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Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

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Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#61

I think we need another word for AI, one that only real programmers and mathematicians know. That way, we can talk about that stuff without some incompetent journalist or marketing salesman saying stupid stuff.

Call deep learning what it is: learnable nonlinear function approximation.

Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#62

I'm in the submarine AI camp[1]. I'd rather build tools that kinda help humans do thinking, rather than thinking machines. Like how submarines help humans swim but who cares if they are actually swimming. 1. "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger Dijkstra

> 1. "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger Dijkstra

Not sure what he meant by that, it doesn't really make sense to me: thinking yields information and deductions that can be very useful, while swimming by itself accomplishes nothing useful.

Actually, I just can't make any sense of the sentence, because while I have a general idea of what a thinking machine could be, I have no clue what it means for a submarine to "swim", versus whatever the alternative is ("self-propelling"?).

Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#63

I'm in the submarine AI camp[1]. I'd rather build tools that kinda help humans do thinking, rather than thinking machines. Like how submarines help humans swim but who cares if they are actually swimming. 1. "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger Dijkstra

The thing about that quote is I used to work on AUVs. And we would routinely say "The AUV swims out to a waypoint" or whatever. So, having established in my mind that a machine can, in some sense, swim, talking about a machine thinking made a whole lot more sense. Things like "The computer thinks I'm a different user than I actually am" or "The computer is thinking of a solution that satisfies the constraints" seemed less needlessly anthropomorphizing.

Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#64
I propose we actually HIJACK the AI acronym to be 'Advanced Instruments'.

I've had a ranty blog post in my head about this for a while so really glad to see this article.

People are going to use AI forever - but we need to change what it stands for, since they will never switch to using machine learning or ML.

Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#67

I propose we actually HIJACK the AI acronym to be 'Advanced Instruments'. I've had a ranty blog post in my head about this for a while so really glad to see this article. People are going to use AI forever - but we need to change what it stands for, since they will never switch to using machine learning or ML.

I like Artifact Intelligence. Then we can explode the term use even further, which I think would be better than moving goal posts.

Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#68
post #18
post #8

Interestingly as soon as a system works or we understand it's principles we stop using the term "artificial intelligence". It becomes image recognition, autonomous cars, or face detection. We mostly talk about artificial intelligence when we dont really know or understand what we are talking about :-)

Exactly, the same happens with the word "technology". Are scissors technology? They used to be but now they are comparatively too well understood and simple. Just like with AI, we label things technology that are on the forefront and not yet well understood and ironed out.

Yes, even simple machines are technology.

Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#69
post #4

Michael I. Jordan is spot on. We have NO artificial intelligent systems, for any sensible definition of "intelligent". None. ZERO. We have "big data". We have (brittle and rather poor) "pattern recognition". We have (very limited) "simulate a conversation". But we do not even know what "intelligence" really means! We (the industry) should recognise "AI" as term that has become essentially meaningless. "AI" is now not…

Check out Convolutional Neural Networks. They learn from example images, progressively improving as you train it more, and you can see that the deeper the level, the more abstract the recognition becomes, going from simple shapes and edges to full on eyes, a figure of a person or a car, etc in deeper layers. It's absolutely learned intelligence, not to be confused with sentience.

Remember, a critical part of human intelligence is pattern recognition. If you dismiss pattern recognition as not intelligence, you're dismissing a fundamental part of what makes humans intelligent. It's no different than an insect with the intelligence to recognize predators.

Re: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says

#70

I'm in the submarine AI camp[1]. I'd rather build tools that kinda help humans do thinking, rather than thinking machines. Like how submarines help humans swim but who cares if they are actually swimming. 1. "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." - Edsger Dijkstra

There are lots of creatures that can swim. Most of them swim better than a human. That’s why it’s not very interesting when we discover a new one. In contrast, humans are arguably the only creatures in the universe that can think. Certainly we have never discovered a creature that can think better than a human. Thus it would be highly exciting if we discovered or created one.

There are many humans that think better than, well, average human. If not in all areas of life, but in one or couple of them, at the very least.

Frankly, one of reasons I visit HN is to find these. ;)

Flattering aside, what fascinates me is the difference in thinking - a new approaches, not seen or thought by me.

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