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I really enjoyed this article. AI has dramatically overpromised every decade since 1960. Advances have always been made, but why do they have to exaggerate so m

I really enjoyed this article. AI has dramatically overpromised every decade since 1960. Advances have always been made, but why do they have to exaggerate so much about its potential? I’m too scared to comment or say anything else though. It would be the equivalent of saying something negative about bitcoin on r/Bitcoin.

aalleavitch 9y ago
Part of why we hype is because it’s how we get advancement. Yeah realistically the AI we all really want to see might be another three decades out, but if we want that to happen we have to get investors hyped about it now.
- jack9 9y ago
  > Part of why we hype is because it’s how we get advancement That's a partisan overstatement. It's how some other "we" gets funding, at best. Yes there's a correlation between getting funding and success, but to say the correlation between hype and success directly, seems disingenuous.
dang 9y ago
> I’m too scared to comment or say anything else though. It would be the equivalent of saying something negative about bitcoin on r/Bitcoin. I'm not sure where you got that impression but skepticism of AI hype gets a lot of airtime in HN threads.
nabla9 9y ago
Amara's law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." Amara's law seems like a common human fallacy but it's also true that it's very hard to estimate correctly a growing trend. We have something that is obviously important and will have profound effect, but even small error in the estimates of technological proliferation can lead to 5-25 year time differences. Another thing is the hype from outside the field. There are more people outside the field hyping it up than there are people inside hyping it. Investors, media and marketing are are powerful force when they jump in and they don't cool down easily.

aalleavitch 9y ago

Part of why we hype is because it’s how we get advancement. Yeah realistically the AI we all really want to see might be another three decades out, but if we want that to happen we have to get investors hyped about it now.

jack9 9y ago
> Part of why we hype is because it’s how we get advancement That's a partisan overstatement. It's how some other "we" gets funding, at best. Yes there's a correlation between getting funding and success, but to say the correlation between hype and success directly, seems disingenuous.

dang 9y ago

> I’m too scared to comment or say anything else though. It would be the equivalent of saying something negative about bitcoin on r/Bitcoin. I'm not sure where you got that impression but skepticism of AI hype gets a lot of airtime in HN threads.

nabla9 9y ago

Amara's law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." Amara's law seems like a common human fallacy but it's also true that it's very hard to estimate correctly a growing trend. We have something that is obviously important and will have profound effect, but even small error in the estimates of technological proliferation can lead to 5-25 year time differences. Another thing is the hype from outside the field. There are more people outside the field hyping it up than there are people inside hyping it. Investors, media and marketing are are powerful force when they jump in and they don't cool down easily.