What you wanted to know about AI
When I started school, my dream was to figure out a theory to underpin a grand unified model of artificial intelligence. Imagine my disappointment once I started studying the subject in detail.<p>Most functional AI nowadays consists of algorithms that are carefully tuned to solve a very specific problem in a narrowly defined environment. All the research nowadays is pushing the boundaries of a local optimum. Right now, true AI is a pipe dream without a fundamental shift in how we approach AI-type problems. And no, machine learning/deep learning is not that shift; it is just another flavor of the same statistics that everybody already uses.<p>What concerns me is not Skynet; what concerns me is the exasperating over-confidence that some people have in our current AI capabilities, on Hacker News and elsewhere. Too often, we discuss such technology as a miracle tonic to various economic or social woes, but without acknowledging the current state of the technology and its limitations (or being completely ignorant of such), we might as well be discussing Star Trek transporters. And usually, the discussion veers into Star Trek territory. Proponents of self-driving cars: I AM LOOKING AT YOU.<p>Take self-driving cars: at least with humans, our failure modes are well-known. We cannot say the same for most software, especially software that relies on a fundamentally heuristic layer as input to the control system. To that mix, add extremely dynamic and completely unpredictable driving conditions -- tread lightly.