The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/inside-the-artificial-intelligence-revolution-a-special-report-pt-1-20160229

by wallflower • 10 years ago

91 42 10 years ago

rollingstone.com

dr_zoidberg4• 10 years ago

We may be on the verge of creating a new life form, one that could mark not only an evolutionary breakthrough, but a potential threat to our survival as a species

This is exactly what's wrong with the press and peoples expectations about AI. That single paragraph set the tone for the article to me, and know I'm totally biased to thinking "this is just sensationalism media".

Edit: I expand a bit after reading, and totally agree with seiji's comment.

But gradually it rises, and begins to stumble-run toward the goal. You can almost see it gaining confidence, its legs moving beneath it, now picking up speed like a running back.

(emphasis is mine) No, it's not gaining confidence, it's just optimizing a function. Despite what magical words have been used by those explaining to the journalist the works of the algorithm, there robot doesn't feel or pursue anything other than what it is being programmed to do: optimize an energy function with respect to some parameters, which are set ahead of the training sesion.

Like others commented, the journalistic quality of the article is on the low end of the spectrum. I wonder how this made it to the front page. I began reading expecting something of a certain quality, and that expectation was certainly not met.

seiji3• 10 years ago

The problem seems to be there are two AI tracks: practical and science fiction. Most people (especially enthusiastic novices, even well-funded enthusiastic novices) don't distinguish the difference.

The current practical approaches are all kinda non-AI stuff that's been co-opted into "AI" by marketing/branding. Nobody looks at a Toyota factory robot and screams "AI!!!" But, every day day people look at image/speech recognition and do scream "AI!!!"

In the long run, the science fiction approach is of some concern, but the trick is how long is long run here. The enthusiastic novices think fully self-aware computer brains will control the world within 3 years, but those same people also are pretty much ignorant on current research (outside of popularizing articles). They can't really tell you about any details of practical progress that could result in a chain of events between the present day and their "computational apocalypse" science fiction future.

(and other things of concern like "friendly AI" are just so silly to be... silly. we can't even make "provably friendly" people, and you expect systems more powerful than people will fall under people control? good luck with that.)

take a deep breath. slow your irrational exuberance. stay in the present. work towards a better tomorrow. the future isn't going to make itself.

ericjang• 10 years ago

I'm with you on this, and I logged in just to upvote your comment.

That said, if one suspects that humanity will not be able to construct powerful computer systems in a provably friendly manner ("friendly AI"), shouldn't we step back and question this Promethean effort?

I know this is what AI researchers caution against - hysteria stunting basic science research, AI winters, etc. However, if someone speculates that any progress in AI research leads us down a path that, in the long term you speak of, will eventually cause humanity to suffer, then shouldn't he or she do everything they can to stop it?

Of course, whether or not it is feasible to stop technological progress is a separate question.

kingkawn2• 10 years ago

How are gaining confidence and optimizing a function not descriptions of the same process expressed in different mediums?

dr_zoidberg4• 10 years ago

Confidence, in the sense that what used in the article (not as in the grade of confidence in a probabilistic sample), has an emotional component. Optimizing a function is adjusting the free parameters to maximize a desired output.

adwn2• 10 years ago

How are they descriptions of the same process?

If you understand "optimizing a function" as "getting better at a certain task": A human can get better at a certain task without gaining confidence, and he/she can gain confidence without getting better at a certain task. The two things might be correlated, but they're not the same.

The most important difference is that "gaining confidence" is a feeling, and that simulated optimization algorithm does not have feelings.

sgt1013• 10 years ago

I suppose that you can examine the intent, the different mechanisms of achieving the outcome and the outcome itself as surface differences. Orthogonally there are sets of beliefs about the nature of the experience by the entities undertaking the activity. I personally believe that I have a rich and diverse set of motivations and experiences within the process, and that this qualitatively separates confidence gaining and optimisation in a machine which does not have these enrichments into different categories. You may well argue that this is delusion and all I would do is offer to buy you a beer.

But taking the features of the two things that can be observed and potentially agreed on I would say that confidence can be gained socially, often it is gained when the skill is sufficient - by which I mean that optimal skill is achieved and yet confidence is not in place - and confidence can be created in a situation where no skill exists. Confidence is subjective and yet absolute, where as optimisation is objective and by degree.

I would talk more and buy that beer but there is a pretty girl over there who I like the look of a lot more, bye.

dr_zoidberg4• 10 years ago

Can't edit the parent post anymore, but here I found the one interesting thing I got from reading this. The Trust Region Policy Optimization paper, barely mentioned in the article: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.05477v3.pdf

hiddencost• 10 years ago

I'm sure the author didn't realize this, but "confidence" actually has a very precise definition in the context of machine learning, and many types of models produce confidence scores as part of their predictions.

n0us2• 10 years ago

I make a point of never visiting RollingStone for anything after they dragged my school's name through the dirt without a second though to journalistic integrity for the sole purpose of pursuing some agenda they had. Call me biased but I refuse to believe that they are capable of producing anything of quality and I would love to watch this magazine crash and burn.

proksoup• 10 years ago

I would be interested in learning more about this, or their agenda, what school or article is being referred to here?

Vaskivo• 10 years ago

He's probably talking about the University of Virginia rape story -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus (wich was discredited)

n0us2• 10 years ago

see Vaskivo

bedhead• 10 years ago

You took the words out of my mouth. RS might be the most disgraceful mainstream (or semi-mainstream, however you want to describe them) journal in America today.

hga• 10 years ago

You do not, in this case, suffer from the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

manaskarekar• 10 years ago

Here's a much better commentary on AI for popcorn reading.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolu...

osteele• 10 years ago

“Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be our children.” – Marvin Minsky, http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/sciam.inherit.html

qbasic• 10 years ago

And what do children do? They replace their parents. Is it possible that robots will enter the fray of evolution and only time will tell if they are more fit for survival.

Moshe_Silnorin• 10 years ago

I'm sure that thought comforts the descendants of our common ancestors as we turn their habitat into farm or industrial land and slowly drive them to extinction.

eranation• 10 years ago

Self driving car, image / voice recognition, or even getting the classification / meaning of language texts is a far simpler task than a full self-conscious AI, or even an AI that can simulate a conscious mind but not really have one (e.g. a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie, i.e. such an AI can talk about art all day, perhaps even create art and pass a turing test, but it never "experienced" art). Were there any advances in cognitive AI that justify all this "AI revolution" talk? didn't we simply get really good at deep learning and better at image recognition / voice recognition / language translation that is definitely laudable but still far from the "Ex Machina" depiction?

chriswarbo• 10 years ago

Self driving car, image / voice recognition, or even getting the classification / meaning of language texts is a far simpler task than a full self-conscious AI, or even an AI that can simulate a conscious mind but not really have one

I disagree. Self-driving cars, image/voice recognition and classification/meaning-extraction for text are well-defined problems, with associated benchmarks, competitions, etc. These are hard problems.

On the other hand "full self-conscious AI" and "AI that can simulate a conscious mind but not really have one" are collections of words whose main reason for existence is to allow their user to keep redefining them arbitrarily in order to win arguments (see, for example, John Searle).

I define "self-conscious" as being able to reason about onesself, where "reason" means performing some nontrivial computation and "onesself" means the pattern of information consitituting the agent (human, device, program, etc.). Hence, I declare the multi-quines at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)#Ouroboros_pr... as examples of "full self-conscious AI".

Further, I define "mind" as a computational process taking place in physical matter, and a "conscious mind" as a mind capable of reason. Hence I declare that the text "1 + 1" is an AI that can simulate a conscious mind (when given to an interpreter like python) without really having one (since the text performs no computation).

tryitnow• 10 years ago

I get nervous when tech trends start appearing in popular publications with little history of covering tech. My spidey sense suggests that this signals an approaching peak in the covered technology.

Frankly, I think the expectations around AI are outpacing the realities that are attainable in the next 5-10 years. Now after that? Who knows. But I'm starting to get the sense that a lot of people are going to be disappointed in the next 5-10 years.

chadwittman• 10 years ago

This is a really fascinating perspective. Thinking of publications based on their probability of covering tech (based on past coverage) and subsequently low probability publications covering tech more frequently, suggests evidence of a "bubble". Love it!

kdkooo• 10 years ago

I agree, I think this has been happening for several years now. Pop culture fascination with AI has come and gone in waves and I don't believe this wave signals any significant change in the imminence of AI. Seems RS is just grasping for another eye-grabbing story as usual.

swagtricker• 10 years ago

Robots don't like to be anthropomorphized.

kyrre• 10 years ago

replace the terms AI/DL with (non)linear regression. still hyped?

tariqali34• 10 years ago

Entirely so. Non-linear regression sounds like a tool that can be used without any ethical repercussions or philosophical angst about human obsolescence in the face of machine capabilities. It also sounds like a tool that anyone can use...either learn math or find a library that will do the (non)linear regression for you. I mean, you already heard about linear regression in high school, right? It doesn't sound as exotic as AI/DL either...

If the barriers to entry are low, then that means anyone can take advantage of the Power of Math to do Great Things(tm). Said "Great Things(tm)" might include humans trusting their models way too much and end up doing stupid stuff as a result of them, but people have been misusing statistics for generations and we haven't killed ourselves (yet).

The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1

Related Stories