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Comment by phire

12 hours ago

I'm sure I've seen basic hill climbing (and other optimisation algorithms) described as AI, and then used evidence of AI solving real-world science/engineering problems.

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phire

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LiamPowell  11 hours ago

Historically this was very much in the field of AI, which is such a massive field that saying something uses AI is about as useful as saying it uses mathematics. Since the term was first coined it's been constantly misused to refer to much more specific things.

From around when the term was first coined: "artificial intelligence research is concerned with constructing machines (usually programs for general-purpose computers) which exhibit behavior such that, if it were observed in human activity, we would deign to label the behavior 'intelligent.'" [1]

[1]: https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.1963.1057864

  • zingar  11 hours ago

    That definition moves the goalposts almost by definition, people only stopped thinking that chess demonstrated intelligence when computers started doing it.

    • Eufrat  11 hours ago

      The term artificial intelligence has always been just a buzzword designed to sell whatever it needed to. IMHO, it has no meaningful value outside of a good marketing term. John McCarthy is usually the person who is given credit for coming up with the name and he has admitted in interviews that it was just to get eyeballs for funding.

coherentpony  8 hours ago

I am somewhat cynically waiting for the AI community to rediscover the last half a century of linear algebra and optimisation techniques.

At some point someone will realise that backpropagation and adjoint solves are the same thing.

  • bonoboTP  7 hours ago

    There are plenty of smart people in the "AI community" already who know it. Smugly commenting does not replace actual work. If you have real insight and can make something perform better, I guarantee you that many people will listen (I don't mean twitter influencers but the actual field). If you don't know any serious researcher in AI, I have my doubts that you have any insight to offer.