
Ask HN: Is AI essentially just linear algebra? - drchiu
Honest question here. After doing some preliminary research (out of interest, not for professional purposes), it seems like AI is essentially linear algebra and tweaking variables in the equation. Is there anything else happening here or have I missed something? Be gentle. This isn’t my specialty and I’m interested just for interests sake.
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bbennett36
No.

linear algebra is a part of AI but AI is not just linear algebra. I would say
linear algebra is used most with machine learning with is also a part of AI.

This diagram is what you're looking for. linear algebra would be its own
bubble within AI. -[https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-9854e5bb9573b26c66caff...](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
qimg-9854e5bb9573b26c66caffcf9cb9001a-c)

~~~
drchiu
Great diagram! Thank you

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grizzles
Kinda, but you gotta stir it. [https://xkcd.com/1838/](https://xkcd.com/1838/)

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drchiu
Great cartoon. It’s funny but it’s essentially what I’m feeling about the
topic. The stirring is the variable modification, no?

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grizzles
Tuning your hyperparams, activation functions, etc. It is great. ;)

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dekhn
A lot of machine learning is just linear algebra and applied probability
(statistics). AI, however, is typically more a combination of logic and
probability resting on a foundation of linear algebra. See AIMA.

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AnimalMuppet
If I understand correctly (and I am very much not an expert), deep neural nets
can't be purely linear. The "adding inputs to produce an output" part has to
have a nonlinearity in it, or the nets don't work well.

Source: Attended a couple of hours of lecture on neural nets for speech
recognition. (Yeah, that gives you a pretty accurate picture of the depth of
my knowledge here. But if the lecturer was right, the neural net part of AI
can't be linear algebra. It's linear-ish, but not linear.)

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diehunde
Depends on the approach. If you go with statistical learning, it's more a mix
between statistics, calculus and linear algebra. It's my favorite approach
though, because it makes you feel less like the comic posted below.

