AI as a bunch of if else statements is a very 80 centrics view of current AI.

My computer vision professor has us read a current paper every week. He really really dislikes the use of deep learning and has said in class he tries to look for papers that don't use it.

But nearly all of the current papers are using it and he admits every week that the papers he presents are blowing old research out the water using it. Throwing a bunch of GPUs and image data at a problem is surprisingly effective for a lot of problems that were previously extremely difficult. He begrudgingly admits this every week, but he does continue to find papers that get slightly better results by combining deep learning with traditional computer vision techniques. I think he is right in that there probably is a peak quickly approaching where data/augmented data with zero previous knowledge will peak with the current black box approach, but cutting edge currently is definitely not a lot of if-else statements.

Well, what's disappointing from a vision standpoint is that we are not making much progress understanding vision. Instead we are making progress in solving machine vision.

I think your professor isn't looking for results so much as a good explanation for the vision problem, a "unified theory" of vision that you could, in principle, code up from theory alone.

That is my impression of current AI research as an almost layman at the field. Using traditional proven methods to get an approximation and then deep learning and/or other machine learning algorithms (and trained data) to refine those approximations.

Seem to be a very "organic" kind of AI, even with the flaws of human minds. Thinking about it can be spooky given how much it evolved in just a few years.

Wondering if this near-human-level performance in a limited style of general-domain question answering impresses you even a bit?

By the way, none of the recent papers in AI uses massive if-then-else's or equivalents as the major part of the system.

Results vs humans https://rajpurkar.github.io/SQuAD-explorer/

Sample data and a system's answers:

https://rajpurkar.github.io/SQuAD-explorer/explore/1.1/dev/P...

i agree there is definitely a gap between what is possible in the near vs distant future.

but i personally would embrace it rather than fear it. and i'm not a tech guy, i work in a call center selling insurance lol.

the day that i can say "Mr. Robot, make me a pizza, brew me some cold beer, and tell your robot friends to deliver me a couch for the game tonight" is the day that i am pretty damn satisfied with the state of technology

if everything in the world is manufactured and fulfilled by robots, and i never have to leave my home to do anything, i would be thoroughly pleased

Let me tell you a story.

I have a friend. He was hired in an industrial complex, doing a lot of hard work, moving stuff, building, most of the time outside, in cold. One day he got fired, not his choice. After some time he found a nice job, this time in an office. He was working 100% from the computer, managing some stuff, and sitting all day. In the first month he was amazed what he missed, the calmness, it was always warm, no physical labour, etc.

I met him after 3 months there. He was the most depressed person I ever met. What happened? Lack of activity.

It could free up time for other more enjoyable activities, though. For instance, I could spend my time playing my drums instead of mowing the lawn, if a robot did it for me.

It scares me.

I think about that what Musk said about Robots. He said, 'In the future, we will need a strobe scope to see robots'.

Automation scares me more than my state requiring me to buy insurance for my jalopy? (Insurance that seems like the price was colluded, but I will never be able to prove it. And that's second to the clever way the Insurance industry brainwashed us, and our legislatures.)

I'm a chit job guy.

I'm usually the guy with two lousy jobs, and the lousy jobs are slowly being eliminated by machines. Or, being filled by immigrants who wouldn't think about rocking the boat at their new career. People just happy to be alive? I get it.

I get it, but this used to be America. We knew we were a bit spoiled, but very greatful we were born here too.

People are clamoring over this great current economy.

Yes--I see a lot of tech guys driving new cars, and very satisfied in life. Well except the rent? I just see so many people with jobs that are a few years of being irrelevant. And yes--many will be tech. On a personal note, I know three homeless people. Two were former Programmers.

The chit jobs, including construction, will always be there, but they are paying less, and less, while expecting more. Yes--Mike Rowe I'll move to the middle of the country for a six month welding gig, usually tied to some natural resource that's hot.

The chit jobs I'm looking at are really getting bad.

Uber always poops up. Yea--I'm going to buy a Uber approved vechicle, and drive at their whim. It's like they pride thenselfs over screwing over a potential employee?

What I'm trying to say, is it seems like the wealthy are doing their best to eliminate guys like me, and with robots they look clever? Not greedy, but clever--

They didn't like unions, so move the whole racket overseas.

They still want to rid humans from the equation; build better robots. Something our Forefathers wouldn't have even hallucinated about when writing that document (The Constitution) that kinda served us well, or some of us?

Now--in order to make things more efficient--let the robots do the job. And get rid of that employee, along with his retirement account, and his pesky health care demands!

The movie Norma Rae, starring Sally Field, couldn't be filmed today. I was watching it the other night, and while I loved it, I just thought about currently empty (I'm assuming) Cotton Factory sitting empty in the Midwest. In the movie, the machines were the robots. The machines weren't the enemy though, it was the greedy owners.

The owners finally found a way to rid themselfs of those pesky unions by moving.

If machines/robots get so good, the greedy owners will be able to eliminate all human help. The world will be there marketplace. Every country will have the 1 percent, and there spawn who will buy, and the few who have very protected jobs, like doctors. (Doctors are a bad example. They are only protected here.)

Guys like me will dead, or like zombies stumbling around the buildings while the robots do their job. (I'm sorry about this essay. I know it's convoluted.)

I watch tv, and see the wealthy yelling things at a machine, and the items showing up on doorstep. Where will people be the money to pay for the connivence?

It's gonna all be rosy for the the wealthy, but guys like me will be delivering the packages, until a robot takes that job.

(Sorry about the discombobulated essay. I'm just seeing happy people, and way, way too many misserable/Homlessness people.)

hey i really enjoyed your perspective. i share a lot of the same opinions. save every penny and move to a very low cost area.

the rich demand that this revolution happens. we can't stop it even though we see it

This comment was dead, I guess someone flagged it.

I found the perspective interesting however, and I don't believe the tone is at all offensive (though perhaps it was misinterpreted as such?).

It's a demo. Crafted to show off the best side they possibly could. Who knows how well it actually works in practice when google isn't cherry picking the best results to show.

I don't deny that. We'll get to see how good it is soon enough.

Google Duplex-to-text, is that you?!

I wonder when HN will start having HN-trained bots posting. There's lots of smart discussions by smart people here; surely high-quality grist for an AI mill?