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> I’m disappointed in all the anthropomorphizing It’s not anthropomorphizing it’s a description and an analogy. Neural networks work similar to a brain, and i

> I’m disappointed in all the anthropomorphizing It’s not anthropomorphizing it’s a description and an analogy. Neural networks work similar to a brain, and it’s easier to describe them that way because, again, they were modelled that way. It’s not a perfect analogy, but your offence would indicate you have a lack of understanding in communication, neural nets, or you’re trying to blow things out of proportion for some reason.

williamcotton 4y ago
It’s a fantastic critique because these discussions immediately descend into some kind of debate over “what it means to learn”, which has nothing to do with copyright infringement or authorship. Eg, Someone will naively state that something is or isn’t copyright infringement “because the tool learns like humans do”… which again, is not a question that a court would ask about the tool and since copyright is a legal invention it is kind of pointless to drift off into philosophical oblivion…
6gvONxR4sf7o 4y ago
> you have a lack of understanding in communication, neural nets, or you’re trying to blow things out of proportion for some reason Surely there's a more appropriate way to say that, and a more charitable reading of my comment. As a researcher in the field, I think it's safe to say I understand the models, and maybe I am overly sensitive at people jumping to wrong conclusions because I'm so tired of it. The issue isn't the communication aspect of the analogy, it's the reasoning aspect. For example, people who understand these things say "these work like people" (a useful analogy) and then people who don't understand them say "well if they work like people then they should be legislated like people" (not useful reasoning because the assumption in the "if" was just an analogy). The game of telephone is the danger. You can see lay people in this very thread taking the analogies literally and extrapolating based on literal interpretations of model-brain analogies.

williamcotton 4y ago

It’s a fantastic critique because these discussions immediately descend into some kind of debate over “what it means to learn”, which has nothing to do with copyright infringement or authorship. Eg, Someone will naively state that something is or isn’t copyright infringement “because the tool learns like humans do”… which again, is not a question that a court would ask about the tool and since copyright is a legal invention it is kind of pointless to drift off into philosophical oblivion…

6gvONxR4sf7o 4y ago

> you have a lack of understanding in communication, neural nets, or you’re trying to blow things out of proportion for some reason Surely there's a more appropriate way to say that, and a more charitable reading of my comment. As a researcher in the field, I think it's safe to say I understand the models, and maybe I am overly sensitive at people jumping to wrong conclusions because I'm so tired of it. The issue isn't the communication aspect of the analogy, it's the reasoning aspect. For example, people who understand these things say "these work like people" (a useful analogy) and then people who don't understand them say "well if they work like people then they should be legislated like people" (not useful reasoning because the assumption in the "if" was just an analogy). The game of telephone is the danger. You can see lay people in this very thread taking the analogies literally and extrapolating based on literal interpretations of model-brain analogies.