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Confession of a so-called AI expert

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Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#61

Post by throw2016 »

There is a difference between exaggeration, hype and wilful misleading and AI proponents have long crossed the line.

Now policy makers, and all sorts of busy bodies are contemplating solutions to the 'ai problem' which does not exist and will not exist for some time to come, if it comes.

Pattern matching and image recognition are valuable on their own but passing it off as AI makes a complete mockery of the word and scientific communication.

Engineers and scientists are supposed to be precise and even giving leeway for hype and excitement within the realm of what is possible.

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#62

Post by rocqua »

31reasons wrote: post #37
CalRobert wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, where would you recommend starting for those outdated people? Machine Learning, Deep Learning, AI (for lack of a more specific acronym), NLP - these things are kind of daunting for newcomers, if only due to the acronym du jour changing constantly.

Great thing about Deep Learning is that decades of "old school" machine learning research that was way too math intensive is far inferior now. DL is actually pretty approachable and intuitive.

To someone mathy like me, that kinda sucks. It's part of why I don't like deep learning.

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#63

Post by bitL »

rocqua wrote: post #62
31reasons wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great thing about Deep Learning is that decades of "old school" machine learning research that was way too math intensive is far inferior now. DL is actually pretty approachable and intuitive.

To someone mathy like me, that kinda sucks. It's part of why I don't like deep learning.

Treat it as non-linear optimization, then you are right in the class of most complex problems. Make a better optimizer enabling more useful applications and you can be both scientifically famous and make billions with it! ;-)

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#65

Post by jefft255 »

deft wrote: post #44

No offense to the author. But serious question: why whenever articles like this come does everyone say "oh you're not a fraud at all!!". You know what, maybe she is a fraud. If she's being honest in this post she sounds a bit like one. She's crafted the perfect resume to attract attention about AI and it works. But she doesn't really know all that much. Possible that she has severe imposter syndrome and she sounds ab…

Also, there's something I don't get: how does an undergrad ends up teaching a full blown course at Stanford? Especially considering she doesn't seem to be some kind of super genius, only a probably excellent student. I'm not trying to demotivate her, I actually think it's amazing that he/she is doing this, but how did this happen?

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#66

Post by ataki12 »

apetresc wrote: post #25

What I don't understand is how you get a gig teaching a course at Stanford while being an undergraduate student at Stanford. Is this some sort of special seminar course or something?

I come from a similar background as the author - BS/MS in Stanford CS, but I left just as the deep learning craze was booming.

Stanford allows undergrads to propose and teach some of these more "practical" courses for upcoming technologies - a few examples are classes for NodeJS, cryptocurrency, Spark, and this one for Tensorflow. It's student-lead, very hands-on, and intended to give a specific industry experience.

The classes the author mentioned are first year pre-requisites for the AI specialization and doing research at labs, and gives enough background for a student to be instructive when explaining concepts such as perceptrons and svm's, without necessarily the mathematical rigor. This is the level needed to interact with Tensorflow.

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#67

Post by ataki12 »

jefft255 wrote: post #65
deft wrote: post #44

No offense to the author. But serious question: why whenever articles like this come does everyone say "oh you're not a fraud at all!!". You know what, maybe she is a fraud. If she's being honest in this post she sounds a bit like one. She's crafted the perfect resume to attract attention about AI and it works. But she doesn't really know all that much. Possible that she has severe imposter syndrome and she sounds ab…

Also, there's something I don't get: how does an undergrad ends up teaching a full blown course at Stanford? Especially considering she doesn't seem to be some kind of super genius, only a probably excellent student. I'm not trying to demotivate her, I actually think it's amazing that he/she is doing this, but how did this happen?

I have the same background as the author, but a few years older.

Stanford undergrads and grads alike can teach a course as long as they have (1) the necessary background, (2) passion and proficiency in the tech, and (3) motivation to teach and manage course overhead.

Being a "super genius" doesn't correlate with being informative and having intrinsic instructional value.

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#68

Post by posterboy »

wfunction wrote: post #57
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several studies have shown that the net health benefit of bicycling to/from work is large even when you account for accidents. Not hard to believe when you hear it halves the risk of cardiovascular disease, which is the most common cause of death in the US. E.g. these authors find the health improvement statistically increases your life expectancy by up to 14 months, while traffic accidents statistically reduce it by…

I don't think people think in terms of life expectancy. Do you? Is a 1% chance of dying on your next ride and otherwise living 100 years equivalent to not riding your bike and living 99 years to you? Edit regarding your comment: Oh, I see why you're confused. I didn't need to do the math because I was talking about a 1-time bike ride as an example to just get the point across -- it's already scary for 1 ride. But if…

That's distorting the numbers and a ridiculous question because the choice isn't based on the statistic, unless you are planning an economy.

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#69

Post by wfunction »

posterboy wrote: post #68
wfunction wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people think in terms of life expectancy. Do you? Is a 1% chance of dying on your next ride and otherwise living 100 years equivalent to not riding your bike and living 99 years to you? Edit regarding your comment: Oh, I see why you're confused. I didn't need to do the math because I was talking about a 1-time bike ride as an example to just get the point across -- it's already scary for 1 ride. But if…

That's distorting the numbers and a ridiculous question because the choice isn't based on the statistic, unless you are planning an economy.

It sounds like we're agreeing? I was also saying, just like you, that the choice is not based on the statistics. The parent one is the one that used the statistic to justify the choice of biking.

Re: Confession of a so-called AI expert

#70

Post by deft »

dsfjksdf wrote: post #58
deft wrote: post #44

No offense to the author. But serious question: why whenever articles like this come does everyone say "oh you're not a fraud at all!!". You know what, maybe she is a fraud. If she's being honest in this post she sounds a bit like one. She's crafted the perfect resume to attract attention about AI and it works. But she doesn't really know all that much. Possible that she has severe imposter syndrome and she sounds ab…

Unless she lied on her resume, it is hardly her fault if recruiting agencies rank her resume so highly. Maybe they should fix their algorithms.

Agreed, but she exploited their algorithms which is definitely something 'frauds' do. I'm not even saying it's a bad thing, it's working for her. She shouldn't feel bad but she shouldn't feel like a genius either.
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