Re: AI done here cheap (was: Re: Luddites are everywhere!)

From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Wed Mar 15 2000 - 06:32:58 MST


Damien Broderick wrote:

> Hey, I love Eli like a son (not necessarily the most favorable comparison,
> if one reads his autobiographic sketch, but still...), admire the hell out
> of his smarts and articulateness, but let's not forget that so far all he's
> done is talk a good game.
>
> (Even that might be putting it a little strongly: the only formal AI expert
> on the list, Robin Hanson, has expressed misgivings over Eliezer's
> broad-brush and non-canonical algorithms/heuristics, and I haven't seen
> anyone cluey like Moravec or Vinge rush to adopt his schemata, although
> they both know about his site.)

Well, I may not be an AI specialist, but I am a computer scientist. My
opinion, for what its worth, is that Eli's suggestions have far too much
speculation and untested theory in them to work. On the other hand, his
ideas *feel* right. (More right than most AI proposals anyway.) So, if I
were funding AI research, I would think the ideas had enough merit to
invest in. When one is trying to advance the state of science, that is
often all one can hope for anyway.

-- 
 Stirling Westrup  |  Use of the Internet by this poster
 sti@cam.org       |  is not to be construed as a tacit
                   |  endorsement of Western Technological
                   |  Civilization or its appurtenances.



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