Picking which of the 10 bands is the brightest has got to be trivial, so much more so than directly recognising eg. '4', so it does seem to do what it says. >

Picking which of the 10 bands is the brightest has got to be trivial, so much more so than directly recognising eg. '4', so it does seem to do what it says. > The system DESIGNING the glass learned how to construct the glass such that the light bended appropriately With a bit of rephrasing you could say exactly the same about a neural network surely. The learning was embodied in the glass, so depending on definitions, the glass was 'taught' something. It 'learnt' something. I kind of see what you're saying, but it does seem to be discounting something actually interesting and new (in my experience).