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Is it? I mean, a lot of hard work was put into it. And, it's a step that needs to be taken. And people can work on what they want to work on. But how can a
by sbov 10y ago
Is it? I mean, a lot of hard work was put into it. And, it's a step that needs to be taken. And people can work on what they want to work on. But how can a machine beating the best human at a game really be the biggest triumph of 2016?
Whenever I think about this stuff, I have a similar nagging question. E.g. if there are entire classes of problems that we now "know" are solvable, and have an actual benefit to mankind, why didn't they spend time on that rather than a game?
- ewzimm 10y agoThis is like asking, "why didn't they just build a new dam instead of spending so much time drawing up blueprints?" Games can be useful abstractions and guides that advance our understanding of the same decision making processes that allow people to create real, effective changes in the world. The balance is shifting to the point in the near future where most of the best solutions to real world problems won't come directly from unaugmented human minds.
- sbov 10y agoI can see games being an impetus, but are they really the blueprint, as opposed to just another application, but one that the public at large can appreciate?
- ewzimm 10y agoThe game itself isn't the blueprint. The source code of the application used to play the game is a blueprint for learning and pattern recognition that can be applied to other things. For example, the DeepMind AI used to play Go has been adapted to diagnose kidney injury by reusing much of the same code which was developed for the game. https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/nhs-deepmind-ai-app/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/nhs-deepmind-ai-app/