPUs have around 32 or 64 physical cores, so theoretically that many shaders could run simultaneously, although we rarely see that in practice. And we&#x27;d need bare-metal drivers to access the GPU cores directly, does anyone know of any?<p>The closest thing now is Apple&#x27;s M1 line, but it has specialized NN and GPU cores, so missed out on the potential of true symmetric multiprocessing.<p>The reason I care about this so much is that with this amount of computing power, kids could run genetic algorithms and other &quot;embarrassingly parallel&quot; code that solves problems about as well as NNs in many cases. Instead we&#x27;re going to end up with yet another billion dollar bubble that locks us into whatever AI status quo that the tech industry manages to come up with. And everyone seems to love it. It reminds me of the scene in Star Wars III when Padme notes how liberty dies with thunderous applause.