> We don't need to fully understand a processes in order to reproduce it. That's true, but you still need to understand it enough > We can proceed by imitatio

> We don't need to fully understand a processes in order to reproduce it. That's true, but you still need to understand it enough > We can proceed by imitation, trial and error. As we mostly did for airplanes, for instance. Yes, but again, I would argue that initial attempts to create airplanes were cargo cult science, and that's why they failed. It's something you want to avoid, yet I see it all the time when the subject of AI comes up. "In a cargo cult, you reproduce the appearance of the machine without understanding the principles behind the machine. You build radio stations out of straw. The cargo cult approach to aeronautics—for actually building airplanes—would be to copy birds very, very closely; feathers, flapping wings, and all the rest. And people did this back in the 19th century, but with very limited success." (LeCun [1]) [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/facebook-ai-director-yann-lecun-on-deep-learning http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intel...