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Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

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Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#11

Post by sakopov »

kailuowang wrote: post #9

Can someone elaborate the difference between reinforcement learning and unsupervised learning? It seems that I mistakenly think that human learns through reinforcement learning, that we learn by the feedback from the outside world. I mean without feedback from aldult can a baby even learn how to walk?

Exactly what i was going to ask! Is there such a thing as unsupervised learning? A human mind is constantly fed a stream of learning data. And while some things may be predispositioned by our DNA, I think for the most part we learn directly from the rules and guidelines dictated by our parents first and our society later.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#12

Post by chrisfosterelli »

kailuowang wrote: post #9

Can someone elaborate the difference between reinforcement learning and unsupervised learning? It seems that I mistakenly think that human learns through reinforcement learning, that we learn by the feedback from the outside world. I mean without feedback from aldult can a baby even learn how to walk?

Not an expert, but my understanding is that humans can learn many things through reinforcement learning, but most of our intelligent decisions are a result of unsupervised learning.

For instance, if the stove element was red hot and you touched it, you'd receive a feeling of pain. Reinforcement learning would suggest that you shouldn't do this again, and you might learn to not touch stove elements when they are red hot anymore.

However, a human is likely to additionally realize that touching a red hot marshmallow stick would burn them as well. And at the same time, a human can also tell that a red ball is safe to touch. This sort of behaviour (internally labeling things and deciding what it is that made the stove element dangerous so you can apply that to other things) would be unsupervised learning.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#13

Post by jacquesm »

argonaut wrote: post #10
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know this will be controversial, psychology Why would that be controversial? It seems to make extremely good sense and even though it may be doubted in some circles I think that most people involved in AI research are painfully aware of our limited understanding of our own psyche.

I disagree with hacknat (and the reason I suspect it's controversial) because psychology is generally far too high-level (e.g. focused on things like traits and high-level behavior and vague "perceptions") and has far too little empirical rigor for engineers to be able to build any sort of actual system from insights gleaned from psychology. The recent replication crisis in psychology does little to help this reputat…

Neural networks are the big driver and arguably were taken from neuroscience.

The reason why psychology is 'too high-level' is exactly what is meant with 'we don't understand it', we're approaching the psyche at the macro level of observable traits, but there is a very large gap between the 'wiring' and the 'traits', some of that gap belongs to neuroscience but quite possibly the larger parts belongs to psychology. The two will meet somewhere in the middle.

A similar thing happens in biology with dna and genetics on the one side and embryology on the other.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#14

Post by javajosh »

Is anyone working on an embodied AI? Even a simulated body might help. Ultimately intelligence is only useful insofar as it guides the body's motion. We often tend to minimize the physical act of say, writing down a theorem or actually applying paint to the canvas, but there are certain actions like playing a musical instrument that certainly blur the distinction between "physical" and "mental". Indeed, even 'purely mental' things like having an "intuition" about physics is certainly guided by one's embodied experience.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#15

Post by hacknat »

argonaut wrote: post #10
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know this will be controversial, psychology Why would that be controversial? It seems to make extremely good sense and even though it may be doubted in some circles I think that most people involved in AI research are painfully aware of our limited understanding of our own psyche.

I disagree with hacknat (and the reason I suspect it's controversial) because psychology is generally far too high-level (e.g. focused on things like traits and high-level behavior and vague "perceptions") and has far too little empirical rigor for engineers to be able to build any sort of actual system from insights gleaned from psychology. The recent replication crisis in psychology does little to help this reputat…

If anything the replication crisis in Psychology is proof of just how little we really know about intelligence. I think Psychology is necessary, because I think it needs to come up with an adequate definition of what intelligence is first, then neuroscience can say, "this is how that definition actually works", then engineers can build it.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#16

Post by quonn »

jacquesm wrote: post #6
hacknat wrote: post #5

I think we need more advances in neuroscience and, I know this will be controversial, psychology before we really know what the cake even is. Edit: I actually think the major AI breakthrough will come from either of those two fields, not computer science.

> I know this will be controversial, psychology Why would that be controversial? It seems to make extremely good sense and even though it may be doubted in some circles I think that most people involved in AI research are painfully aware of our limited understanding of our own psyche.

Well, it just seems unlikely that psychology will produce significant insights here, because it mostly just looks at how the brain behaves. While this can be insightful, I doubt that it will explain intelligence in the end, because this happens a layer below. That's precisely what neuroscience covers. The other approach (just thinking about the problem and trying to to build a AI from first principles) is CS.

So I would expect strong AI from CS, possibly with a paradigm shift caused by an advance in neuroscience.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#17

Post by has2k1 »

kzhahou wrote: post #3

I'm surprised he'd make such an optimistic statement. I think a better analogy would be: We figured out how to make icing, but we still don't really know what a cake is.

He addresses your query, not in the analogy but the additional comment.

"And that's just an obstacle we know about. What about all the ones we don't know about?"

With sufficient scrutiny all analogies break down, so readers must be generous with their interpretation.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#18

Post by hacknat »

quonn wrote: post #16
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know this will be controversial, psychology Why would that be controversial? It seems to make extremely good sense and even though it may be doubted in some circles I think that most people involved in AI research are painfully aware of our limited understanding of our own psyche.

Well, it just seems unlikely that psychology will produce significant insights here, because it mostly just looks at how the brain behaves. While this can be insightful, I doubt that it will explain intelligence in the end, because this happens a layer below. That's precisely what neuroscience covers. The other approach (just thinking about the problem and trying to to build a AI from first principles) is CS. So I wo…

I think someone needs to come up with a good theory of what intelligence even is, then we can try to discover its mechanism(s).

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#19

Post by wpietri »

javajosh wrote: post #14

Is anyone working on an embodied AI? Even a simulated body might help. Ultimately intelligence is only useful insofar as it guides the body's motion. We often tend to minimize the physical act of say, writing down a theorem or actually applying paint to the canvas, but there are certain actions like playing a musical instrument that certainly blur the distinction between "physical" and "mental". Indeed, even 'purely…

You might look at the work of Rodney Brooks. There was a wonderful documentary called "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control", and I'm pretty sure it was in there that he explains his notion that true intelligence is embodied. That was years ago and I haven't kept up with the field, but perhaps it's a useful starting point for you.

Re: Yann LeCun's comment on AlphaGo and true AI

#20

Post by argonaut »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
argonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with hacknat (and the reason I suspect it's controversial) because psychology is generally far too high-level (e.g. focused on things like traits and high-level behavior and vague "perceptions") and has far too little empirical rigor for engineers to be able to build any sort of actual system from insights gleaned from psychology. The recent replication crisis in psychology does little to help this reputat…

Neural networks are the big driver and arguably were taken from neuroscience. The reason why psychology is 'too high-level' is exactly what is meant with 'we don't understand it', we're approaching the psyche at the macro level of observable traits, but there is a very large gap between the 'wiring' and the 'traits', some of that gap belongs to neuroscience but quite possibly the larger parts belongs to psychology. T…

They were taken from neuroscience... 50 years ago. Since then, very few ideas have been explicitly taken from neuroscience.
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