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> I wonder if the best use of AI research is to get computers to solve problems that a person could easily solve That's pretty short-sighted. These "easy" prob

> I wonder if the best use of AI research is to get computers to solve problems that a person could easily solve That's pretty short-sighted. These "easy" problems are stepping stones to much more difficult problems. For instance, you cannot tell a machine something like "build my website" without it being able to solve the easy stuff first.

cr4zy 13y ago
And once a machine has learned to do something "easy" in the same way we do, that is via sensory perception, it will be extremely exciting to see how that knowledge can be forked and evolved via the excellent copyability inherent in computers.
- deleted 13y ago
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bad_user 13y ago
Oh come on, sure you can tell a computer "build my website". You can use language, or you can click a button. Oh, but the result is not what you want? Even when communicating with a human, you need to provide some specs, right? But then, natural language is way to imprecise and open to interpretation, coupled with the fact that people don't really know for sure what they want, so even when speaking with a developer, you're going to go through several iterations. So for the ultimate flexibility and automation, the user interface of such a smart appliance will end up being essentially a programming language (being the same reason for why lawyers and mathematicians have their own language that's anything but natural). Truth of the matter is, computers answering to commands aren't really that interesting, as they already do this. What we really want are computers capable of ideas. Also, natural language processing is hard because it's based on an incredible amount of implicit context that life taught us ever since we were born and when communicating to our fellow humans, it's never about just the actual words being spoken. When saying something like "build my website" your spouse probably knows you're talking about a website meant for marketing yourself and she probably knows your tastes and values too; she observed your fears and dreams while living your mundane life, even if you've never talked with her explicitly about such issues (speaking of women, they are incredibly good at reading between the lines). Solving natural language processing is basically akin to creating sentient beings.
- derefr 13y ago
  > So for the ultimate flexibility and automation, the user interface of such a smart appliance will end up being essentially a programming language No; when a client asks me to build them a website, I don't demand a specification. I interrogate them in regular natural language about each thing, until I'm reasonably sure which things they care about being a certain way (I'll make those things that way to the best of my ability) and which things they don't care how they end up (I'll make those things however I "like" to make them, or randomly if I have no opinion either.) I think the one thing we're lacking in software UX right now is the concept of a dialogue--you and the computer both asking questions to clarify your mental model of what the other agent currently has in mind, and adding facts to correct misconceptions until those models are aligned.
Houshalter 13y ago
In order for a computer to be able to build your website, it would have to be pretty intelligent. The computer would have to be able to learn on it's own, reason, etc. These aren't stepping stones towards that. A bunch of special purpose algorithms is good, but you have to have a fully general one to do most the work. Once you have that, you could just have it learn the rest on it's own.

cr4zy 13y ago

And once a machine has learned to do something "easy" in the same way we do, that is via sensory perception, it will be extremely exciting to see how that knowledge can be forked and evolved via the excellent copyability inherent in computers.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

bad_user 13y ago

Oh come on, sure you can tell a computer "build my website". You can use language, or you can click a button. Oh, but the result is not what you want? Even when communicating with a human, you need to provide some specs, right? But then, natural language is way to imprecise and open to interpretation, coupled with the fact that people don't really know for sure what they want, so even when speaking with a developer, you're going to go through several iterations. So for the ultimate flexibility and automation, the user interface of such a smart appliance will end up being essentially a programming language (being the same reason for why lawyers and mathematicians have their own language that's anything but natural). Truth of the matter is, computers answering to commands aren't really that interesting, as they already do this. What we really want are computers capable of ideas. Also, natural language processing is hard because it's based on an incredible amount of implicit context that life taught us ever since we were born and when communicating to our fellow humans, it's never about just the actual words being spoken. When saying something like "build my website" your spouse probably knows you're talking about a website meant for marketing yourself and she probably knows your tastes and values too; she observed your fears and dreams while living your mundane life, even if you've never talked with her explicitly about such issues (speaking of women, they are incredibly good at reading between the lines). Solving natural language processing is basically akin to creating sentient beings.

derefr 13y ago
> So for the ultimate flexibility and automation, the user interface of such a smart appliance will end up being essentially a programming language No; when a client asks me to build them a website, I don't demand a specification. I interrogate them in regular natural language about each thing, until I'm reasonably sure which things they care about being a certain way (I'll make those things that way to the best of my ability) and which things they don't care how they end up (I'll make those things however I "like" to make them, or randomly if I have no opinion either.) I think the one thing we're lacking in software UX right now is the concept of a dialogue--you and the computer both asking questions to clarify your mental model of what the other agent currently has in mind, and adding facts to correct misconceptions until those models are aligned.

Houshalter 13y ago

In order for a computer to be able to build your website, it would have to be pretty intelligent. The computer would have to be able to learn on it's own, reason, etc. These aren't stepping stones towards that. A bunch of special purpose algorithms is good, but you have to have a fully general one to do most the work. Once you have that, you could just have it learn the rest on it's own.