
Silicon Valley Looks to Artificial Intelligence for the Next Big Thing - grej
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/technology/silicon-valley-looks-to-artificial-intelligence-for-the-next-big-thing.html
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drallison
Artificial intelligence has been the NEXT BIG THING since the beginning of the
computer revolution.

John Markoff and Steve Lohr (both of the NY Times)
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/technology/the-race-is-
on-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/technology/the-race-is-on-to-
control-artificial-intelligence-and-techs-future.html) also wrote about the
coming significance of Artificial Intelligence.

Machine learning, the core technology in today's Artificial Intelligence, is
such an effective tool that I am concerned that there will be efforts to
regulate its use.

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tryitnow
Indeed. History, frequently ignored by today's techies, teaches us to be
highly skeptical of claims about AI.

In fact, if you developed a predictive algorithm that assigns degrees of doubt
to claims about certain topics, I bet it would assign pretty high doubt to
most claims about AI.

There's just something about intelligence that we don't quite get. It's almost
like the closer we get to understanding it the harder the problem becomes.

I honestly don't think the "next big thing" can be rightfully called AI. I
think in practical terms there's a lot of action around automating certain
tasks that require a degree of pattern recognition.

But should we really classify that as AI? I don't know.

My bias has always been to define terms more tightly rather than loosely.
Loosely defined terms lead to miscommunication and mismanaged expectations.

Right now, it seems like AI is becoming a pretty loosely defined term. And
that attracts hucksters and hustlers of all types.

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drallison
Well, there is the old story of how AI is always about to happen because
everything that is successfully developed by AI researchers becomes
mainstream.

