
Researchers: Are we on the cusp of an ‘AI winter’? - m-i-l
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51064369
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mindcrime
No.

Maybe an "AI Fall", but I doubt there will ever be another true "AI Winter".
The AI we have today is too good, and creates too much value... at this point,
there is no longer any question as to whether or not there is value in
continuing to research and invest in AI.

What _will_ happen, almost without doubt, is that particular niches within the
overall rubric of "AI" will go in and out of vogue, and investment in
particular segments will fluctuate. For example, the steam will run out of the
"deep learning revolution" at some point, as people realize that DL alone is
not enough to make the leap to systems that employ common sense reasoning,
have a grasp of intuitive physics, have an intuitive metaphysics, and have
other such attributes that will be needed to come close to approximating human
intelligence.

Disclaimer: credit for the observation about "intuitive physics" and
"intuitive metaphysics" goes to Melanie Mitchell, via her recent AI Podcast
interview with Lex Fridman.

One other observation... while we still don't know how far away AGI is (much
less ASI), or even if it's possible, the important thing is that we don't
_need_ AGI to do many amazing and valuable things. I also doubt many people
are actually all that disillusioned that we aren't yet living in The Matrix
(or are we???).

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morty_s
I would say yes, but I’m not a researcher and I could be wrong. However, given
the current political, financial, and social climate it seems like a real
possibility.

E.g. “customers” become (or are already) so disillusioned with the promises of
an artificially intelligent future, that the marketing hype no longer works.

If you then couple this with the consolidation (not decentralization) that is
likely to occur this decade, then we will at least see the hype-train slow to
a slow roll, if that.

