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Re:When to assume neural networks can solve a problem by malux85 on Monday March 30, 2020 @12:33PM (#22729441)
If you're listening to people who claim any one technology solves "everything" --- and believing them --- then you are the fool.

There's no silver bullet. Deep Learning has made huge strides in noise reduction, image and video processing (self driving cars), lidar processing, medical imaging, etc, but it's not made any progress in knitting, tooth brushing, dog walking, or many other tasks ill suited for deep learning - so clearly not everything.

Re:When to assume neural networks can solve a problem by alanbernstein on Monday March 30, 2020 @12:47PM (#22729624)
Your general point is valid, but I can't help pointing out that knitting may not belong in that second list as much as the others.

Computational textile work is a niche, but fascinating, area of research. Knitting and crocheting are highly technical crafts, and there are opportunities to use modern computational approaches, including deep learning, in them.

Deep Knitting: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.02752.pdf

I'm not going to read this paper in detail, it may not be a great example of a successful deep learning application - but at least it's not an absurd idea.

Maybe not surprising if you're aware of the place of the Jacquard loom in the history of computer science.

Re:When to assume neural networks can solve a problem by yters on Monday March 30, 2020 @12:38PM (#22729505)
That's been the general vibe the popular tech press has been spouting for awhile. That NNs are somehow a major step towards AGI, which'll 'capture the lightcone of the future' to quote Sam Altman.

At some point, we'll realize that AGI is the modern alchemy. Ironically, alchemy's penultimate goal was to construct a homoculus, which is essentially the goal of AGI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus#Alchemy

"The allegorical text suggests to the reader that the ultimate goal of alchemy is not chrysopoeia, but it is instead the artificial generation of humans."

Re:When to assume neural networks can solve a problem by criddell on Monday March 30, 2020 @02:06PM (#22730509)
Penultimate means the second last thing in a set. In the alphabet, 'y' is the penultimate letter.
Re:When to assume neural networks can solve a problem by yters on Monday March 30, 2020 @02:33PM (#22730781)
The last thing is 'profit'!
Re:When to assume neural networks can solve a problem by criddell on Monday March 30, 2020 @02:55PM (#22731034)
Ha! Makes sense then. :)
Re:When to assume neural networks can solve a problem by malux85 on Monday March 30, 2020 @12:44PM (#22729590)
> That's been the general vibe the popular tech press has been spouting for awhile

This is such a vague generalisation, I cant do anything with it, except maybe how about "nullius in verba", on the word of noone, or "think for yourself"