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I cannot help but feel that this is just extending the confusion to Zillow. It seems utterly implausible that Zillow's ill-advised zeal for removing people out

I cannot help but feel that this is just extending the confusion to Zillow. It seems utterly implausible that Zillow's ill-advised zeal for removing people out of the process was driven by a overarching desire to develop AI, as opposed to, say, for making more money.

dr_dshiv 5y ago
I would yield to better evidence, but my suspicion is that it stemmed directly from executive-level confusion about AI. Consider: how many investor pitches have you seen that claim “AI” technology as a mechanism to increase perceived IP value? They were telling their investors that they had AI, and AI means people aren’t involved (fallacy).
- mannykannot 5y ago
  No doubt some pitches do claim that AI will increase perceived IP value, but for an investor to go from perceived IP value to the conclusion that people are not involved seems to be a completely unjustified conclusion, and I see no evidence that people are actually thinking this way. Furthermore, I have no idea how you think this line of thought justifies calling 1913's very primitive autopilot technology AI.
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    I have encountered CEO boardroom thinking that, for instance, suggested that data scientists were not necessary because AI would replace them. I have experience in adaptive education where massively expensive teams of engineers missed the point that the “smartness” of the system needs to be based on improving outcome measures (namely, learning outcomes) and instead focused on massive, complex modeling initiatives with no feedback loops to indicate whether the models were doing anything useful. If more people understood why a steam governor or a 1914 autopilot or a corporate bylaw were primitive forms of AI, they wouldn’t be looking for magic. “If I can understand it, it must not be AI”
    - mannykannot 5y ago
      > If more people understood why a steam governor or a 1914 autopilot or a corporate bylaw were primitive forms of AI, they wouldn’t be looking for magic. “If I can understand it, it must not be AI” By the same argument, a person could say "AI is like a steam governor. I understand completely how steam governors work, and I know they cannot possibly translate from one language to another or recognize faces, so any claim that AI can do so is nonsense." This, of course, would a completely fallacious argument - and where it goes wrong is precisely with the assumption that AI is anything like a governor, except in the broadest possible way that gives precedence to a commonplace resemblance over all the substantive ways in which they are almost completely different. I understand your desire to persuade people to not regard AI as magic, but I do not think this is helping.
      - dr_dshiv 5y ago
        See the paper from DeepMind on “reward is enough” and Alfred Russel Wallace on the relationship between steam governors and evolution. From that perspective, systems like steam governors can eventually recognize faces.
        mannykannot 5y ago
        Eventually - after they have evolved to the point that they are more unlike steam governors than they are like them, and become something else in the process (a different species, for example.) To the best of my knowledge, no steam governor has ever recognized a face - or evolved into something that has, for that matter. I am also curious as to how you reward a steam governor - does it get more sex, with better governors? You might reward the inventor of a particularly effective governor with orders, but that isn't rewarding the governor.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

I would yield to better evidence, but my suspicion is that it stemmed directly from executive-level confusion about AI. Consider: how many investor pitches have you seen that claim “AI” technology as a mechanism to increase perceived IP value? They were telling their investors that they had AI, and AI means people aren’t involved (fallacy).

mannykannot 5y ago
No doubt some pitches do claim that AI will increase perceived IP value, but for an investor to go from perceived IP value to the conclusion that people are not involved seems to be a completely unjustified conclusion, and I see no evidence that people are actually thinking this way. Furthermore, I have no idea how you think this line of thought justifies calling 1913's very primitive autopilot technology AI.
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  I have encountered CEO boardroom thinking that, for instance, suggested that data scientists were not necessary because AI would replace them. I have experience in adaptive education where massively expensive teams of engineers missed the point that the “smartness” of the system needs to be based on improving outcome measures (namely, learning outcomes) and instead focused on massive, complex modeling initiatives with no feedback loops to indicate whether the models were doing anything useful. If more people understood why a steam governor or a 1914 autopilot or a corporate bylaw were primitive forms of AI, they wouldn’t be looking for magic. “If I can understand it, it must not be AI”
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    > If more people understood why a steam governor or a 1914 autopilot or a corporate bylaw were primitive forms of AI, they wouldn’t be looking for magic. “If I can understand it, it must not be AI” By the same argument, a person could say "AI is like a steam governor. I understand completely how steam governors work, and I know they cannot possibly translate from one language to another or recognize faces, so any claim that AI can do so is nonsense." This, of course, would a completely fallacious argument - and where it goes wrong is precisely with the assumption that AI is anything like a governor, except in the broadest possible way that gives precedence to a commonplace resemblance over all the substantive ways in which they are almost completely different. I understand your desire to persuade people to not regard AI as magic, but I do not think this is helping.
    - dr_dshiv 5y ago
      See the paper from DeepMind on “reward is enough” and Alfred Russel Wallace on the relationship between steam governors and evolution. From that perspective, systems like steam governors can eventually recognize faces.
      - mannykannot 5y ago
        Eventually - after they have evolved to the point that they are more unlike steam governors than they are like them, and become something else in the process (a different species, for example.) To the best of my knowledge, no steam governor has ever recognized a face - or evolved into something that has, for that matter. I am also curious as to how you reward a steam governor - does it get more sex, with better governors? You might reward the inventor of a particularly effective governor with orders, but that isn't rewarding the governor.