4 ms·

Well, AI in 2001, surveillance state in 1984… It almost seems like these are chapter numbers in something like the 1984's inner book about how the modern world

by owl57 7y ago

Well, AI in 2001, surveillance state in 1984… It almost seems like these are chapter numbers in something like the 1984's inner book about how the modern world works.

zxcvbn4038 7y ago
I’ve yet to see AI. For that matter, where is my floating car and ray gun? Future is turning out to be more of the same.
- Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
  Come on. For $50 I can buy a smart speaker that recognizes my voice and I can ask about the weather, news, events for a given day, factual questions, set reminders, play music of X genre, etc. I know the limitations (I work in the field), it's way less powerful than Hal 9000, but by 20th century standards we definitely have AI.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - brazzy 7y ago
    ...for sufficiently small values of "I".
    - jimmaswell 7y ago
      The way they asked the computer questions in The Next Generation is closer to what we have today. Most of it would be doable, thinking of Siri/Google Assistant and Wolfram Alpha.
  - numpad0 7y ago
    I’ve heard something like the following: “Any sufficiently useful AI research is considered a field of its own not relevant to AI, and, thus, the term AI and worthless research stays synonymous” e.g. keyboard autocorrect, travel route finders, web search.
    - andrewzah 7y ago
      Heuristics and some hooked-up algorithms to a searchbox are not Artificial Intelligence. Nowhere in those software stacks is anything remotely intelligent happening. The tool is doing exactly what it was programmed to do: receive input, apply algorithm, wait for input. It's still completely dumb. Something like "artificially assisted" would make more sense.
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    I really don't understand why you were downvoted. There's a flowchart from MIT about what AI is[1] since so people here seem to have an incorrect idea about it, and disappointingly hn is not immune from that. [1]:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612404/is-this-ai-we-drew-you-a-flowchart-to-work-it-out/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612404/is-this-ai-we-drew...
    - andrewzah 7y ago
      This argument basically ignores how language works. When people say AI, they generally mean AGI or something resembling an artificial human. If enough people consider AI to have this meaning, then it has that meaning. Language does not care about smart-aleck charts or being correct at all. And regular people are correct here, because calling things like smart speakers "artificial intelligence" is a bastardization of the term, in my humble opinion. We shouldn't need another term like AGI (which by itself makes no sense, intelligence vs general intelligence? ok...). > disappointingly hn is not immune from that What HN lacks is people who understand how linguistics and languages work. You can't point to a chart and go "see? you're saying it wrong", and actually have the language change. It just does not work that way, and I can point to many examples in the English language that are simple mistakes. The initial definition of AI is terrible for the combination of the words "artificial" and "intelligence". You can't blame people for wanting to go with a more intuitive definition that actually matches the words.
      - betenoire 7y ago
        "Regular people" (myself included) can't even really define intelligence, so why would they be right in defining artificial intelligence? What if I were to say that my speaker uses AI algorithms to help understand my voice? It is not a bastardization of the term, it just reveals the depth of the conversation you are having with someone. Adjust accordingly.
        andrewzah 7y ago
        > so why would they be right in defining artificial intelligence? Because that's simply how language works. It doesn't really matter if you're "right", what matters is usage. If most people apply AI to mean "artificial intelligence" in the sense of "intelligent like a human or close to that", then that's the meaning. > What if I were to say that my speaker uses AI algorithms to help understand my voice? Then I would ask why you would think that to be the case, then go over why AI doesn't exist yet and move on.
  - andrewzah 7y ago
    "Hey siri, play <search term>" "I didn't get that." "Hey siri, play <search term>" "Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>" "Hey siri, stop" "Hey siri, play <search term (enunciating slowly)>" "Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>" "Hey siri, stop" <opens app on phone and manually types in the correct search term> --- "Hey siri, <a search term more complicated than one short sentence with a clear answer>" "Sorry, I'm not able to show that. <opens web browser with term>" --- We do not have AI, unless you mean in the loosest possible meaning. Everything is still dumb as rocks, we just have made voice recognition a convenience. Parsing sound into a search term and dumb-ly searching is still dumb. It's not AI just because I'm not manually typing it in. Every system I've asked questions has failed on anything that's not fairly simple. Taking sounds and mapping that to a google search or a particular app is not AI. It's some engineer who decided that questions with a similarity to X or Y can be answered with Z app. (i.e. questions about the weather) Siri and others are still dumb as rocks.
    - Jagat 7y ago
      Having used all three of Alexa, 'Ok Google', and Siri, I'd have to say Siri is the worst of the three. It's extremely far behind the the other two. Try your voice searches with Google and it's very likely you'll get what you want.
      - andrewzah 7y ago
        Regardless of the brand, it's still not intelligent in any meaningful way. The capability of alexa/siri/whatever directly corresponds to whether or not some programmer implemented a match statement on that particular kind of question. Alex/siri are still just dumb tools, with voice recognition as a facade. That's not AI.
  - zxcvbn4038 7y ago
    That is not AI, that’s just Eliza, seen that trick. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    For $50 I can buy a smart speaker For $50 cash up front and all of your personal data, forever. It’s not as cheap as it first appears.
  - philwelch 7y ago
    Siri has never tried to murder me, and I still can't book a ticket to a rotating space station (from Pan-Am, and stay at a Howard Johnson onboard the station).
- honestoHeminway 7y ago
  Humans have proven non thrust worthy- thus no high energy devices, only surveilance tech for the next thousand years. sorry.
- Anon84 7y ago
  The words you're looking for are "helicopter" and "laser pointer". You're welcome :)

by owl57 7y ago

Well, AI in 2001, surveillance state in 1984… It almost seems like these are chapter numbers in something like the 1984's inner book about how the modern world works.

zxcvbn4038 7y ago

I’ve yet to see AI. For that matter, where is my floating car and ray gun? Future is turning out to be more of the same.

Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
Come on. For $50 I can buy a smart speaker that recognizes my voice and I can ask about the weather, news, events for a given day, factual questions, set reminders, play music of X genre, etc. I know the limitations (I work in the field), it's way less powerful than Hal 9000, but by 20th century standards we definitely have AI.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- brazzy 7y ago
  ...for sufficiently small values of "I".
  - jimmaswell 7y ago
    The way they asked the computer questions in The Next Generation is closer to what we have today. Most of it would be doable, thinking of Siri/Google Assistant and Wolfram Alpha.
- numpad0 7y ago
  I’ve heard something like the following: “Any sufficiently useful AI research is considered a field of its own not relevant to AI, and, thus, the term AI and worthless research stays synonymous” e.g. keyboard autocorrect, travel route finders, web search.
  - andrewzah 7y ago
    Heuristics and some hooked-up algorithms to a searchbox are not Artificial Intelligence. Nowhere in those software stacks is anything remotely intelligent happening. The tool is doing exactly what it was programmed to do: receive input, apply algorithm, wait for input. It's still completely dumb. Something like "artificially assisted" would make more sense.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  I really don't understand why you were downvoted. There's a flowchart from MIT about what AI is[1] since so people here seem to have an incorrect idea about it, and disappointingly hn is not immune from that. [1]:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612404/is-this-ai-we-drew-you-a-flowchart-to-work-it-out/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612404/is-this-ai-we-drew...
  - andrewzah 7y ago
    This argument basically ignores how language works. When people say AI, they generally mean AGI or something resembling an artificial human. If enough people consider AI to have this meaning, then it has that meaning. Language does not care about smart-aleck charts or being correct at all. And regular people are correct here, because calling things like smart speakers "artificial intelligence" is a bastardization of the term, in my humble opinion. We shouldn't need another term like AGI (which by itself makes no sense, intelligence vs general intelligence? ok...). > disappointingly hn is not immune from that What HN lacks is people who understand how linguistics and languages work. You can't point to a chart and go "see? you're saying it wrong", and actually have the language change. It just does not work that way, and I can point to many examples in the English language that are simple mistakes. The initial definition of AI is terrible for the combination of the words "artificial" and "intelligence". You can't blame people for wanting to go with a more intuitive definition that actually matches the words.
    - betenoire 7y ago
      "Regular people" (myself included) can't even really define intelligence, so why would they be right in defining artificial intelligence? What if I were to say that my speaker uses AI algorithms to help understand my voice? It is not a bastardization of the term, it just reveals the depth of the conversation you are having with someone. Adjust accordingly.
      - andrewzah 7y ago
        > so why would they be right in defining artificial intelligence? Because that's simply how language works. It doesn't really matter if you're "right", what matters is usage. If most people apply AI to mean "artificial intelligence" in the sense of "intelligent like a human or close to that", then that's the meaning. > What if I were to say that my speaker uses AI algorithms to help understand my voice? Then I would ask why you would think that to be the case, then go over why AI doesn't exist yet and move on.
- andrewzah 7y ago
  "Hey siri, play <search term>" "I didn't get that." "Hey siri, play <search term>" "Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>" "Hey siri, stop" "Hey siri, play <search term (enunciating slowly)>" "Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>" "Hey siri, stop" <opens app on phone and manually types in the correct search term> --- "Hey siri, <a search term more complicated than one short sentence with a clear answer>" "Sorry, I'm not able to show that. <opens web browser with term>" --- We do not have AI, unless you mean in the loosest possible meaning. Everything is still dumb as rocks, we just have made voice recognition a convenience. Parsing sound into a search term and dumb-ly searching is still dumb. It's not AI just because I'm not manually typing it in. Every system I've asked questions has failed on anything that's not fairly simple. Taking sounds and mapping that to a google search or a particular app is not AI. It's some engineer who decided that questions with a similarity to X or Y can be answered with Z app. (i.e. questions about the weather) Siri and others are still dumb as rocks.
  - Jagat 7y ago
    Having used all three of Alexa, 'Ok Google', and Siri, I'd have to say Siri is the worst of the three. It's extremely far behind the the other two. Try your voice searches with Google and it's very likely you'll get what you want.
    - andrewzah 7y ago
      Regardless of the brand, it's still not intelligent in any meaningful way. The capability of alexa/siri/whatever directly corresponds to whether or not some programmer implemented a match statement on that particular kind of question. Alex/siri are still just dumb tools, with voice recognition as a facade. That's not AI.
- zxcvbn4038 7y ago
  That is not AI, that’s just Eliza, seen that trick. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  For $50 I can buy a smart speaker For $50 cash up front and all of your personal data, forever. It’s not as cheap as it first appears.
- philwelch 7y ago
  Siri has never tried to murder me, and I still can't book a ticket to a rotating space station (from Pan-Am, and stay at a Howard Johnson onboard the station).
honestoHeminway 7y ago
Humans have proven non thrust worthy- thus no high energy devices, only surveilance tech for the next thousand years. sorry.
Anon84 7y ago
The words you're looking for are "helicopter" and "laser pointer". You're welcome :)