The first AI winter came after we realized that the AI of the time, the high level logic, reasoning and planning algorithms we had implemented, were useless in

The first AI winter came after we realized that the AI of the time, the high level logic, reasoning and planning algorithms we had implemented, were useless in the face of the fuzziness of the real world. Basically we had tried to skip straight to modeling our own intellect, without bothering to first model the reptile brain that supplies it with a model of the world on which to operate. Being able to make a plan to ferry a wolf, sheep and cabbage across the river in a tiny boat without any of them getting eaten doesn't help much if you're unable to tell apart a wolf, sheep and cabbage, let alone steer a boat. That's what makes me excited about our recent advances in ML. Finally, we are getting around to modeling the lower levels of our cognitive system, the fuzzy pattern recognition part that supplies our consciousness with something recognizable to reason about, and gives us learned skills to perform in the world. We still don't know how to wire all that up. Maybe a single ML model can achieve AGI if it is adaptable enough in its architecture. Maybe a group of specialized ML models need to make up subsystems for a centralized AGI ML-model (like a human's visual and language centers). Maybe we need several middle layers to aggregate and coordinate the submodules before they hook into the central unit. Maybe we can even use the logic, planning or expert system approach from before the AI winter for the central "consciousness" unit. Who knows? But to me it feels like we've finally got one of the most important building blocks to work with in modern ML. Maybe it's the only one we'll need, maybe it's only a step of the way. But the fact that we have in a handful of years not managed to go from "model a corner of a reptile brain" to "model a full human brain" is no reason to call this a failure or predict another winter just yet. We've got a great new building block, and all we've really done with it so far is basically to prod it with a stick, to see what it can do on its own. Maybe figuring out the next steps toward AGI will be another winter. But the advances we've made with ML have convinced me that we'll get there eventually, and that when we do, ML will be part of it some extent. Frankly I'm super excited just to see people try.