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The end of AI winter?

machineslikeus.com

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Re: The end of AI winter?

#21

Post by WilliamLP »

> machine translation, data mining, industrial robotics, logistics, speech recognition, banking software, medical diagnosis and Google's search engine, to name a few.

Do these things really directly descend from pure AI reasearch? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Not to say such things aren't incredible (Google clearly has changed the world), but is it clear that pure AI research has paved the way?

From an outside perspective it seems the "God of the gaps" argument - AI is what AI researchers haven't done yet - is used as a smokescreen to cover up that AI research hasn't really done much in the last 30 years. (Counterexamples without hand-waving?) And not only that, but it consistently, wildly, and systematically makes incredible predictions that don't come true. For example, Kurzweil is clearly a genius, but also wildly deluded and wrong about his time-frames.

Some of you guys will down-mod me for saying this, and you're the same people who also won't admit my side was correct when, in 20 years, automated translation tools still suck and you'll still be making the same old arguments about how AI is what we haven't done yet... (but in ten years you'll be able to upload your brain!)

Re: The end of AI winter?

#22

Post by xenophanes »

WilliamLP wrote: post #21

> machine translation, data mining, industrial robotics, logistics, speech recognition, banking software, medical diagnosis and Google's search engine, to name a few. Do these things really directly descend from pure AI reasearch? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Not to say such th…

I agree. Also, even if all those things were the result of AI research, that wouldn't imply AI research made any progress towards inventing an AI, just that it's useful for other stuff.

Re: The end of AI winter?

#23

Post by amix »

tomjen2 wrote: post #16
Confusion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't actually clear whether intelligence is anything other than some emergent phenomenon of suitable connected 'simple heuristics' and 'learning algorithms'. If you as me, we also are overglorified Eliza's.

There is one big difference: we can reason about reason (meta reason), Eliza can't. It is not a difference in degree, it is a difference in kind and seems to be unique to higher primates (you can learn a dog to do tricks, but it won't spend its time coming up with new tricks), one of the most interesting science videos I have ever seen is one where a bonobo learns to write a symbol that had been on a computer it used…

Your statement about dogs is untrue. Dogs, and a lot of other animals, have the ability to think creatively, i.e. to come up with new stuff, new tricks. A lot of animals also have self-awareness* (e.g. dolphins, elephants, magpies). Of course, we as humans excel at the task of thinking, since it's one of our greatest advantages, but the task of thinking and being self-aware is found in other animals, so there must be a way of reproducing this.

What spawns creative thinking and self-awareness is of course a mystery, but I think it's a consequence of creating a complex enough system and creating a system that's built on ordered chaos.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness#Self-awareness_i...

Re: The end of AI winter?

#24

Post by gruseom »

WilliamLP wrote: post #21

> machine translation, data mining, industrial robotics, logistics, speech recognition, banking software, medical diagnosis and Google's search engine, to name a few. Do these things really directly descend from pure AI reasearch? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Not to say such th…

Norvig has made this clear: we don't have any better algorithms, only more data.

Re: The end of AI winter?

#25

Post by lliiffee »

WilliamLP wrote: post #21

> machine translation, data mining, industrial robotics, logistics, speech recognition, banking software, medical diagnosis and Google's search engine, to name a few. Do these things really directly descend from pure AI reasearch? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Not to say such th…

> From an outside perspective it seems the "God of the gaps" argument - AI is what AI researchers haven't done yet - is used as a smokescreen to cover up that AI research hasn't really done much in the last 30 years.

Here is what you don't understand: There are very, very, very few people who do research on "AI". People research medical diagnosis, or search, or data mining, or speech recognition, or vision, or chess. If you go to a conference on AI, these are the people you will meet. If you look at who the NSF is funding with their "robust intelligence" area, these are the people you will find. You can only say that "AI research hasn't done much in the last 30 years" if you also say "no one has worked on AI in the last 30 years".

update: if you want to see what people in the mainstream (Kurzweil is not mainstream!) are actually working on, try browsing the IJCAI proceedings:

http://ijcai.org/papers09/contents.php

Re: The end of AI winter?

#26

Post by ericwaller »

tomjen2 wrote: post #16
Confusion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't actually clear whether intelligence is anything other than some emergent phenomenon of suitable connected 'simple heuristics' and 'learning algorithms'. If you as me, we also are overglorified Eliza's.

There is one big difference: we can reason about reason (meta reason), Eliza can't. It is not a difference in degree, it is a difference in kind and seems to be unique to higher primates (you can learn a dog to do tricks, but it won't spend its time coming up with new tricks), one of the most interesting science videos I have ever seen is one where a bonobo learns to write a symbol that had been on a computer it used…

That difference in kind is probably an illusion created by the magnitude of the difference in degree.

From what I've gathered, the consensus, both in neuroscience and in philosophy of the mind, is that consciousness is totally emergent from the "simple" building blocks; there's no specific component unique to higher primates that explains the difference.

Re: The end of AI winter?

#27

Post by WilliamLP »

lliiffee wrote: post #25
WilliamLP wrote: post #21

> machine translation, data mining, industrial robotics, logistics, speech recognition, banking software, medical diagnosis and Google's search engine, to name a few. Do these things really directly descend from pure AI reasearch? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Not to say such th…

> From an outside perspective it seems the "God of the gaps" argument - AI is what AI researchers haven't done yet - is used as a smokescreen to cover up that AI research hasn't really done much in the last 30 years. Here is what you don't understand: There are very, very, very few people who do research on "AI". People research medical diagnosis, or search, or data mining, or speech recognition, or vision, or chess.…

The trouble with that argument is that if you'd have asked anyone (anyone!), in any AI related field in 1980, where AI would be in thirty years what would they have said?

Surely not "Well, for instance one of the greatest achievements might be that we will work on chess algorithms, and we will see some incremental improvements resulting from tweaking certain heuristics and more intelligent pruning through more specialized algorithms and hardcoded chess knowledge. The programs still won't be able to learn in any interesting sense, but with the help of several orders of magnitude of hardware speed, they will be 200 ELO stronger than the best human!"

Re: The end of AI winter?

#28

Post by StrawberryFrog »

WilliamLP wrote: post #21

> machine translation, data mining, industrial robotics, logistics, speech recognition, banking software, medical diagnosis and Google's search engine, to name a few. Do these things really directly descend from pure AI reasearch? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Not to say such th…

Do these things really directly descend from pure AI research? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power?

Is there a meaningful difference?

There's a good case to be made that the human mind (AKA "natural intelligence") is "a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with incredible increase hardware power"

Re: The end of AI winter?

#29

Post by WilliamLP »

StrawberryFrog wrote: post #28
WilliamLP wrote: post #21

> machine translation, data mining, industrial robotics, logistics, speech recognition, banking software, medical diagnosis and Google's search engine, to name a few. Do these things really directly descend from pure AI reasearch? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Not to say such th…

Do these things really directly descend from pure AI research? Or are they really the result of a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independently developed, combined with an incredible increase in hardware power? Is there a meaningful difference? There's a good case to be made that the human mind (AKA "natural intelligence") is "a bunch of clever, yet extremely specialized algorithms, independent…

The difference is techniques that are developed for special purposes, but turn out to be useful for more general cases, versus techniques that become more and more specialized, resulting in a decreased possibility of ever using them for anything but increasingly specialized areas.

Perhaps the human brain's neural wiring that was required for throwing could have been, and was, subverted into something else. Better negamax alpha-beta algorithms for chess (that require the programmer to know more and more about chess to make any further research progress) will never be useful for anything but chess.

What seems to have died is the dream of any kind of useful generalized intelligence. Any kind!

Re: The end of AI winter?

#30

Post by berntb »

WilliamLP wrote: post #27
lliiffee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From an outside perspective it seems the "God of the gaps" argument - AI is what AI researchers haven't done yet - is used as a smokescreen to cover up that AI research hasn't really done much in the last 30 years. Here is what you don't understand: There are very, very, very few people who do research on "AI". People research medical diagnosis, or search, or data mining, or speech recognition, or vision, or chess.…

The trouble with that argument is that if you'd have asked anyone (anyone!), in any AI related field in 1980, where AI would be in thirty years what would they have said? Surely not "Well, for instance one of the greatest achievements might be that we will work on chess algorithms, and we will see some incremental improvements resulting from tweaking certain heuristics and more intelligent pruning through more specia…

>>if you'd have asked anyone (anyone!), in any AI related field in 1980, where AI would be in thirty years what would they have said?

Uhm, Hans Moravec isn't exactly "anyone". :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

Edit: To be clear, Moravec shows that you misrepresent the AI field of that time. But sure, he wasn't the mainstream.

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