You Might Use AI, But That Doesn't Mean You're an AI Company, Says a Founder of Google Brain (venturebeat.com) 73
As AI space gets crowded, there are a slew of businesses -- new and old -- looking to market themselves as "AI companies." But according to Andrew Ng, a founder of the Google Brain team and a luminary in the space, there's more to being an AI company than just using a neural net. From a report: In his view, while it's possible to create a website for a shopping mall, that doesn't make it an internet company. In the same way, just implementing basic machine learning does not make a standard technology company (or any other business) an AI company. "You're not an AI company because there are a few people using a few neural networks somewhere," Ng said. "It's much deeper than that." First and foremost, AI companies are strategic about their acquisition of data, which is used as the fuel for machine learning systems. Once an AI company has acquired the data, Ng said that they tend to store it in centralized warehouses for processing. Most enterprises have their information spread across multiple different warehouses, and collating that data for machine learning can prove difficult. AI companies also implement modern development practices, like frequent deployments. That means it's possible to change the product and learn from the changes.
Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no AI companies, because there is no AI. We have a rtificial, but we don't have i ntelligence.
What there are is marketing companies.
They're waving neural networks around - basically a vaguely neuron-like means to do "if something like this, then that" - and calling it AI so they can sell more of it.
If/when AI gets here, the stuff they're calling "AI" today will be the subject of raucous laughter - at the people who swallowed the label. At the same time the marketing people will get an "atta boy" for using the term to suck more money out of people's pockets.
No part of Google is "an AI company." Google is a marketing giant with a popularity-based search engine. Resulting in what popularity usually results in - mediocre results. Well salted with advertising.
As for the distinctions about AGI and so forth... yep, that's them, marketing you. Exactly what I'm talking about. Intelligence is that thing you have, that a thermostat, toaster, or go playing program does not. That's what it's always been, and it's still that. When something else has it in any like degree, you'll know it. Because it won't just play go - it'll argue with you about what intelligence is, among many, many other things. Intelligence incorporates the ability to generalize. Saying "general intelligence" is like saying "pizza pie" or "cha tea." Not that it stops people looking to market their shite. Nothing stops them.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled buzzword fest.
Re: (Score:1)
They're waving neural networks around - basically a vaguely neuron-like means to do "if something like this, then that" - and calling it AI so they can sell more of it.
In fact it is more like:
The probability of THIS in the presence of THAT equals the probability of THAT in the presence of THIS, times the probability of THIS over the probability of THAT.
Re: (Score:1)
> There are no AI companies, because there is no AI. We have a rtificial, but we don't have i ntelligence.
^^ THIS! A glorified table lookup isn't AI regardless of how many dumb marketing droids call it that.
That's why I call A.I. = Artificial Ignorance because that's all it is.
In contradistinction to a.i. = actual intelligence -- you know the ability to "reason", _use_ knowledge, and come to _new_ conclusions.
a.i. is (eventually) coming (with bio-organic computing) but it has just around the corner any
Re: Indeed (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There are no AI companies, because there is no AI. We have a rtificial, but we don't have i ntelligence.
If that is so, how is Google able to identify people, places, landmarks, buildings, cars, boats, bridges, skyscrapers, sunsets, lattes,... in my images and categorize them accordingly?
Seems pretty i ntelligent to me.
Depends on the Definition of AI (the AI Effect) (Score:2)
There are no AI companies, because there is no AI. We have artificial, but we don't have intelligence.
This comment is really a part of what the definition of artificial intelligence is, the "AI Effect" [wikipedia.org] that many practitioners and professors I know would always complain about, on how the field of AI would come up with some new technique or system, and then promptly, people would pull that out of the AI field and say, "Well, that's not REAL intelligence." Line one from that article:
The AIS effect occurs when onlookers discount the behavior of an artificial intelligence program by arguing that it is not real intelligence.
Computer Science, at least per Russell and Norvig who wrote the de facto textbook on AI, is "the designing and building of int
Unrelated Attempts to Prove Superiority (Score:2)
Open Offices (Score:2)
All this guy is really saying that you are not an AI company if you dont do the things we at Google do. Go ahead Drink the GoolAid. Next they will say you are not an AI company if you dont have the dysfunctional Open Offices. News flash Genius - most progress in history was made by introverts who like a quiet place to work where they can concentrate. Google started out as a good company but now it pushes toxic trends as a bunch of politicians managed to get hired. I would take anything coming out of Google
Re: (Score:1)
there's company coming tomorrow (Score:2)
What's the point? (Score:3)
I get the feeling he's ranting his way up to outright saying "Only Google (Brain) counts as a *real* AI company, everyone else is a faker, and they have cooties too".
Either that or he's giving an open invitation to start a flamewar about who is and isn't a *real* AI engineer.
Re: (Score:2)
I get the feeling he's ranting his way up to outright saying "Only Google (Brain) counts as a *real* AI company, everyone else is a faker, and they have cooties too".
Either that or he's giving an open invitation to start a flamewar about who is and isn't a *real* AI engineer.
Come on... Everyone knows that as soon as you link against TensorFlow, you are now an AI company.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you think you are?
Make it stop! (Score:1)
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. . . You sound like someone in the 90's being pissed that everyone keeps talking about this newfangled "Internet" thing and they're failing to focus on what's really important. Like the Z380 processor.
Real AI (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The U.S. Supreme Court has already given corporations the same rights as humans
I know you're talking about Citizens United case, and I'm just as pissed about it as you are, but the ruling was more selective than that. They ruled that groups of people are free to make political contributions... as a group. Corporate personhood [wikipedia.org] has gone back and forth in the USA over the decades. But they don't have the same rights, not even after that case. They can't vote, for example.
An AI CEO and complete AI ownership
That's... essentially just a corporate charter. Or a trust. They have employees enact the algorithm. Typic
"You might call it AI but it's just an algorithm" (Score:1)
There is no AI; it's not even remotely possible yet. There is no artificial intelligence. It's just a buzzword for 'clever code'.
I get so god damn worked up when everybody and their dog is claiming to use AI when real true artificial intelligence would be the greatest achievement in computer science since it's invention.
A computer that can think for itself, think beyond it's code, re-write itself to learn, to adapt, to act like a living mind; that is AI and we're not even fucking close.
Re: "You might call it AI but it's just an algorit (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Can you think for yourself? How are you different than these self-learning algorithms?
If we stuck you in a bookstore in Sichuan and told you "Learn to read Chinese", what would you do that's fundamentally different than what a computer would do?
Sounds stupid (Score:2)
An AI company is any company where AI is their product - they don't have to organize themselves a certain way or even be successful.
Everything else is a company that uses AI.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically (Score:1)
all you need to be an AI company is to buy one, put it in the center of a room and start worshipping it like a god. ...
ok, it would be more like an AI cult than a company unless you start exploiting your faith for profit.
AAAAGH (Score:2, Interesting)
"...As AI space gets crowded..."
Jesus, just STOP already?
First it was referring to every remote-control anything as a "drone".
Then it's the universality of solar power because it's so 'competitive'....yes, as long as its subsidized to the tune of what 40x any other power generation industry?
Then it was the panegyrics about the end of the gasoline car when electrics are barely more than a boutique electric golf cart serving a *teensy* niche market.
Now it's "...As AI space gets crowded..." *WHAT* AI space?
Re: (Score:2)
It'a all the Marketeers that make it crowded.
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Well, this is the problem with human language: humans use it.
Words mean whatever most people agree they mean, and regrettably most people are sloppy thinkers. Shortly after a word like, oh say "broadband", enters the language with a wonderfully sharp meaning that is immediately dulled the instant the masses take it up.
This leaves the more precise-minded of us in a lexicographic position analogous to a carpenter attempting to carve a dovetail joint with a stick of butter.
Re: (Score:2)
Perfect example of *misuse* of language you mean?
Carefully tuned vehicle, moving at a very precisely maintained speed in controlled conditions on a flat test track carrying no passengers.
That's not a "commercial bus" in ANY sense. That's a test vehicle, more like a prototype, that may indeed be "bus shaped".
WTF?! (Score:2)
AI companies also implement modern development practices, like frequent deployments.
Wha... so I'm not a REAL AI company unless I do continuous deployment like an agile strategy?
Doesn't that belie the fact that a TRUE AI should only be deployed ONCE and then becomes self maintainable?
Fess up - You guys don't have "AI" either - you have nothing more than the old Animal program on steroids and you're constantly updating the backend database that the "AI" program drives through to find a match
http://www.animalgame.com/play... [animalgame.com]
Makes perfect sense (Score:2)
Just because I buy and use something, doesn't make mean that I understand that thing or have any particular expertise or insight about it.
Kim Kardashian uses an iPhone, but I would not describe her as a high-tech individual.
And Google is what? (Score:2)
That make Google an advertising company then?
Re: (Score:2)
They're specialized algorithms that are "trained" to do one thing.
Yes, exactly. The end-product doing the thing is typically just an algorithm. The path it takes to get to it's answers might be really hard to understand, as with any sort of machine generated code, but it's really just applying a formula. Change something that the formula/algorithm/model didn't account for and it's hosed.
The Intelligence part is the training. Developing these algorithms. The part where they feed a machine learning algorithm a TON of data and it produces another algorithm that's good at...
dude, your pillow is looking horsey of late (Score:1)
shhhh, stop exposing my scam, dammit, i spent a lot to start my smart-socks biz
News flash (Score:2)
Head "AI" honcho at Google tells let's everyone else know that aren't really doing AI.
AI companies also implement modern development practices, like frequent deployments.
I really fail to see how the software development processes one follows defines if you are doing "AI", or not.
That means it's possible to change the product and learn from the changes.
Tell me more Mr. Wizard!
Split hair (Score:2)
It's a misnomer, but not in the way you think it i (Score:1)
Re: It's a misnomer, but not in the way you think (Score:1)
It's the dad argument.... (Score:2)
My dad is bigger than your dad and he says we are an AI family, so there.
by that definition (Score:2)
Google uses advertising to finance their AI research and uses AI in some of their products, but that doesn't make Google "an AI company": AI software or hardware isn't a significant product for Google, at least not yet.
WTF is Google Brian? (Score:1)