Aritificial Alien Intelligence

Like fashion, even scientific research is subjected to cyclical fads. Topics, techniques come into limelight and then fall out of favor when the gains plateau. 

In machine learning, NNs were in vogue in early 90s when SVM came onto the scene and blew them out of water on almost every problem and then got superseded in turn by the log-linear models, CRFs and others. Then in beginning of this decade, NNs have made a tremendous come back, this time becoming the tool of choice for NLP as well.

Due to their name and a very crude similarity to how the biological brain is organized, NNs tend to invite comparisons with human brain and every improvement achieved with their help tends to be seen as an step towards Artificial General Intelligence, at least in popular media and common people. 

Now, what would happen if tomorrow a different method, a different paradigm of Machine Learning were start performing better than NNs? There is no reason why it could not happen AFAIK. We do not have theoretical results that say that NNs are better then every other method imaginable. They are as capable as anything else possible but that only means that another method that is better at exploiting the given data may be able to beat them.

Would such a development still feel like a step towards AGI? When you hear about a CRF, it merely sounds like a fancy mathematical object which we have devised. We don't feel threatened by it. It is because NNs are presented in the form of neurons and similarity to biological brains that the question seems to have assumed this sense of urgency. Or is it because for the first time, these systems have started to come close to human performance in certain tasks?

How do you think the discourse will change if a method that cannot be presented as interconnected neurons firing takes the lead? Would we call it Artificial Alien Intelligence? Or we are now past the possibility of such reversals or upheavals and the next jump up will come within the same paradigm only?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

बिछड़ते दोस्तों के नाम

यादों की माला के मनके खोते जाएंगे, हम खुद से हर रोज़ बेगाने होते जाएंगे। मिलना जुलना, हंसना रोना, दुनिया भर के हिज्जे, रफ्ता रफ्ता सब अफ़साने होते जाएंगे। "आते हैं उस तरफ कभी तो तुमसे मिलते हैं", न मिलने के यूँही बहाने होते जाएंगे। इंक़लाब की बू है अब पुर-कैफ हवाओं में, बेवजह ही लोग दीवाने होते जाएंगे। भिंची मुट्ठियों, उठे कदम, लहराती बाहों से, बिछड़े साथी का हम साथ निभाते जाएंगे। गले नही  ल गते हैं, अब बस हाथ मिलाते हैं, यार अभागा सभी सयाने होते जाएंगे।
Read more

क्या लिखूं?

छूटे कोई दीन दुखी ना, सबको करो शुमार लिखो, दबी हुई चीखों को बुन कर, कर्कश इक ललकार लिखो। धरम जो पूछे शरणागत का, जात जो पूछे साधो की, हिंदुस्तानी दिल ऐसा भी हुआ नहीं लाचार लिखो। लिखने दो उनको BSE, NSE और GDP, तुम आम आदमी की जेबों में बची चवन्नी चार लिखो। इस शोर शराबे में सहमा सा सच जो तुमको मिल जाए, एक बार लिखो, दस बार लिखो, तुम उसको बारम्बार लिखो। है वक़्त अभी कुछ कहने का, है वक़्त नहीं चुप रहने का, नफरत के तूफानों में घिरते, इंसानों को प्यार लिखो। सुनो अभागा बदल गए हैं यहाँ मायने शब्दों के, देशभक्त ऐसे हैं गर तो, खुद को तुम गद्दार लिखो।
Read more

To bend and not to fold

There are thousands of things in my mind right now that I would like to put on this blog, share with the world. But I hardly manage to find time or the kind of tranquility that I want in order to write. There is one thing however, that never fails to push me to the emotional state where words just seem to flow. Few minutes ago, I watched a video prepared by IITK students called "The Way We Were". There was nothing much in the video. Large part of the video is a music video produced in house at IITK which, I must say, is quite good. The rest of the video is brief snippets of some junta talking about how they feel about IITK and what makes it special for them. It is this part that prompted me to write this post. First to quote a dear friend of mine, the later part in the video looks rather like a "boisterous attempt at self-glorification". I somewhat agree with that and it is this feeling of agreement that forces me to think what would I have said if I was there in th...
Read more