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Currently reading the work of Hubert Dreyfus. Dreyfus was widely ridiculed in the 60’s and the 80’s for coming out against AI simply on the grounds that it woul

by Top19 9y ago

Currently reading the work of Hubert Dreyfus. Dreyfus was widely ridiculed in the 60’s and the 80’s for coming out against AI simply on the grounds that it wouldn’t work, but for those decades at least he was certainly right as it turned out. Reading his book “The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer” from 1983 is haunting and eerily sounds a lot like today. >“AI entrepreneurs and researchers will climb a tree, sometimes even a tall one, and then tell you they’ve got all the workings of a space program”

raverbashing 9y ago
> “AI entrepreneurs and researchers will climb a tree, sometimes even a tall one, and then tell you they’ve got all the workings of a space program” Sounds more like a cranky Luddite than anything else. "on the grounds that it wouldn’t work", lovely argument right there. The list of inventions that "wouldn't work" is vast, including trains, aircraft, personal computers, etc All modern inventions started as feeble/underpowered/clunky inventions Compare Atari graphics with PS4 ones Compare the first works with Mnist digit recognition to what Snapchat filters or AlphaGo do But that's fine since skeptics means less competition to those who actually make things work
dEnigma 9y ago
"simply on the grounds that it wouldn’t work" That is a weird position to hold. Surely he must realize that it will work some day; or does he believe there is something more to human-like intelligence, that can never be achieved in silicon? I'm not saying we are close, or that the currently available tools are enough, but at some point in the future we will be there.
ansible 9y ago
We've reached a cross-over point though. Current-generation ML techniques have proven business value. You can talk to your phone, and it understands a decent set of common actions to be performed. It is now mass-market. Businesses see the value of the existing ML systems, and can also see that investments in incremental improvements will pay dividends. And so, investment will continue. Meanwhile, we're finally starting to figure out the actual architecture that allows us to think and move. [1] With continued research, we'll see progress there as well. [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-unc...
vorotato 9y ago
Sure but you couldn't actually do anything with AI in the 1960's and 1980's.

by Top19 9y ago

raverbashing 9y ago

> “AI entrepreneurs and researchers will climb a tree, sometimes even a tall one, and then tell you they’ve got all the workings of a space program” Sounds more like a cranky Luddite than anything else. "on the grounds that it wouldn’t work", lovely argument right there. The list of inventions that "wouldn't work" is vast, including trains, aircraft, personal computers, etc All modern inventions started as feeble/underpowered/clunky inventions Compare Atari graphics with PS4 ones Compare the first works with Mnist digit recognition to what Snapchat filters or AlphaGo do But that's fine since skeptics means less competition to those who actually make things work

dEnigma 9y ago

"simply on the grounds that it wouldn’t work" That is a weird position to hold. Surely he must realize that it will work some day; or does he believe there is something more to human-like intelligence, that can never be achieved in silicon? I'm not saying we are close, or that the currently available tools are enough, but at some point in the future we will be there.

ansible 9y ago

We've reached a cross-over point though. Current-generation ML techniques have proven business value. You can talk to your phone, and it understands a decent set of common actions to be performed. It is now mass-market. Businesses see the value of the existing ML systems, and can also see that investments in incremental improvements will pay dividends. And so, investment will continue. Meanwhile, we're finally starting to figure out the actual architecture that allows us to think and move. [1] With continued research, we'll see progress there as well. [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-unc...

vorotato 9y ago

Sure but you couldn't actually do anything with AI in the 1960's and 1980's.