Why is AI so useless for business?

Post by mehrdadn » Tue, May 26, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #297

mehrdadn wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What're some examples of things that were called "alternative medicine" but that were later proven to work and regarded as "medicine"? Edit: Since people are bringing up ancient examples and kind of missing the point of the question: I'm not looking for examples from the Roman Empire here. Let's stick with the past < 50 years. Maybe something your parents might actually remember being dismissed as "alternative medici…

The Australian doctor who proved ulcers and stomach cancer could be caused by bacterial infection was dismissed until he inoculated himself and cured it with antibiotics. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-doctor-who-drank...

Post by saidajigumi » Tue, May 26, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

ryanhuff wrote: post #262

saidajigumi wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the early 90s, my grad AI class referred to AI as the "incredible shrinking field". The class kicked off with a black-and-white newsreel style interview from the 1950's with an MIT professor[1] who says, to eternal breathless infamy, something along the lines of "we'll have machines that can think within five years!" Part of the challenge is/was the line of thinking "surely if we can solve Hard Problem X, we'…

Was the video titled “The Thinking Machine”?

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 26, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #224

ComodoHacker wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't stretch definition of AI that wide. Where's AI in Microsoft Office? Where's AI in spellchecking? Where's AI in route planning? Demand planning, maybe.

Imagine taking someone who didn't know English words or sounds, sitting them down with a document and dictionary, and asking them to spell-check it. If they could figure out that "butiful" should be "beautiful" in less than a week I'd call that really freaking intelligent. AI researchers of 40 years ago would be astounded by what Word can do. Route planning is essentially "the" fundamental AI problem. You need to get…

Post by tathougies » Tue, May 26, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #196

bo1024 wrote: post #159

AI gets such a bad rap. People only think of unsolved or sort-of-solved problems as AI, and don't give AI any credit for the problems it has solved, I guess because by definition those problems seem easy. Think how much Microsoft Office and competitors have amplified business productivity over the last 20 years (yeah yeah, make your jokes too). Word and Powerpoint and Excel are full of AI whether it's spellcheck or a…

>Finding routes for drivers and deliveries, planning schedules, optimizing store layouts, etc. -- that's AI. If a path-finding algorithm that I can write on paper is AI, AI has completely lost all meaning. Let's not call graph traversal and sorting "AI" please.

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, May 26, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #217

pathseeker wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Finding routes for drivers and deliveries, planning schedules, optimizing store layouts, etc. -- that's AI. If a path-finding algorithm that I can write on paper is AI, AI has completely lost all meaning. Let's not call graph traversal and sorting "AI" please.

Couple issues. (1) Optimization is much, much bigger than graph traversal and sorting. (2) Modern route-finding algorithms are to your on-paper-Dijkstra what a rocket ship is to your bicycle. (3) I think you're under the same misconception I'm talking about: graph traversal is absolutely a fundamental of AI. Ask anyone what the main AI textbook is, they'll tell you it's Russell and Norvig: http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu…