5 ms·

Where did I ever claim that deep learning is new? I am fully aware of its history. Before deep learning, research on neural networks dates all the way back to t

Where did I ever claim that deep learning is new? I am fully aware of its history. Before deep learning, research on neural networks dates all the way back to the 1950s. You are completely missing the point: "deep learning" and AI are mostly synonymous in the current hype cycle, and it began with breakthroughs in deep learning. How do you mean "AI today" The AI industry that I work in.

dang 7y ago
> You are completely missing the point Can you please edit swipes like that out of your comments here? They tend to degrade discussion. If you simply provide correct information, your comments will be stronger and their effect on the thread at large more salutary. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- corodra 7y ago
  That's a weird thing to tell someone. A person can't say that they're being misunderstood because that degrades a discussion? Degrades how? Are you putting yourself as supreme judge of the situation? Reading through the back and forth, I agree that OP had some of their statements made into strawmen. Does it degrade to mention that I think they may be in the right? Maybe miss worded a bit, yes. But the general point made throughout, I think is valid. Is me disagreeing with you degrading your sensibilities?
  - dang 7y ago
    Of course not, but there's a long road between "disagreeing" (which is no problem) to "saying you're being misunderstood" (may be fine, but usually is already a step down in discussion quality) to "you're completely missing the point" (outright swipe). Commenters here should stay in the former zone and avoid the latter. That's not hard to do.
    - kranner 7y ago
      > That's not hard to do. As a third party, may I suggest that this statement amounts to a 'swipe'?
      - dang 7y ago
        I don't see why? I say that because it sounds like the kind of thing that's hard to do, but actually isn't.
        kranner 7y ago
        Well, if you meant it in that straightforward sense, then it was not a swipe. But I've seen the same statement used in a derogatory manner in the sense of "get this done, it's not difficult [if you're not an idiot]" by a bad manager or two. To me it does carry that other sense.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- codesushi42 7y ago
  That is hypocritical then. This is not a swipe from op? So could we please all not throw about big proclamations about what "AI today" is ("just" or not), without first making sure that we have a thorough understanding of what we are saying? I thank us all in advance
  - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
    No, that is not a swipe. That is me being very nice and polite in telling people to make sure they know what they're saying before saying it, followed by an awkward attempt at humour to avoid any misunderstanding of my tone. Edit: Sorry, I see you are the OP in the thread. Note that I did not aim that specifically at you and I included myself in "us". I understand you may have felt frustrated that I challenged your knowledge of AI but I sincerely think that you could have researched the subject a bit better before stating what you think it is. Edit II: At the very least you could have tried to talk a bit more about why you think that "AI today is just capable of curve fitting". Making such a strong statement without any attempt to back it up with some kind of explanation (I'm not saying you should reference sources and bring "evidence" or anything, just explain it) comes across as a bit, well, ill-informed. With respect.
    - codesushi42 7y ago
      that you could have researched the subject a bit better before stating what you think it is. You just defended a swipe using another swipe. Your argument is rooted in terminology. Yes, in academia, AI means more than deep learning. Practically speaking, AI and deep learning are synonymous in startup land. And yes, supervised NN techniques are just curve fitting, and are not practical for program synthesis. Which was the original subject of this monotonous thread.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
        If you believe that "AI" is used differently in academia and in startups, then making it plain that you use the term in one or the other way could have helped clarify your meaning. I agree that this thread is dragging on a bit, but it started with a very bold proclamation expressed in strident language criticising peoples' apparent ignorance of the subject- by yourself: "Good grief" and "When will people wake up" rather set the tone of your comment. If you choose to open a conversation like that, with a broadside against "peoples'" ill-informed views I would expect you are prepared to take a bit of criticism regarding the lack of depth of your own views. If not and my criticism has upset you, I apologise, but in that case, maybe you can try to be less provocative in how you express your views in the future, because provocativeness tends to elicit robust reactions. Edit: In any case I just wanted to say: I get that you're annoyed by our conversation but I'd like to thank you for keeping it civil (if a bit tense) and not resorting to personal attacks. Cheers.
tlb 7y ago
I don't know that anyone claims that deep learning is the only technology needed for AGI. The biggest proponents will say that it's the missing piece. But a full system will involve lots of ideas including tree search.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
I don't understand why you pointed out that SAT solvers etc are not new, if you were not comparing them to deep learning, for the purposes of discussing what is "AI now". AI is most certainly not synonymous with deep learning. It is just people in the industry who do not know anything about AI and who recently jumped on the deep learning bandwagon, who think they are, and people in the tech press who don't have the time to do proper research. I don't see why we need to perpetuate their misconceptions. Actually, we don't.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  >> It is just people in the industry who do not know anything about AI and who recently jumped on the deep learning bandwagon, who think they are, Yes, I suppose this is not the best way to say what I wanted to say without getting peoples' back up. I'm leaving it as it is since it's already been read a few times from what I can tell, but here's a less rash version. What I mean is that, because of the tremendous recent success and public exposure of deep learning, many people have become interested in it who do not have a background in AI, or even in computer science, and who therefore enter the field with big gaps in their understanding of what "AI" means. That is my experience anyway. Well, it's a shame to work in a field and not understand its history, not least the history of what has already been achieved and what has failed, and how, so that one does not have to repeat history. So it's in everyone's interest to avoid making statements with great certainty when this certainty is not backed up by long-term knowledge. For the record, I'm a newcome to the field myself. But I have a background in classic AI, specifically logic programming, so I do know the long story.

dang 7y ago

> You are completely missing the point Can you please edit swipes like that out of your comments here? They tend to degrade discussion. If you simply provide correct information, your comments will be stronger and their effect on the thread at large more salutary. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

corodra 7y ago
That's a weird thing to tell someone. A person can't say that they're being misunderstood because that degrades a discussion? Degrades how? Are you putting yourself as supreme judge of the situation? Reading through the back and forth, I agree that OP had some of their statements made into strawmen. Does it degrade to mention that I think they may be in the right? Maybe miss worded a bit, yes. But the general point made throughout, I think is valid. Is me disagreeing with you degrading your sensibilities?
- dang 7y ago
  Of course not, but there's a long road between "disagreeing" (which is no problem) to "saying you're being misunderstood" (may be fine, but usually is already a step down in discussion quality) to "you're completely missing the point" (outright swipe). Commenters here should stay in the former zone and avoid the latter. That's not hard to do.
  - kranner 7y ago
    > That's not hard to do. As a third party, may I suggest that this statement amounts to a 'swipe'?
    - dang 7y ago
      I don't see why? I say that because it sounds like the kind of thing that's hard to do, but actually isn't.
      - kranner 7y ago
        Well, if you meant it in that straightforward sense, then it was not a swipe. But I've seen the same statement used in a derogatory manner in the sense of "get this done, it's not difficult [if you're not an idiot]" by a bad manager or two. To me it does carry that other sense.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
codesushi42 7y ago
That is hypocritical then. This is not a swipe from op? So could we please all not throw about big proclamations about what "AI today" is ("just" or not), without first making sure that we have a thorough understanding of what we are saying? I thank us all in advance
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  No, that is not a swipe. That is me being very nice and polite in telling people to make sure they know what they're saying before saying it, followed by an awkward attempt at humour to avoid any misunderstanding of my tone. Edit: Sorry, I see you are the OP in the thread. Note that I did not aim that specifically at you and I included myself in "us". I understand you may have felt frustrated that I challenged your knowledge of AI but I sincerely think that you could have researched the subject a bit better before stating what you think it is. Edit II: At the very least you could have tried to talk a bit more about why you think that "AI today is just capable of curve fitting". Making such a strong statement without any attempt to back it up with some kind of explanation (I'm not saying you should reference sources and bring "evidence" or anything, just explain it) comes across as a bit, well, ill-informed. With respect.
  - codesushi42 7y ago
    that you could have researched the subject a bit better before stating what you think it is. You just defended a swipe using another swipe. Your argument is rooted in terminology. Yes, in academia, AI means more than deep learning. Practically speaking, AI and deep learning are synonymous in startup land. And yes, supervised NN techniques are just curve fitting, and are not practical for program synthesis. Which was the original subject of this monotonous thread.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
      If you believe that "AI" is used differently in academia and in startups, then making it plain that you use the term in one or the other way could have helped clarify your meaning. I agree that this thread is dragging on a bit, but it started with a very bold proclamation expressed in strident language criticising peoples' apparent ignorance of the subject- by yourself: "Good grief" and "When will people wake up" rather set the tone of your comment. If you choose to open a conversation like that, with a broadside against "peoples'" ill-informed views I would expect you are prepared to take a bit of criticism regarding the lack of depth of your own views. If not and my criticism has upset you, I apologise, but in that case, maybe you can try to be less provocative in how you express your views in the future, because provocativeness tends to elicit robust reactions. Edit: In any case I just wanted to say: I get that you're annoyed by our conversation but I'd like to thank you for keeping it civil (if a bit tense) and not resorting to personal attacks. Cheers.

tlb 7y ago

I don't know that anyone claims that deep learning is the only technology needed for AGI. The biggest proponents will say that it's the missing piece. But a full system will involve lots of ideas including tree search.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

I don't understand why you pointed out that SAT solvers etc are not new, if you were not comparing them to deep learning, for the purposes of discussing what is "AI now". AI is most certainly not synonymous with deep learning. It is just people in the industry who do not know anything about AI and who recently jumped on the deep learning bandwagon, who think they are, and people in the tech press who don't have the time to do proper research. I don't see why we need to perpetuate their misconceptions. Actually, we don't.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
>> It is just people in the industry who do not know anything about AI and who recently jumped on the deep learning bandwagon, who think they are, Yes, I suppose this is not the best way to say what I wanted to say without getting peoples' back up. I'm leaving it as it is since it's already been read a few times from what I can tell, but here's a less rash version. What I mean is that, because of the tremendous recent success and public exposure of deep learning, many people have become interested in it who do not have a background in AI, or even in computer science, and who therefore enter the field with big gaps in their understanding of what "AI" means. That is my experience anyway. Well, it's a shame to work in a field and not understand its history, not least the history of what has already been achieved and what has failed, and how, so that one does not have to repeat history. So it's in everyone's interest to avoid making statements with great certainty when this certainty is not backed up by long-term knowledge. For the record, I'm a newcome to the field myself. But I have a background in classic AI, specifically logic programming, so I do know the long story.