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I think the point on this story is a bit different than you are interpreting it. What you're basially describing is the same issue that magic tricks have, wher
by csydas 10y ago
I think the point on this story is a bit different than you are interpreting it.
What you're basially describing is the same issue that magic tricks have, where it's fantastic until you know the secret which is often simple.
The difference is that with magic, no (good) magician is claiming they actually have magical powers, and that's why some people get really skeptical and dismissive of AI claims. (Not to say you or your friend are claiming you had strong AI, but more to the modern dsicussion of AI in general)
The problem really is that there are a lot of people commenting on AI who exist in the "know enough to be dangerous" category of technology. They don't fully understand things about computers or programming, but they know enough to sound like they do. This, combined with the fact that extraordinary claims and articles about AI is great publicity for businesses, there is a tendency towards exaggeration when it comes to the idea of AI. For example, I personally wouldn't call what Google, et. al., do as "AI", but as a subset of the field, focusing a lot on speech analysis. This isn't nearly as evocative as saying "AI Research", but it's much more accurate and I think would prompt more intelligent commentary and questions.
When I read your story, I thought it was cool and was curious how you did it; I didn't ascribe AI attributes to it, however, and still found the technique clever as a result. When I hear a claim about "AI" from news currently, I find myself having to distinguish what they're actually talking about first. When there is an inevitable article about AI and people claim that AGI is right around the corner, that is when I get skeptical, and when I think that those who do know a bit about computing get very skeptical and dismissive, since they expected a bit more than more stuff related to just keyword searches. The simple fact is that, like magic tricks, our imagination for AI right now is a lot more impressive than the reality behind current AI research, and a lot of what is presented as AI is more focusing on a specific subset of AI with an impressive front-end to it.
This isn't to dimish the work that the researchers are doing, but clarity of language would be preferable to just the umbrella "AI" category.
- bbctol 10y agoI wonder if, as neuroscience research improves, intelligence itself will seem less "magic." As you say, good AI researchers shouldn't claim to have magical powers--as far as we can tell, only these lumps of meat in our head are magical!
- csydas 10y agoI honestly hope so. Not sarcastic or demeaning, I just think that neuroscience is what is necessary for the mythical "AGI", since we don't have a strong notion. I don't believe for a second that it's unknowable, but right now I don't think we know.
- legel 10y agoI just published technology that some researchers called an 'AI pitch' about 'magic AI does everything' (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12167097#12171264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12167097#12171264), even while they graciously pointed out some of its optimizations that add up to 'really good tech'. I appreciate all of the constructive and critical feedback, and I'm trying to bring it all together. Probably the greatest conflict I feel in communicating about such R&D is the challenge of resolving two objectives: (1) Explaining something technically complex to readers who are not generally interested in "what's under the hood", but still nonetheless appreciate high-level "outreach" about what's actually possible today (2) Defining the marginal benefits of limited research to a small group of peers who prefer to think only in terms of "what's under the hood", and thus are offended by higher-level connotations that they may associate with hollow marketing rather than rigorous science Every scientist who communicates to the general public faces the above challenge in some form, and thus struggles to maintain both clarity and integrity all around... One of my inspirations was Christopher Olah (colah.github.io), who I think strikes a wonderful balance of being very careful about jargon, while being very literal. In any case, a pernicious problem that we face here, and perhaps a premise for the OP's article, is the highly subjective, controversial, and polarizing definitions of artificial intelligence. Too often we forget that what we imagine to be artificial intelligence may feel trivial to another person, and vice versa.