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Kudos for this identification, but at this point, calling the use of neural networks in statistical work "AI" is misleading at best. I know it won't stop becaus

Kudos for this identification, but at this point, calling the use of neural networks in statistical work "AI" is misleading at best. I know it won't stop because it gets attention to claim "AI", but it's really depressing. Ultimately it's not really any different than all the talk about "mechanical brains" in the 50s, but it's just really tiresome.

badRNG 3y ago
I think the average person can safely call "the use of neural networks in statistical work" AI.
- radlad 3y ago
  It's technically correct, but AI has become such an overloaded term that it's impossible to know it refers to "the use of neural networks" without explicitly saying so. So you know, maybe just say that?
  - adw 3y ago
    This debate is a classic. AI has always been an overloaded term and more of a marketing signifier than anything else. The rule of thumb is, historically, "something is AI while it doesn't work". Originally, techniques like A* search were regarded as AI; they definitely wouldn't be now. Information retrieval, similarly. "Machine learning", as a brand, was an effort to get statistical techniques (like neural networks, though at the time it was more "linear regression and random forests") out from under the AI stigma; AI was "the thing that doesn't work". But we're culturally optimistic about AI's prospects again, so all the machine learning work is merrily being rebranded as AI. The wheel will turn again, eventually.
    - eichin 3y ago
      ... and once it works, it "earns" a name of its own, at least among people actually doing it. Even in 2024 there are Machine Learning Conferences of note.
      - adw 3y ago
        ICLR, ICML, KDD, ICCV, ECCV and NeurIPS are all major "AI" conferences and none of them has AI in the name. NeurIPS comes closest. "AI" has historically not been a useful distinction for anyone in the field. I actually think this is changing given the current rapid ascent of multimodal models.
whelp_24 3y ago
Should the term AI just not be used until we have a skynet level ai?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Filligree 3y ago
  No, it should only be used about things that don’t exist.
outworlder 3y ago
> calling the use of neural networks in statistical work "AI" is misleading at best. Neural Networks are not considered AI anymore? That just reinforces my thesis that "AI" is an ever sliding window that means "something we don't yet have". Voice recognition used to be firmly in the "AI" camp and received grants from even the military. Now we have that on wrist watches (admittedly with some computation offloaded) and nobody cares. Expert systems were once very much "AI". LLMs will suffer the same treatment pretty soon. Just wait.
- depereo 3y ago
  Another entry in the 'marketing and technical terms don't mean the same thing despite using the same words' saga.
- dartos 3y ago
  The current usage of AI is a rather new market term. Where would you draw the line? Is prediction via linear regression AI? Also language is fuzzy and fluid, get used to it.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    It was called machine learning 10 years ago since AI had bad connotations, but today people have forgotten and call it all AI again.
- beeboobaa 3y ago
  AI has always meant Artificial Intelligence. Intelligent and capable of learning, like a person. LLMs are not AI.
  - outworlder 3y ago
    > LLMs are not AI. Neither are neural networks, by that definition. Or 'machine learning' in general. They all have been called "AI" at different points in time. Even expert systems – that are glorified IF statements – they were supposed to replace doctors.
lja 3y ago
The taxonomy of AI is the following: AI -> machine learning ...-> supervised ........-> neural networks ...-> unsupervised ...-> reinforcement -> massive if/then statements -> ... That is to say NN falls under AI but everything falls into AI.
- p1esk 3y ago
  Where did you pull this “taxonomy” from?
  - peteradio 3y ago
    [flagged]
nonameiguess 3y ago
It implies agency on the part of the software that doesn't exist. It should really just say "researchers ran some math calculations and found X." The fact that the math runs on a computer and involves the use of functions that were found by heuristic-guided search using a function estimator, instead of human scientists finding them from first principles, is surely relevant in some way, but this has been the case for at least a century since Einstein's field laws required the use of numerical approximations of PDE solutions to compute gravity at a point, probably longer. I don't want to say there is no qualitative difference between what the PDE solvers of 1910 could do and what a GPT can do, but until we don't need scientists running the software at all and it can do decide to do this all on its own and know what to do and how to interpret it, it feels misleading to use terminology like "AI" that in the public consciousness has always meant full autonomy. It's going to make people think someone just told a computer "hey, go do science" and it figured this out.
leesec 3y ago
Why would it be depressing? Who cares
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  taking credit from the drivers of tools to give credit to the tools themselves as PR? Yes, depressing. No one says "Unreal Engine Presents Final Fantasy VII". It's an important tool but not the creative mind behind the work.
- golemotron 3y ago
  Because regulating "AI" has the potential to encompass all software development. Many programs act as decision support. From the outside there's little difference between an application that uses conventional programming, ML, RNNs, or GPT.
advael 3y ago
I mean. "AI" has meant "whatever shiny new computer thing is hot right now" in both common vernacular and every academic field besides AI research basically since the term was coined...
meindnoch 3y ago
In PR materials, AI = computers were involved
- hawski 3y ago
  That's a problem with the term now. Whenever there is a PR statement of using AI it does not have much meaning attached to it. Sometimes even simple algorithms are called AI, if there is a bit of statistics involved even more. I liked the term machine learning, because now with AI-everything I don't really know what it is about.
Aloisius 3y ago
John McCarthy coined the term AI in 1955 for a research project that included NN. He then founded the MIT AI Project (later AI Lab) with one of the researchers who joined the project, Marvin Minsky, who also had created the first NN in 1951. If NNs aren't AI, what is? http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/dartmouth/dartmouth.pdf http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/dartmouth/dartmouth.pdf
krisoft 3y ago
> but it's really depressing Why do you feel it depressing?

badRNG 3y ago

I think the average person can safely call "the use of neural networks in statistical work" AI.

radlad 3y ago
It's technically correct, but AI has become such an overloaded term that it's impossible to know it refers to "the use of neural networks" without explicitly saying so. So you know, maybe just say that?
- adw 3y ago
  This debate is a classic. AI has always been an overloaded term and more of a marketing signifier than anything else. The rule of thumb is, historically, "something is AI while it doesn't work". Originally, techniques like A* search were regarded as AI; they definitely wouldn't be now. Information retrieval, similarly. "Machine learning", as a brand, was an effort to get statistical techniques (like neural networks, though at the time it was more "linear regression and random forests") out from under the AI stigma; AI was "the thing that doesn't work". But we're culturally optimistic about AI's prospects again, so all the machine learning work is merrily being rebranded as AI. The wheel will turn again, eventually.
  - eichin 3y ago
    ... and once it works, it "earns" a name of its own, at least among people actually doing it. Even in 2024 there are Machine Learning Conferences of note.
    - adw 3y ago
      ICLR, ICML, KDD, ICCV, ECCV and NeurIPS are all major "AI" conferences and none of them has AI in the name. NeurIPS comes closest. "AI" has historically not been a useful distinction for anyone in the field. I actually think this is changing given the current rapid ascent of multimodal models.

whelp_24 3y ago

Should the term AI just not be used until we have a skynet level ai?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Filligree 3y ago
No, it should only be used about things that don’t exist.

outworlder 3y ago

> calling the use of neural networks in statistical work "AI" is misleading at best. Neural Networks are not considered AI anymore? That just reinforces my thesis that "AI" is an ever sliding window that means "something we don't yet have". Voice recognition used to be firmly in the "AI" camp and received grants from even the military. Now we have that on wrist watches (admittedly with some computation offloaded) and nobody cares. Expert systems were once very much "AI". LLMs will suffer the same treatment pretty soon. Just wait.

depereo 3y ago
Another entry in the 'marketing and technical terms don't mean the same thing despite using the same words' saga.
dartos 3y ago
The current usage of AI is a rather new market term. Where would you draw the line? Is prediction via linear regression AI? Also language is fuzzy and fluid, get used to it.
- Jensson 3y ago
  It was called machine learning 10 years ago since AI had bad connotations, but today people have forgotten and call it all AI again.
beeboobaa 3y ago
AI has always meant Artificial Intelligence. Intelligent and capable of learning, like a person. LLMs are not AI.
- outworlder 3y ago
  > LLMs are not AI. Neither are neural networks, by that definition. Or 'machine learning' in general. They all have been called "AI" at different points in time. Even expert systems – that are glorified IF statements – they were supposed to replace doctors.

lja 3y ago

The taxonomy of AI is the following: AI -> machine learning ...-> supervised ........-> neural networks ...-> unsupervised ...-> reinforcement -> massive if/then statements -> ... That is to say NN falls under AI but everything falls into AI.

p1esk 3y ago
Where did you pull this “taxonomy” from?
- peteradio 3y ago
  [flagged]

nonameiguess 3y ago

It implies agency on the part of the software that doesn't exist. It should really just say "researchers ran some math calculations and found X." The fact that the math runs on a computer and involves the use of functions that were found by heuristic-guided search using a function estimator, instead of human scientists finding them from first principles, is surely relevant in some way, but this has been the case for at least a century since Einstein's field laws required the use of numerical approximations of PDE solutions to compute gravity at a point, probably longer. I don't want to say there is no qualitative difference between what the PDE solvers of 1910 could do and what a GPT can do, but until we don't need scientists running the software at all and it can do decide to do this all on its own and know what to do and how to interpret it, it feels misleading to use terminology like "AI" that in the public consciousness has always meant full autonomy. It's going to make people think someone just told a computer "hey, go do science" and it figured this out.

leesec 3y ago

Why would it be depressing? Who cares

johnnyanmac 3y ago
taking credit from the drivers of tools to give credit to the tools themselves as PR? Yes, depressing. No one says "Unreal Engine Presents Final Fantasy VII". It's an important tool but not the creative mind behind the work.
golemotron 3y ago
Because regulating "AI" has the potential to encompass all software development. Many programs act as decision support. From the outside there's little difference between an application that uses conventional programming, ML, RNNs, or GPT.

advael 3y ago

I mean. "AI" has meant "whatever shiny new computer thing is hot right now" in both common vernacular and every academic field besides AI research basically since the term was coined...

meindnoch 3y ago

In PR materials, AI = computers were involved

hawski 3y ago
That's a problem with the term now. Whenever there is a PR statement of using AI it does not have much meaning attached to it. Sometimes even simple algorithms are called AI, if there is a bit of statistics involved even more. I liked the term machine learning, because now with AI-everything I don't really know what it is about.

Aloisius 3y ago

John McCarthy coined the term AI in 1955 for a research project that included NN. He then founded the MIT AI Project (later AI Lab) with one of the researchers who joined the project, Marvin Minsky, who also had created the first NN in 1951. If NNs aren't AI, what is? http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/dartmouth/dartmouth.pdf http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/dartmouth/dartmouth.pdf

krisoft 3y ago

> but it's really depressing Why do you feel it depressing?