4 ms·
My interpretation has always been that any wiring of the network carries its own bias. Thus, a random wiring is biased as well. Your point still stands perfectl
by ninjin 2y ago
My interpretation has always been that any wiring of the network carries its own bias. Thus, a random wiring is biased as well. Your point still stands perfectly on its own though and now I am less sure about the interpretation I have had over all these years.
- quuxplusone 2y agoWhile I certainly see how the story could work as a direct allegory (contents of room = weights; closing eyes = wiring randomly; believing the room empty = believing there are no weights)... FWIW, I always took it much less literally. Sussman has written a whole program to play Tic-Tac-Toe: two players, a 3x3 grid, players alternate turns, the game ends under such-and-such conditions, etc. etc.; and then he thinks that by such a superficial gesture as wiring the net randomly he somehow creates a tabula rasa with no "preconceptions of how to play." Minsky points out, by an equally superficial gesture, that giving up control over one minor aspect of the program (the wiring, the ability to see with one's eyes) really has nothing to do with the issue at hand (how much "understanding" of Tic-Tac-Toe has been baked into the program, how many things exist in the room). Or, to put it back into koan form: One day, Sussman wrote a program that had no preconceptions of how to play Tic-Tac-Toe. The following day, Sussman wrote a program that had no preconceptions of how to play chess. His two programs were not the same.
- Dylan16807 2y agoI'm sure you're right. "Preconception" is more specific than bias and would apply before the training starts. Something it learns from the training is not a preconception it had. And I wouldn't assume there even is "training data" that existed when the net was initialized.