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AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

technologyreview.com

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Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#71

Post by mcherm »

ColinWright wrote: post #25

From the article: "Captcha" stands for "completely automated Turing test to tell computers and humans apart." No it doesn't - where's the word that starts with "P"? According to Wikipedia "CAPTCHA" is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" (and is apparently a trademark of Carnegie Mellon University, which I didn't know.) Even that's a really bad backronym. Google'…

> I'd love to see something better replace it.

So long as the "better" solution is something OTHER than "Please log in to your Facebook account."

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#72

Post by memracom »

bparsons wrote: post #13

So they have invented the world's best OCR software?

Actually they have invented a supplement to OCR software that will work for the characters that OCR is not certain about. The world`s best OCR software would be software that recognizes when it should pass off a patch of text to this new AI engine to decode.

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#73

Post by freehunter »

EGreg wrote: post #64

What if we will reach a time when robots have sex better than people... then what will happen?

The world will keep spinning?

I think the assumption you're making is that humans only have sex because it feels good, and not for the explicit purpose or the creation of life. If people want children, they'll procreate regardless, even if it doesn't feel as good as robot sex.

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#74

Post by eli_gottlieb »

aufreak3 wrote: post #70
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you just walked into a bloody minefield, mate. Numenta has pulled crap like this before. We know patents may be pending, but you don't have the epistemological right to go blowing the Great Shofar for the invention of True AI with a link to your company's website and a fancy buzzword about neural or cortical this-and-that on the front page. We need to see some published research, or you need to take over the worl…

Wasn't Dileep George part of Numenta?

I checked and yes. Which bugs me even more.

Come on, guys, put up or shut up. If you've made the kind of advance in machine learning that entitles you to talk about human-level cognition, take out a patent and then publish some freaking papers. Or take over the world.

There are accepted ways of proving claims like this, and founding company after company without releasing a product or publishing research isn't one of them.

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#75

Post by bjterry »

MysticFear wrote: post #68
bjterry wrote: post #17

> or let you know how many calories you’re about to eat by looking at your lunch. I have previously told some people that this is the holy grail of dieting apps. The difference in ease of use between entering all of the items in your meal, one by one, and just taking a photo, would be a game changer. Of course, this is just a throwaway example in the article so they probably haven't done any of the work that would be…

Meal Snap, already tries doing this: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meal-snap-calorie-counting/i...

Wow, that's crazy. I actually USED DailyBurn at one point and I didn't even know this existed. Their strategy of separating everything into a bunch of superfluous apps seems to have failed pretty hard in this instance (they have a barcode reading calorie tracking app separate from their food entering calorie tracking app with neither as a superset of functionality, even though these should clearly be a single app if you want a good user experience).

Apparently the quality of the estimates is very poor for the app. The problem is that DailyBurn LITERALLY uses Mechanical Turk[1], which I don't think is what you would need to do to get accurate estimates. You would have to actually have in-house talent with training and feedback on estimating the size and calories of food. I'm pretty good at estimating the calorie content of common foods just by eyeballing because I've done it for a long time and know generally what goes into them, but this is obviously an acquired skill.

1: http://dashdingo.org/post/4391031302/how-mealsnap-works

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#77

Post by aufreak3 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #74
aufreak3 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Dileep George part of Numenta?

I checked and yes. Which bugs me even more . Come on, guys, put up or shut up. If you've made the kind of advance in machine learning that entitles you to talk about human-level cognition, take out a patent and then publish some freaking papers . Or take over the world. There are accepted ways of proving claims like this, and founding company after company without releasing a product or publishing research isn't one…

While that criticism is valid, it is also possible for them to think that the details of it be better kept a trade secret than be revealed to the public through either a patent document or a detailed enough paper. (Just giving them the benefit of doubt.)

If you look at Gary Drescher's work published in "Made up minds" [1], it seems possible that an AI that can influence the world can more efficiently arrive at intelligence than one that simply observes it - i.e. one that can learn by performing experiments rather than only looking at data coming out of everywhere. So there does seem to be scope for approaches to AI that aren't in the "data trumps everything" gang.

[1] http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Made_up_Minds.html?id=...

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#78

Post by eli_gottlieb »

aufreak3 wrote: post #77
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked and yes. Which bugs me even more . Come on, guys, put up or shut up. If you've made the kind of advance in machine learning that entitles you to talk about human-level cognition, take out a patent and then publish some freaking papers . Or take over the world. There are accepted ways of proving claims like this, and founding company after company without releasing a product or publishing research isn't one…

While that criticism is valid, it is also possible for them to think that the details of it be better kept a trade secret than be revealed to the public through either a patent document or a detailed enough paper. (Just giving them the benefit of doubt.) If you look at Gary Drescher's work published in "Made up minds" [1], it seems possible that an AI that can influence the world can more efficiently arrive at intell…

Sorry, I didn't mean to disagree with the underlying message that AI/ML should be getting away from the "just eat huge amounts of data and process it" paradigm.

What I more meant is: why on Earth should we accept that whenever someone says the magic words "intelligence", "cognition", "mind", or "consciousness", we switch our scientific brains off and start openly espousing blatant woo? Any real advancement in high-level AI not only should but must involve a scientific theory of intelligence: what is it, how does it operate, how can we measure it? Is it made up of smaller component parts or is it a unified "thing"? How can we detect it if shown a non-human intelligence?

If someone has such a theory, it should be entirely possible to publish the theory without revealing details of their proprietary algorithms. If, in fact, they believe that there is only one algorithm that gives rise to intelligence in the entire universe, then they might want to keep a trade secret, but they should have to justify to a Senate subcommittee or something why the hell they're trying to keep one of the deepest, most fundamental secrets of Nature a secret.

A true science of AI should do for intelligence what the Wright Brothers did for human flight: stop the cargo-cult and find the underlying principles. In fact, a true science of AI should split the field into three branches: theory of intelligence, taxonomy of naturally-occurring agents, and engineering of artificial agents.

Given all that, anyone and everyone who takes the "I'VE FOUND THE SECRET BUT I'M NOT TELLING YOU PATENTS PENDING NEENER NEENER NEENER BUT TOTALLY INVEST IN MY COMPANY" approach... comes off like a Renaissance gentleman scientist suddenly claiming to have discovered the Philosopher's Stone.

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#79

Post by eli_gottlieb »

chongli wrote: post #54
varjag wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint, nearly all human technical advances (flight, propulsion, energy, computation) did not entail examination of biological systems. And ANNs in particular share a host of problems with statistical techniques: black-boxish behavior with lack of human-accessible state introspection and poor tractability.

black-boxish behavior with lack of human-accessible state introspection and poor tractability. I have a philosophical question in response to this. Is it even possible to have intelligence without it being a black box? Are people willing to call something intelligent if they completely understand how it works?

>Is it even possible to have intelligence without it being a black box?

That depends. Do you believe in Cartesian dualism, or atomic monism? If you believe in a monist universe where minds don't reside on some other plane of existence, then plainly a mind must be explicable to a sufficiently smart other mind, because after all so is everything else.

Re: AI Startup Says It Has Defeated Captchas

#80

Post by chongli »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #79
chongli wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

black-boxish behavior with lack of human-accessible state introspection and poor tractability. I have a philosophical question in response to this. Is it even possible to have intelligence without it being a black box? Are people willing to call something intelligent if they completely understand how it works?

>Is it even possible to have intelligence without it being a black box? That depends. Do you believe in Cartesian dualism, or atomic monism? If you believe in a monist universe where minds don't reside on some other plane of existence, then plainly a mind must be explicable to a sufficiently smart other mind, because after all so is everything else.

then plainly a mind must be explicable to a sufficiently smart other mind, because after all so is everything else

Right, but is that intelligence? My main argument is basically an attack on the word intelligence. I believe people use it far too frequently and they allow its meaning to change whenever it comes close to being pinned down. In a strange way, intelligence is a tricky refuge for dualism in an otherwise monist world.

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