>> What limit to technology exactly is it you believe there is that this can't be
done by machines?
I used the word "limitation" not "limit" and I'm talking about machine learning
algorithms, not machines in general and outside of the context of machine
learning.
Machine learning does have limiations compared to humans. Specifically, machine
learning algorithms need large, no, vast amounts of data and processing power.
You can refer to Hinton, who is on record saying deep learning took off recently
thanks to more data and more processing power, which wasn't available earlier.
Humans need nothing like that. We can even learn on no examples at all. If I
tell a kid who has never seen a giraffe what one looks like they'll know one
when they see it. I won't even have to show the kid a giraffe and say "that's a
giraffe".
That's because we have a context of the world that we can incorporate new
knowledge into in the blink of an eye. That is beyond the capabilities of our
most advanced algorithms right now- their context is always limited to a very
restricted domain, for instance- images of specific things or a sub-language
etc.
Will machines one day be able to build a context as rich as that of a human?
Who knows- maybe. But we're nowhere near achieving that in this generation,
or the next, or the one after that.
I used the word "limitation" not "limit" and I'm talking about machine learning algorithms, not machines in general and outside of the context of machine learning.
Machine learning does have limiations compared to humans. Specifically, machine learning algorithms need large, no, vast amounts of data and processing power. You can refer to Hinton, who is on record saying deep learning took off recently thanks to more data and more processing power, which wasn't available earlier.
Humans need nothing like that. We can even learn on no examples at all. If I tell a kid who has never seen a giraffe what one looks like they'll know one when they see it. I won't even have to show the kid a giraffe and say "that's a giraffe".
That's because we have a context of the world that we can incorporate new knowledge into in the blink of an eye. That is beyond the capabilities of our most advanced algorithms right now- their context is always limited to a very restricted domain, for instance- images of specific things or a sub-language etc.
Will machines one day be able to build a context as rich as that of a human? Who knows- maybe. But we're nowhere near achieving that in this generation, or the next, or the one after that.