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As others pointed out, it's an overreach to call this artificial intelligence. What the authors showed is that by training standard machine learning algorithms

As others pointed out, it's an overreach to call this artificial intelligence. What the authors showed is that by training standard machine learning algorithms (random forests, logistic regression, gradient boosting, and a shallow neural net) on readily-available signals from the medical record (e.g., prior diagnoses), you can increase the c-statistic from 0.728 to 0.764. These machine learning techniques are well-suited to the data set and the empirical evaluation is strong, so this work should really stand on its own without trying to brand it AI. There is some very high quality work on artificial intelligence in medicine being done today. Google Brain published a validation study of a convolutional net to diagnose diabetic retinopathy in December, and Stanford published similar work but applied to skin cancer. NIPS 2016 had an excellent Machine Learning for Health workshop with several works-in-progress: http://www.nipsml4hc.ws/ http://www.nipsml4hc.ws/

Kenji 10y ago
What's the difference between AI and 'standard machine learning algorithms'? Seems like they are used interchangeably today. Especially if you count neural nets as a standard algorithm too - which, let's be frank - it is in today's world.
- snackai 10y ago
  Machine Learning is just a tool belt. AI is the idea of intelligent machines being able to solve problems (and recognizing them) on their own. Therefore of course AI can utilize the tool belt that is Machine Learning.
  - jasode 10y ago
    >AI is the idea of intelligent machines being able to solve problems (and recognizing them) on their own. From the perspective of a language descriptivist instead of prescriptivist, that strict definition of AI is already long gone. That ship has sailed. Even wikipedia says that colloquial uses of "artificial intelligence" stands for machine learning that mimics intelligence. It's understandable that The NYT and all mainstream non-compsci publications will use "artificial intelligence" that way. One of the researchers (Stephen Weng) cited in the article also uses the term "artificial intelligence" in his LinkedIn page and in the PDF research article itself. If and when "solving/recognizing on its own" truly becomes reality, I suspect the world will adapt and call it "True-AI" or "Lifelike-AI" or "Strong-AI". We'll find another term to distinguish it from the watered down "artificial intelligence".
  - mortehu 10y ago
    I think you might be talking about what other people call Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    The timeless problem of AI, anything that starts out AI ends up being rebranded as not AI once it's understood. It's the no true Scotsman fallacy. Machine learning is AI, it's just not human level AI.
    - jgalt212 10y ago
      > Machine learning is AI I disagree. Machine Learning is just super-charged linear regression. If you build a ML system that autonomously chooses it factors, and automatically adjusts to model drift (by either adjusting existing coefficients (easy) or adding/removing factors (hard), then ML drifts into AI.
      - gnaritas 10y ago
        > I disagree. Machine Learning is just super-charged linear regression. Machine learning is neural nets, which started out as an approach to AI and which yes boil down to linear regression, but that's about as useful as saying brains are just super super charged linear regression. And that's the point, AI is a label that keeps getting cast off of things that started out as AI but once understood people decided they no longer were, you are committing the no true Scotsman fallacy. If it started off as AI, it's AI, that doesn't change because you understand the math underneath that it boils down to.
    - felippee 10y ago
      I'd disagree, there is more here than the no true Scotsman fallacy. It is equivalent to saying that any magic trick ceases to be magic once exposed as a trick. We don't have a good definition of I in AI therefore such arguments go on forever, yet somehow we know that the "I as in human being "I" is different than the "I" as in "AI" statistical smoke and mirrors. My opinion is that a good definition could be established that would clear such BS once and for all, some attempt here: http://blog.piekniewski.info/2017/04/13/ai-confuses-intelligent/ http://blog.piekniewski.info/2017/04/13/ai-confuses-intellig...
      - gnaritas 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
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Kenji 10y ago

What's the difference between AI and 'standard machine learning algorithms'? Seems like they are used interchangeably today. Especially if you count neural nets as a standard algorithm too - which, let's be frank - it is in today's world.

snackai 10y ago
Machine Learning is just a tool belt. AI is the idea of intelligent machines being able to solve problems (and recognizing them) on their own. Therefore of course AI can utilize the tool belt that is Machine Learning.
- jasode 10y ago
  >AI is the idea of intelligent machines being able to solve problems (and recognizing them) on their own. From the perspective of a language descriptivist instead of prescriptivist, that strict definition of AI is already long gone. That ship has sailed. Even wikipedia says that colloquial uses of "artificial intelligence" stands for machine learning that mimics intelligence. It's understandable that The NYT and all mainstream non-compsci publications will use "artificial intelligence" that way. One of the researchers (Stephen Weng) cited in the article also uses the term "artificial intelligence" in his LinkedIn page and in the PDF research article itself. If and when "solving/recognizing on its own" truly becomes reality, I suspect the world will adapt and call it "True-AI" or "Lifelike-AI" or "Strong-AI". We'll find another term to distinguish it from the watered down "artificial intelligence".
- mortehu 10y ago
  I think you might be talking about what other people call Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
- gnaritas 10y ago
  The timeless problem of AI, anything that starts out AI ends up being rebranded as not AI once it's understood. It's the no true Scotsman fallacy. Machine learning is AI, it's just not human level AI.
  - jgalt212 10y ago
    > Machine learning is AI I disagree. Machine Learning is just super-charged linear regression. If you build a ML system that autonomously chooses it factors, and automatically adjusts to model drift (by either adjusting existing coefficients (easy) or adding/removing factors (hard), then ML drifts into AI.
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      > I disagree. Machine Learning is just super-charged linear regression. Machine learning is neural nets, which started out as an approach to AI and which yes boil down to linear regression, but that's about as useful as saying brains are just super super charged linear regression. And that's the point, AI is a label that keeps getting cast off of things that started out as AI but once understood people decided they no longer were, you are committing the no true Scotsman fallacy. If it started off as AI, it's AI, that doesn't change because you understand the math underneath that it boils down to.
  - felippee 10y ago
    I'd disagree, there is more here than the no true Scotsman fallacy. It is equivalent to saying that any magic trick ceases to be magic once exposed as a trick. We don't have a good definition of I in AI therefore such arguments go on forever, yet somehow we know that the "I as in human being "I" is different than the "I" as in "AI" statistical smoke and mirrors. My opinion is that a good definition could be established that would clear such BS once and for all, some attempt here: http://blog.piekniewski.info/2017/04/13/ai-confuses-intelligent/ http://blog.piekniewski.info/2017/04/13/ai-confuses-intellig...
    - gnaritas 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

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