AI is, by definition, the set of problems that are not yet solvable by computers. Ergo, all AI is fantasy. Nevermind that AI has beaten the world chess champ, is used every day for pattern recognition, stock trading, and a myriad other uses.
Those who do not prepare for the coming Singularity are going to be blindsided by it when it arrives.
AI is, by definition, the set of problems that are not yet solvable by computers.
No it's not. At least, that's not how leading textbooks define it and it's not how McCarthy defined it. Moreover you promptly contradict it: beating the chess champ is hardly "not yet solvable by computers". Did it cease to be AI the moment it succeeded?
Those who do not prepare for the coming Singularity are going to be blindsided by it when it arrives.
This seems to me a religious sentiment expressed in religious language. Prepare ye the way of the Lord!
Thats just a convenient definition of AI because we don't really otherwise have a good one for human like consciousness. That we don't probably says a lot about the size of this uncertainty factor that singularity ignores.
Artificial human like intelligence will profoundly influence society, I don't doubt it. I just think the quality of thinking under the umbrella of 'Singularity' is very unlikely to usefully prepare anyone.
When humans first picked up a rock to use as a tool they possessed something with which to make a better tool - this tool singularity has been ongoing for thousands of years - stop talking about it like the rapture, it's embarrassing.
I think it would be more accurate to say that "AI is, in practice, the set of problems that are not yet solvable by computers". It's pretty cynical to call that the definition of AI, but I don't think that's an inaccurate characterization if you look at the domain of problems that people who consider themselves "AI researchers" has shifted over the years.
Everything is virtualized. The software is Open Source, and much of the courseware is available free. The book you still have to pay for, but it's very cool nonetheless.
We can hack around the scribd censorship. Everybody who aubmits a .pdf knows it will be converted into the useless scribd format. So, the original submitter needs to immediately post a comment that is the original .pdf link.
If HN scribd damage occurs on that link, then we will find other ways to route around that damage, for example, by using tinyurl.
That would be nice and all, but one huge advantage of Flash is that Adobe iterates quite often with new features/bug fixes, and thus keeps up with new technologies. W3C obviously does the same, but at a much slower rate since we all have to wait for them to take ages to make a new specification, and then wait for it to actually be implemented, and then hope that the implementation is consistent across browsers. Also, I believe Adobe just opened up the specification for Flash.
