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Counter-example: Geoffrey Hinton (who developed backpropagation), has a self-proclaimed phobia of mathematics. There's plenty more to innovation than solving th
by philee 9y ago
Counter-example: Geoffrey Hinton (who developed backpropagation), has a self-proclaimed phobia of mathematics. There's plenty more to innovation than solving those IMO problems, Google Code Jams, etc, because they involve very specific practice (and over-fit the needed skillsets).
It's instead the encouraging atmosphere and resultant inflows of capital (intellectual and otherwise) that may put China ahead in the future.
- nopinsight 9y agoGeoffrey Hinton may not be excellent at math at the professional level but if one watches his talks and lectures, it’s clear that he is more competent than 99% of most populations. AI requires more than math, but one cannot work competently in AI without being competent at math. Based on teaching experience, I would estimate the lower threshold to be about 2SD above global average (or equivalent to 700 PISA score in math), which might mean less than 2% of US high school students are above that threshold.