Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#261

Post by lkbm » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #210

xg15 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just think it's rational that this should be decentralized, the risk of a company turning against "us" is a lot less than a government, given history. Last time I checked, Google search had 98% market share in Germany, Android had 78% market share worldwide. I don't see how you can talk about decentralisation given dominance like that. Whether or not a de-facto monopoly is a bad thing can be argued, I guess. (I per…

"Last time I checked, Google search had 98% market share in Germany, Android had 78% market share worldwide. I don't see how you can talk about decentralisation given dominance like that." They're not legislated as the Official Search Engine of the EU. Microsoft too once had 98% market share. As did IBM. Also, think of China, where Google has no market share. Baidu will grow and bide its time. "But if one is present,…

> Also, think of China, where Google has no market share. Baidu will grow and bide its time.

That Google has no marketshare in China is due to governmental regulation. It's success is hardly evidence that we don't need governmental regulation.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#262

Post by Houshalter » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #254

Houshalter wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stuff has been called AI for decades. Perhaps you are thinking of AGI.

AGI is a recent term coined precisely because the name AI has become confusing, which is precisely my point. It is also not widely known and used for the large part by people who believe in a sci-fi rapture-like event called the "technological singularity[1]", and so carries a bit of a cultish connotation. It doesn't do much to allay the confusion, though, as the term AI (even if understood to refer to something weak…

My point is that the word "AI" has been referring to "weak AI" for decades. Everything from video game AI, expert systems in the 80's, genetic algorithms, searching algorithms, etc, have been called AI. There is no point arguing about the word "AI" now.

The word AGI is pretty established. There are AGI conferences. I've heard it used by a wide variety of people, not just singularitarians. "Strong AI" is another common term.

I don't think there is much doubt at this point that neural networks are on the right path for AI. They are extremely general, have made remarkable progress in widely different AI domains, and are the closest AI approach to the human brain.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#263

Post by pron » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #262

pron wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI is a recent term coined precisely because the name AI has become confusing, which is precisely my point. It is also not widely known and used for the large part by people who believe in a sci-fi rapture-like event called the "technological singularity[1]", and so carries a bit of a cultish connotation. It doesn't do much to allay the confusion, though, as the term AI (even if understood to refer to something weak…

My point is that the word "AI" has been referring to "weak AI" for decades. Everything from video game AI, expert systems in the 80's, genetic algorithms, searching algorithms, etc, have been called AI. There is no point arguing about the word "AI" now. The word AGI is pretty established. There are AGI conferences. I've heard it used by a wide variety of people, not just singularitarians. "Strong AI" is another commo…

> I don't think there is much doubt at this point that neural networks are on the right path for AI.

Not only is there doubt, I don't think any NN researcher would even dare to suggest (based on scientific knowledge; not as a mere conjecture) that neural networks, and certainly current NN algorithms, have anything to do with AGI, which, at this point, is still a dream or a sci-fi concept.

> They are extremely general, have made remarkable progress in widely different AI domains

They work precisely where statistical clustering works, because that's what they are. Statistical clustering is extremely effective.

> and are the closest AI approach to the human brain.

We don't know that. It is possible, even likely, that statistical learning plays some low-level role in the brain. We know little beyond that, but it is pretty certain that neurons in the brain work very differently from neural networks. I don't think anyone imagines that backpropagation is used by the brain.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#264

Post by batman_symbol » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 4:13 PM UTC

I remember learning about oligopolies and cartels in high school economics. Pretty sure this is at its core, a form of collusion meant to undermine the competitive spirit of the market. Ethical implications of this strategy are quite dire at best. No one stood up to the robber barons then and likelt no can now.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#265

Post by treehau5 » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 7:45 PM UTC

randcraw wrote: post #139

hartator wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't fusion bombs 1000x more powerful than the original Little Boy (Name of the hiroshima bomb)?

Yes, and that's why atomic weaponry is unusable and largely irrelevant. In contrast, AI is eminently usable in business and government, and in such a wide range of means and purposes that it is much more likely to change our lives, in ways that are largely still unimaginable. As more AI is adopted and shapes policy and practice throughout the world, business, gov't, and Joe Public will gradually relinquish ever more…

Whether people agree with the philosophical or political aspects of your assessment aside, this was one of the more thought-invoking comments I have read on this subject in this thread and threads like it in a while. Thank you for writing it.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#266

Post by throwanem » Sat, Oct 01, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

aub3bhat wrote: post #260

throwanem wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that "Apple is behind" follows from "Apple doesn't publicize".

Following that line of reasoning lets just assume that Apple has solved Quantum Computers, Teleportation and Room temperature superconductors why stop at AI/ML

What line of reasoning? I didn't advance one, only questioned an assumption in someone else's.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#267

Post by parasubvert » Sat, Oct 01, 2016, 8:39 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #258

parasubvert wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Last time I checked, Google search had 98% market share in Germany, Android had 78% market share worldwide. I don't see how you can talk about decentralisation given dominance like that." They're not legislated as the Official Search Engine of the EU. Microsoft too once had 98% market share. As did IBM. Also, think of China, where Google has no market share. Baidu will grow and bide its time. "But if one is present,…

They're not legislated as the Official Search Engine of the EU. Microsoft too once had 98% market share. As did IBM. And then what exactly happened? Did competitors beat them on their own market because of superior performance or better regards for the interests of users? Nope. They discovered new markets and solved new problems which made the old markets less relevant. It's not clear to me that this is a process tha…

"That argument makes no sense. I as a user don't benefit at all if some analytics company has a contract with Facebook that allows them to access my data. If users should realistically be able to migrate to another service, they need free and automatic access to their data - which Facebook is in no way forced to provide."

That's not how it works.

You have rights and easy access to your data - always have. 3rd parties don't get my PII unless I let them. Heck, I can download a ZIP file of everything I've ever uploaded with a single click! It makes zero sense they would prevent you from getting at it, if they did, they'd be breaking their own value prop of a place to share things, which by definition means people need to be able to get at it easily.

Again, this stinks of non-customers trying to interfere with Facebook customers for dubious reasons out of fear.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#268

Post by parasubvert » Sat, Oct 01, 2016, 8:41 PM UTC

lkbm wrote: post #261

parasubvert wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Last time I checked, Google search had 98% market share in Germany, Android had 78% market share worldwide. I don't see how you can talk about decentralisation given dominance like that." They're not legislated as the Official Search Engine of the EU. Microsoft too once had 98% market share. As did IBM. Also, think of China, where Google has no market share. Baidu will grow and bide its time. "But if one is present,…

> Also, think of China, where Google has no market share. Baidu will grow and bide its time. That Google has no marketshare in China is due to governmental regulation. It's success is hardly evidence that we don't need governmental regulation.

Trade regulation is a very different thing than government meddling with my data on a private site.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#269

Post by xg15 » Sat, Oct 01, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #267

xg15 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not legislated as the Official Search Engine of the EU. Microsoft too once had 98% market share. As did IBM. And then what exactly happened? Did competitors beat them on their own market because of superior performance or better regards for the interests of users? Nope. They discovered new markets and solved new problems which made the old markets less relevant. It's not clear to me that this is a process tha…

"That argument makes no sense. I as a user don't benefit at all if some analytics company has a contract with Facebook that allows them to access my data. If users should realistically be able to migrate to another service, they need free and automatic access to their data - which Facebook is in no way forced to provide." That's not how it works. You have rights and easy access to your data - always have. 3rd parties…

You have rights and easy access to your data - always have.

And who would enforce such a right if we have no governmental oversight?

If they did, they'd be breaking their own value prop of a place to share things, which by definition means people need to be able to get at it easily.

Facebook's value proposition is people sharing things within the platform. You can perfectly well provide that service and at the same time make it hard for users to migrate their data to a different platform. They already did it in the past. [1]

Again, this stinks of non-customers trying to interfere with Facebook customers for dubious reasons out of fear.

Indeed. In this case, the non-customers are Facebook's users and I believe the fear of entirely justified.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-blocks-contact-exporting-...

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#270

Post by mschwaig » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 11:37 PM UTC

wstrange wrote: post #108

mschwaig wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really starting to appreciate this kind of thing about Apple. They seem to be concerned about keeping data in the hands of their users as much as possible, when the rest of the industry defaults to a cloud-hosted solution that requires the user to completely give up control.

That's a nifty feature, but I am sceptical that Apple can offer the same kind of experience when compared to cloud-based solutions that leverage massive amounts of aggregated data and backend processing. Apple has made a pretty big deal about privacy, but they do collect user data (see the interview a few weeks ago with Apple's mapping lead -saying they are collecting user data to improve maps). Ultimately if users w…

Apple also works on technology that is meant to help users give up less of their privacy. They talked about this at WWDC 2016 under the headline 'Differential Privacy'. They're trying to use statistics to make it harder to attribute data points to individuals while still providing a workable data set on the collective of users.

Here's an article about that: https://www.wired.com/2016/06/apples-differential-privacy-co...