Meet NELL, the Computer That Learns From the Net 272
bossanovalithium writes "Carnegie Mellon University has taught a computer how to read and learn from the internet.
According to Dennis Baron at the Oxford University press blog, the computer is called NELL and it is reading the internet and learning from it in much the same way that humans learn language and acquire knowledge. Basically by soaking it all up and figuring it out.
NELL is short for Never Ending Language Learner and apparently it is getting brainier every day."
NELL and the banan have something in common (Score:1, Insightful)
NELL is 'learning' in much the same way that a banana is smiling.
Just because something is happening which has something in common with another process, it does not mean that it is the same process. Bananas may have something in common with a smile in that they usually follow a gentle curve like a smiling mouth, but they are not smiling. Nor is NELL 'learning'.
Re:Here comes the (Score:3, Insightful)
AI has been moving along over the years, it's just that there's never been any huge sudden leap so it's always been tiny incremental steps.
People want an AI which asks the meaning of life monents after being turned on.
What they get is AI which is slightly better at gathering data from images or slightly better at catagorizing data from text or navigating around an environment than the last version.
Also people don't hear about most of the products of AI research.
It just quietly works in the background handling logistics or clasifying information or gets turned into dry uninteresting tools.
Re:Project Page (Score:4, Insightful)
I think "Science Education" is a #politicsissue (http://bit.ly/dbtbg8)
At least it got that one right.
http://twitter.com/cmunell/status/27011868576 [twitter.com]
Re:Project Page (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Project Page (Score:4, Insightful)
As a student I can tell you that there is almost nothing serious to be found in the library. At best, you get pop science books, and at worst the pureed bedlam of a school textbook(amasci.com/miscon/miscon4.html). Real learning simply cannot take place in a library. Sometimes you will come across the odd book, usually written by a geeky expert, but in general the library is a vast intellectual wasteland devoid of substantial content. Just look at the philosopy section.
which is of course bullshit, just like your statement.
If you want to learn programming the internet is fantastic for learning.
Far better than most textbooks.
there's countless books, journals and various other resources available online in every field and as long as you avoid youtube and the more shitty of forums there's no shortage of good information.
But go on with your snobbery and go on dismissing everything beginning with www as worthless.