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The author, Ben Thompson, sees Machine Intelligence as meaningly different from meticulously designed logic systems. There are some differences of course, but w

The author, Ben Thompson, sees Machine Intelligence as meaningly different from meticulously designed logic systems. There are some differences of course, but whether those differences will get around the arguments that were critical of Good-Old-Fashioned-AI is something that has been debated since perceptrons were invented. Machines will replace some jobs for sure, but luckily, they can only really be reliable on the jobs that a fast but dumb slave, or a fanatical bureaucrat could have done anyway. When my dad started his first job he was in a drawing room of about 50 draughtsmen, making technical drawings from the sketches of a single designer. When he ended his career he was the only designer-draughtsman in an entire company as the computer did the non-creative formatting of his ideas into technical drawings. That didn't require machine learning, and machine learning is never going to replace the "designer" part of that job. Yeah, never.

xapata 10y ago
It turns out that computers are pretty decent at simulating creativity. Do some searching for machine-created art/literature
- AndrewOMartin 10y ago
  I work with those people on a daily basis. There are legitimate critiques of the creativity, often tacitly acknowledged or fully ignored. There's no one in the field making any legitimate claims to computational creativity. Maggie Boden did a fine job by inventing a few definitions of creativity and finding them in the output of machines, but it's all ultimately explicit rule-following.
  - dnautics 10y ago
    I'd recommend this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_Analogies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_An... There's some interesting experimental models of computational creativity. Unfortunately, hofstadter's actual work in CS is somewhat overshadowed by his, uh other work.
  - petra 10y ago
    >> but it's all ultimately explicit rule-following. Doesn't it fall into the problem of "you can't teach a machine to swim"? meaning that all we can fairly judge is whether the result would have been considered creative if done by a human ?
    - archgoon 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure that 'cat' is not a particularly creative program, even if I give it Shakespeare.txt as it's input.
  - xapata 10y ago
    > explicit rule-following I'm willing to bet that human creativity is indistinguishable from rule-following with the occasional dice roll. Machines are currently not as creative as humans, but I don't see why they couldn't be.
visarga 10y ago
Until the machine can make a more optimized design than humans.
- AndrewOMartin 10y ago
  You'll always need intelligent humans using your product to tell you what to optimise for. An optimisation is almost always a trade-off and you'll need your end users to tell you what's ok to sacrifice. For example, I expect my mum would trade about 50% of the processing power of her phone to get 10% more battery life, but the most important feature of her phone right now is that it's white so it's easier to find in her bag. My point is that you can't just tell a machine to go optimise. You need to tell it what to optimise and that's often a complex indeterminate culturally specific interaction between poorly defined attributes.
  - zardo 10y ago
    I think the direction is generating designs so quickly that the 'designer' is essentially exploring a design space manifold in realtime. You'll still need someone to do it, but I think designers are going to get the kind of boost in productivity that accountants got from spreadsheets. Whether that translates to fewer designers, or more and better designed things... I suspect the latter.
zardo 10y ago
>Machine learning is never going to replace the "designer" part of that job. Yeah, never. I've designed parts and assemblies with substantial variation options, to the extent that customers can order variations that I did not consider. That was 6 years ago with a then 6 year old CAD tool. A more efficient designer that works at a higher level, with lower level parts details automatically generated does in effect reduce the need for designers. Generative design tools have massive potential for changing the nature of design work, lowering the man-hours involved in complex designs. Most design work is not creative, it's fleshing out the details to make an idea work.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

xapata 10y ago

It turns out that computers are pretty decent at simulating creativity. Do some searching for machine-created art/literature

AndrewOMartin 10y ago
I work with those people on a daily basis. There are legitimate critiques of the creativity, often tacitly acknowledged or fully ignored. There's no one in the field making any legitimate claims to computational creativity. Maggie Boden did a fine job by inventing a few definitions of creativity and finding them in the output of machines, but it's all ultimately explicit rule-following.
- dnautics 10y ago
  I'd recommend this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_Analogies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_An... There's some interesting experimental models of computational creativity. Unfortunately, hofstadter's actual work in CS is somewhat overshadowed by his, uh other work.
- petra 10y ago
  >> but it's all ultimately explicit rule-following. Doesn't it fall into the problem of "you can't teach a machine to swim"? meaning that all we can fairly judge is whether the result would have been considered creative if done by a human ?
  - archgoon 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure that 'cat' is not a particularly creative program, even if I give it Shakespeare.txt as it's input.
- xapata 10y ago
  > explicit rule-following I'm willing to bet that human creativity is indistinguishable from rule-following with the occasional dice roll. Machines are currently not as creative as humans, but I don't see why they couldn't be.

visarga 10y ago

Until the machine can make a more optimized design than humans.

AndrewOMartin 10y ago
You'll always need intelligent humans using your product to tell you what to optimise for. An optimisation is almost always a trade-off and you'll need your end users to tell you what's ok to sacrifice. For example, I expect my mum would trade about 50% of the processing power of her phone to get 10% more battery life, but the most important feature of her phone right now is that it's white so it's easier to find in her bag. My point is that you can't just tell a machine to go optimise. You need to tell it what to optimise and that's often a complex indeterminate culturally specific interaction between poorly defined attributes.
- zardo 10y ago
  I think the direction is generating designs so quickly that the 'designer' is essentially exploring a design space manifold in realtime. You'll still need someone to do it, but I think designers are going to get the kind of boost in productivity that accountants got from spreadsheets. Whether that translates to fewer designers, or more and better designed things... I suspect the latter.

zardo 10y ago

>Machine learning is never going to replace the "designer" part of that job. Yeah, never. I've designed parts and assemblies with substantial variation options, to the extent that customers can order variations that I did not consider. That was 6 years ago with a then 6 year old CAD tool. A more efficient designer that works at a higher level, with lower level parts details automatically generated does in effect reduce the need for designers. Generative design tools have massive potential for changing the nature of design work, lowering the man-hours involved in complex designs. Most design work is not creative, it's fleshing out the details to make an idea work.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]