Andrew Ng and the Quest for the New AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Andrew Ng and the Quest for the New AI

#71

Post by samg_ » Wed, May 08, 2013, 1:44 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #65

mark_l_watson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this! I have taken 7 Coursera classes, and most of them "lightly": just doing as much work as I needed to for passing the class, with just a few classes that I did put a lot of energy into. Andrew's class was in this second category: I kept taking the tests and tweaking the homework assignments over and over again until I got a 99.5% score in the class. His class was lots of fun and also very useful material…

Yes, unfortunately his partner, Daphne Koller, though very esteemed academically, made me feel very frustrated in the PGM class. Not the same great feeling of clarity.

In case this comment dissuades others from checking out Dr. Koller's class, I will add that I found her class challenging and well-constructed. I recommend it.

Re: Andrew Ng and the Quest for the New AI

#72

Post by EthanHeilman » Wed, May 08, 2013, 3:40 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #67

Jach wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way, that researchers should stop trying to mimic the brain, but not because we don't understand the brain. While I think there are still several decades before we'll be able to have mind uploads, I also think a lot of people underestimate the quality of modern brain science. In any case, I have the same reason as Dijkstra for why I think mimicking the brain isn't that great an idea. In http://www.cs.…

They are trying to find THE ONE ALGORITHM that solves all A.I. problems. The brain has an implementation of it, but it is in wetware, hard to extract. Deep learning makes some pretty good approximations of the visual areas, though.

You assume that human cognition has an algorithmic component. Maybe you are right, but we still have a pretty shaky understanding of how Neurons work, let alone how the brain works on a large scale. Who knows, lets investigate by trying possibilities but lets understand that we are still in a position of ignorance.

We have some probabilistic models of that successfully predict various future states of the brain from past states or stimuli. This is not the same as understanding it or even approximating it.

Re: Andrew Ng and the Quest for the New AI

#73

Post by nostrademons » Wed, May 08, 2013, 8:26 PM UTC

konstruktor wrote: post #24

Cushman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. There is nothing wrong with using personal experience for reference so long as it is properly cited. It beats "This guy is wrong (source: random blog post that I didn't really read)", anyway. Edit: To be clear, I don't love the Reddit snowclones, but there's nothing wrong with the sentiment behind "I'm a scholar in this field, and I think this guy is a hack."

So misapplying the term source and saying that one has a degree gives one enough credibility as a scholar to turn a dismissive and colloquial statement into a worthwhile contribution to a discussion about AI?

The point of sourcing your statements is to give the listener enough context to judge for themselves what your credibility is. It's not a layperson's responsibility to shut up, only to avoid misrepresenting themselves as an expert. It's the listener's responsibility to judge the credibility of those they listen to.

(Besides, my read of the comment that started this was that it's quite tongue-in-cheek. He was basically saying "Don't trust this any more than any other comment you read on the Internet.")