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Just like NNs did to symbolic AI which is sorely missed to build explainable and ethical systems.

phillipcarter 3y ago
> ethical systems I don't think symbolic AI has much to do with ethics? My impression is that ethics in this space are primarily concerned with the application of these technologies, especially when their deficiencies and biases are known.
- retrac 3y ago
  Symbolic AI is human-understandable. It's programmed in human terms. The reasoning chain is transparent. An engineer can point at the graph and tell you exactly what factored into the AI's decision and how it was made. That (potentially) alleviates concerns about transparency, error, and bias.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  The poster probably referred reliability as an ethical value; direct choice in building the system as an ethical value because embedded with your decisions hence responsibility; and conversely proposing "black-boxes" as an ethical fault. There are several possible reasons for this latter: not only that you should not be contented until you "could warranty" for "your" system, but also the possible outcomes. For example, yesterday I submitted a “Are you kidding, carjacking?” – The problem with facial recognition in policing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37138229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37138229 where reporting is made of law reliability systems that have false positives of bewildering error and heavy consequences.
  - phillipcarter 3y ago
    My immediate thought is that the ethical concerns with facial recognition in policing are orthogonal to the "kind" of AI involved. Clearly, our industry has moved to other techniques and my guess is because they're more capable. And so it comes down to regulating and adding accountability for the applications of the technology.
    - mdp2021 3y ago
      > orthogonal to the "kind" of AI involved Suppose one AI that deterministically determines an output and is stress tested for reliability, and suppose one that hallucinates an output, maybe through statistical reconstruction of detail. The ethics there would not be orthogonal at all. > my guess is because they're more capable That '«capable»' you used there is a hive. You could have guesses many more reasons, such as "we can hence we do".
gota 3y ago
The difference is NN are on the same side of the fence as GenAI regarding The Bitter Lesson, and Symbolic AI (my favorite topic in CS as a whole) is on the other By this I mean there are plenty of scalable, even gigantic, practical uses of NNs popping all around leveraging available data and cheap compute. But not for handdrawn expert systems of old

> ethical systems I don't think symbolic AI has much to do with ethics? My impression is that ethics in this space are primarily concerned with the application of these technologies, especially when their deficiencies and biases are known.

retrac 3y ago
Symbolic AI is human-understandable. It's programmed in human terms. The reasoning chain is transparent. An engineer can point at the graph and tell you exactly what factored into the AI's decision and how it was made. That (potentially) alleviates concerns about transparency, error, and bias.
mdp2021 3y ago
The poster probably referred reliability as an ethical value; direct choice in building the system as an ethical value because embedded with your decisions hence responsibility; and conversely proposing "black-boxes" as an ethical fault. There are several possible reasons for this latter: not only that you should not be contented until you "could warranty" for "your" system, but also the possible outcomes. For example, yesterday I submitted a “Are you kidding, carjacking?” – The problem with facial recognition in policing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37138229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37138229 where reporting is made of law reliability systems that have false positives of bewildering error and heavy consequences.
- phillipcarter 3y ago
  My immediate thought is that the ethical concerns with facial recognition in policing are orthogonal to the "kind" of AI involved. Clearly, our industry has moved to other techniques and my guess is because they're more capable. And so it comes down to regulating and adding accountability for the applications of the technology.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > orthogonal to the "kind" of AI involved Suppose one AI that deterministically determines an output and is stress tested for reliability, and suppose one that hallucinates an output, maybe through statistical reconstruction of detail. The ethics there would not be orthogonal at all. > my guess is because they're more capable That '«capable»' you used there is a hive. You could have guesses many more reasons, such as "we can hence we do".

gota 3y ago

The difference is NN are on the same side of the fence as GenAI regarding The Bitter Lesson, and Symbolic AI (my favorite topic in CS as a whole) is on the other By this I mean there are plenty of scalable, even gigantic, practical uses of NNs popping all around leveraging available data and cheap compute. But not for handdrawn expert systems of old