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"ML is, to most non-technical people, intensely boring." Maybe, or maybe it's just an old trope as you point out. So much of science fiction assumes some level
by indymike 6y ago
"ML is, to most non-technical people, intensely boring."
Maybe, or maybe it's just an old trope as you point out. So much of science fiction assumes some level of intelligent computers and has since the beginning. The phrase "machine learning" is really a rebrand of the "thinking machines" of the 60s and artifical intelligence" of the 70s and 80s. Even in the old Star Trek TV series, you had people talking to the computer, not unlike we talk to Alexa, Siri and Hey Google today.
That said, now that people are seeing ML affect their lives directly, there is a lot of exploration that may be possible, as perhaps, ML is just not science fiction anymore.
- notahacker 6y agoI think the point is we gained the scifi UX, and lost most of the interesting plot devices. We got the talking computer without enough self awareness or reliability or uniqueness compared with other forms of data interrogation to be a particularly interesting plot point. Alexa and Siri and Google Home aren't going to take over the world or try to become human, and aren't infallible or even particularly smart. They're a speech input interfaces over a search engine with some jokes hardcoded in. From a technical standpoint, very impressive; from a fiction standpoint a dead end