On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 7:45 AM, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > A.I. is no closer than it was 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. >> > > Of one thing I am certain, someday computers will become more intelligent > than any human who ever lived using any measure of intelligence you care to > name. And I am even more certain that we are 20 years closer to that day > than we were 20 years ago. > I am not opposed to this idea, but as usual the very hard problem of defining intelligence is hand-waved. I don't even ask for "any measure of intelligence", I would just ask you to name one. > > > But what is new and big is Big Data. But Big Data does not involve >> theories of A.I. nor efforts. it's about taking very large sets of paired >> data and converging by some basic rule to a single thing. This is how >> translation services work. >> > > Well... Big Data computers are artificial and good translation requires > intelligence, so why in the world isn't that AI. > My PhD advisor used to say something along these lines: All the AI we have so far gives as a little from a lot. The real goal of AI is to get a lot from a little. I think he also stole this from someone, not sure who though. With what I consider real AI, an artificial translator could also be taught how to drive a car. The extreme compartmentalisation of capabilities is the smoking gun that the "intelligence" part of AI is not increasing. I am aware that I am being hypocritical in that I am appealing to something that I just said I don't know how to define. > > > Big Data does not involve theories of A.I >> > > I think it very unlikely that the secret to intelligence is some grand > equation you could put on a teashirt, it's probably 1001 little hacks and > kludges that all add up to something big. > I agree. > > > It's very large sets of translations of sentences, and sentence >> components, simply rehashed for best fit >> > > Simply? Is convoluted better than simple? Are you saying that if we can > explain how it works then it can't be intelligent? > > > It actually works fairly adequately for most translation needs. Which >> would be great, except this: The Big Data system is not independent at any >> point. Every day there needs to be a huge scrape of the translations >> performed by human translators. >> > > And human beings move from being mediocre translators to being very good > translators by observing how great translators do it. > And they can also do this for a number of different skills with the same software. > > > > Human translation professions are in a state of freefall. There used to >> be a career structure with rising income and security and status. Now there >> isn't. >> > > Translation certainly won't be the last profession where machines become > better at there job than any human; and I predict that the next time it > happens somebody will try to find a excuse for it just like you did and say > "Yes a machine is a better poet or surgeon or joke writer or physicists > than I am but it doesn't really count because (insert lame excuse here)". > I am sure of that too, but I reserve my decision on which side of the argument I'm in until I see these "surgeons", "joke writers" or "physicists" that you talk about. Telmo. > > John K Clark > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
