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It's really hard to define AI too. We are working on linear regression for predicting sales. Would that qualify of AI? To us it's just a bunch of algorithms on

It's really hard to define AI too. We are working on linear regression for predicting sales. Would that qualify of AI? To us it's just a bunch of algorithms on Apache Spark but for our end users it's magic, it's AI. I read a good explanation of different terminologies of AI here on HN not long time back.

freehunter 10y ago
The problem with AI is that people are expecting the AI, and what we have is an AI. Predicting sales takes some amount of intelligence. A fish couldn't do it, for example. Nor could an untrained human. So if a computer predicts sales from data given to it, yes, it's an artificial intelligence. Now people will judge it and say that it's not AI because it can't do this or that or because it's too specific to a domain. But why would you buy an AI that's as smart as a human in every way and then use it just to predict sales? An AI replicates one part of human intelligence. The AI is a fully functional artificial human. Two completely independent ideas. We haven't had a single AI capable of fully replacing a human in every way, but is that something we really want or need? Or are domain specific AIs good enough? Anything that takes the repetitive cognitive load off a human and puts it into a specially trained computer is an AI.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  > Anything that takes the repetitive cognitive load off a human and puts it into a specially trained computer is an AI. This is just watering out the term AI to the point of uselessness and/or ridicule. I mean, by your definition, the steam-engine and punched-hole-card powered Jaquard looms of the early 17th century are an AI. Of course, those were the precursor to Babbage's general mechanical computer, so they were actually "specially trained computers". Edit: 19th century, not 17th. "There are two really hard problems in programming: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."
  - freehunter 10y ago
    As far as I know, the steam engine didn't replace anything that used to require human thought. A mechanical loom isn't replacing human intelligence either. Yes, it replaced a human performing an action, but humans brains weren't exactly racked with figuring out how to sew or weave. Think about the word "artificial" and the word "intelligence". If it used to take a human thinking and reasoning about something to perform a task but now a computer is doing it, that is by its very definition, "artificial intelligence". A steam engine or mechanical loom don't replace human brains, they replace human hands. Which is why I said "cognitive load".

freehunter 10y ago

The problem with AI is that people are expecting the AI, and what we have is an AI. Predicting sales takes some amount of intelligence. A fish couldn't do it, for example. Nor could an untrained human. So if a computer predicts sales from data given to it, yes, it's an artificial intelligence. Now people will judge it and say that it's not AI because it can't do this or that or because it's too specific to a domain. But why would you buy an AI that's as smart as a human in every way and then use it just to predict sales? An AI replicates one part of human intelligence. The AI is a fully functional artificial human. Two completely independent ideas. We haven't had a single AI capable of fully replacing a human in every way, but is that something we really want or need? Or are domain specific AIs good enough? Anything that takes the repetitive cognitive load off a human and puts it into a specially trained computer is an AI.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
> Anything that takes the repetitive cognitive load off a human and puts it into a specially trained computer is an AI. This is just watering out the term AI to the point of uselessness and/or ridicule. I mean, by your definition, the steam-engine and punched-hole-card powered Jaquard looms of the early 17th century are an AI. Of course, those were the precursor to Babbage's general mechanical computer, so they were actually "specially trained computers". Edit: 19th century, not 17th. "There are two really hard problems in programming: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."
- freehunter 10y ago
  As far as I know, the steam engine didn't replace anything that used to require human thought. A mechanical loom isn't replacing human intelligence either. Yes, it replaced a human performing an action, but humans brains weren't exactly racked with figuring out how to sew or weave. Think about the word "artificial" and the word "intelligence". If it used to take a human thinking and reasoning about something to perform a task but now a computer is doing it, that is by its very definition, "artificial intelligence". A steam engine or mechanical loom don't replace human brains, they replace human hands. Which is why I said "cognitive load".