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I would disagree. If you've ever requested a web page translation, done an image search, or spoken with an Alexa or google device I believe it's deep learning g

I would disagree. If you've ever requested a web page translation, done an image search, or spoken with an Alexa or google device I believe it's deep learning going on in the backend. I don't work at any of the large tech companies but I imagine they're applying deep learning as pervasively as possible where it can make a difference. That's not to disparage with your comment, only to say that while it might feel like a negligible effect on your life, I would say that it is non-zero. My completely uninformed and lay persons opinion is that we might not yet know what we can really do with deep learning yet. For example there were many years between the discovery of electricity and the invention of the microprocessor. The latter certainly required the discovery of the former, but did not logically lead to it. I use this example because Andrew Ng called AI the new electricity.

panic 9y ago
Google Translate didn't use deep learning until less than a year ago: https://research.googleblog.com/2016/09/a-neural-network-for-machine.html https://research.googleblog.com/2016/09/a-neural-network-for...
- jacquesm 9y ago
  That's why it got that much better. Before it was barely usable, now it is positively stunningly good (with the occasional booboo but if they keep improving at the present rate that will become quite rare in another 3 to 5 years).
  - pakl 9y ago
    It's also stunningly poor in lots of cases. Largely because the system has no idea of the reality it's talking about.
    - panic 9y ago
      Yeah, the differences are kind of interesting -- check out the last section of this article http://legendsoflocalization.com/funky-fantasy-iv/ http://legendsoflocalization.com/funky-fantasy-iv/ for some comparisons of Google-translated Japanese text from Final Fantasy IV before and after the switch.
      - nubbins 9y ago
        Thats fascinating how you can see the rules based formalism of version 1 translate go wrong in very different ways from the ML pattern matching version 2. ML creates a grammatical but nonsensical sentence from which little or no original meaning can be recovered. As someone in Japanese translation makes me feel better about my job.
  - dllthomas 9y ago
    > Before it was barely usable, now it is positively stunningly good That varies a lot by language. I keep finding its attempts at Polish painfully bad, and I only know a little Polish myself.
coldtea 9y ago
>I would disagree. If you've ever requested a web page translation, done an image search, or spoken with an Alexa or google device I believe it's deep learning going on in the backend. Web page translations (at least in Google and earlier) didn't do "deep learning" for ages. Plus most of those things, web page translation, image search, speech assistants, are pretty much either niches or gimmicks. Even if they worked perfectly, there would not be much to write home about. It's not like people think "my life was changed by the Alexa". GUIs, on the other hand, made lots of things possible that weren't, including whole new professions (heck, the web IS a GUI thing).

panic 9y ago

Google Translate didn't use deep learning until less than a year ago: https://research.googleblog.com/2016/09/a-neural-network-for-machine.html https://research.googleblog.com/2016/09/a-neural-network-for...

jacquesm 9y ago
That's why it got that much better. Before it was barely usable, now it is positively stunningly good (with the occasional booboo but if they keep improving at the present rate that will become quite rare in another 3 to 5 years).
- pakl 9y ago
  It's also stunningly poor in lots of cases. Largely because the system has no idea of the reality it's talking about.
  - panic 9y ago
    Yeah, the differences are kind of interesting -- check out the last section of this article http://legendsoflocalization.com/funky-fantasy-iv/ http://legendsoflocalization.com/funky-fantasy-iv/ for some comparisons of Google-translated Japanese text from Final Fantasy IV before and after the switch.
    - nubbins 9y ago
      Thats fascinating how you can see the rules based formalism of version 1 translate go wrong in very different ways from the ML pattern matching version 2. ML creates a grammatical but nonsensical sentence from which little or no original meaning can be recovered. As someone in Japanese translation makes me feel better about my job.
- dllthomas 9y ago
  > Before it was barely usable, now it is positively stunningly good That varies a lot by language. I keep finding its attempts at Polish painfully bad, and I only know a little Polish myself.

coldtea 9y ago

>I would disagree. If you've ever requested a web page translation, done an image search, or spoken with an Alexa or google device I believe it's deep learning going on in the backend. Web page translations (at least in Google and earlier) didn't do "deep learning" for ages. Plus most of those things, web page translation, image search, speech assistants, are pretty much either niches or gimmicks. Even if they worked perfectly, there would not be much to write home about. It's not like people think "my life was changed by the Alexa". GUIs, on the other hand, made lots of things possible that weren't, including whole new professions (heck, the web IS a GUI thing).