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This has been hanging out there for a while it's just that it never got much mainstream press. I wonder what it is specifically about the concept of "AI" that m

This has been hanging out there for a while it's just that it never got much mainstream press. I wonder what it is specifically about the concept of "AI" that makes it so prone to the magical thinking that drives these boom-bust cycles. "I tell adult audiences not to expect it in their lifetimes. And I say the same thing to students" "Merely dealing with lighting conditions, weather conditions, and traffic conditions is immensely complicated. The software requirements are extremely daunting. Nobody even has the ability to verify and validate the software. I estimate that the challenge of fully automated cars is 10 orders of magnitude more complicated than [fully automated] commercial aviation." - June 2015, Steve Shladover, transportation researcher at the University of California, Berkeley https://www.automobilemag.com/news/the-hurdles-facing-autonomous-vehicles/ https://www.automobilemag.com/news/the-hurdles-facing-autono... "While I enthusiastically support the research, development, and testing of self-driving cars, as human limitations and the propensity for distraction are real threats on the road, I am decidedly less optimistic about what I perceive to be a rush to field systems that are absolutely not ready for widespread deployment, and certainly not ready for humans to be completely taken out of the driver’s seat." - March 2016, Mary Cummings, director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory at Duke https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/c85cb4ef-8d7f-40fb-968c-c476c5220a3c/8BC0CC7E137483CEFD0C928ECB14E74E.cummings-senate-testimony-2016.pdf https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/c85cb4ef... "With autonomous cars, you see these videos from Google and Uber showing a car driving around, but people have not taken it past 80 percent. It's one of those problems where it's easy to get to the first 80 percent, but it's incredibly difficult to solve the last 20 percent. If you have a good GPS, nicely marked roads like in California, and nice weather without snow or rain, it's actually not that hard. But guess what? To solve the real problem, for you or me to buy a car that can drive autonomously from point A to point B—it's not even close. There are fundamental problems that need to be solved." - September 2016, Herman Herman, director of the Carnegie-Mellon University Robotics Institute https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7y49y/robotics-lab-uber-gutted-says-driving-cars-are-not-even-close-carnegie-mellon-nrec https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d7y49y/robotics-l...

tonysdg 8y ago
I'd argue that it's because (true/hard) AI represents, in many ways, the "final frontier" of scientific research. Not in a literal sense -- they'll always be something else to study. But the notion of creating a thinking machine is, in many ways, the ultimate goal of studying nature and the world around us: to allow us to understand the processes and phenomenon at work well-enough to be able to capture/manipulate/recreate them at will. This isn't new though -- "thinking machines" have captivated audiences for millenia. See the Antikythera mechanism [1], the Turk [2], and so on. The ability to replicate the capabilities of our own brains is intoxicating -- it finally signals that we, homo sapiens, understand our own minds well-enough to recreate their abilities at will. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk
- xamuel 8y ago
  >the "final frontier" of scientific research. Not in a literal sense Real AI would literally be the final frontier, because at that point, all the scientists could quit their jobs. The AI could replace them. But real AI is a lot different than what everyone is selling as AI these days, which is essentially a hyper-glorified generalization of linear regression.
aantix 8y ago
You don't have to solve the entirety of the problem for a solution to be useful. The autonomous cars only drive when it's 80 degrees out, sunny and on predetermined paths? Still welcomed.
- brookhaven_dude 8y ago
  Why not just lay out a network of rail lines then?
  - Brakenshire 8y ago
    The technology actually seems perfect for some kind of hybrid between road and rail, if we could build a city from scratch you could make something better than either, with train-like capacity alongside road-like routing. Although I suppose the difficulty limits the market enough to make investment in such a scheme uncompetitive. Perhaps this is what Musk is hoping to get around that with his tunneling idea.

tonysdg 8y ago

I'd argue that it's because (true/hard) AI represents, in many ways, the "final frontier" of scientific research. Not in a literal sense -- they'll always be something else to study. But the notion of creating a thinking machine is, in many ways, the ultimate goal of studying nature and the world around us: to allow us to understand the processes and phenomenon at work well-enough to be able to capture/manipulate/recreate them at will. This isn't new though -- "thinking machines" have captivated audiences for millenia. See the Antikythera mechanism [1], the Turk [2], and so on. The ability to replicate the capabilities of our own brains is intoxicating -- it finally signals that we, homo sapiens, understand our own minds well-enough to recreate their abilities at will. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk

xamuel 8y ago
>the "final frontier" of scientific research. Not in a literal sense Real AI would literally be the final frontier, because at that point, all the scientists could quit their jobs. The AI could replace them. But real AI is a lot different than what everyone is selling as AI these days, which is essentially a hyper-glorified generalization of linear regression.

aantix 8y ago

You don't have to solve the entirety of the problem for a solution to be useful. The autonomous cars only drive when it's 80 degrees out, sunny and on predetermined paths? Still welcomed.

brookhaven_dude 8y ago
Why not just lay out a network of rail lines then?
- Brakenshire 8y ago
  The technology actually seems perfect for some kind of hybrid between road and rail, if we could build a city from scratch you could make something better than either, with train-like capacity alongside road-like routing. Although I suppose the difficulty limits the market enough to make investment in such a scheme uncompetitive. Perhaps this is what Musk is hoping to get around that with his tunneling idea.