Re:Why Understanding Beats Knowledge
by rstuart4133 on Sunday August 30, 2020 @08:21PM
(#24327255)
> But knowledge is understanding.
Yes, at some level both are just memorising something. But in the way I like to think about it, they are different things.
For example, you could figure out if someone is overweight by memorising a whole pile of weight & height stats. If someone height 170cm and they are over 75kg, they're overweight. If they are 180cm and over 81kg they're overweight, and so on. That's knowledge.
But if you understand being overweight is a statement about height versus weight, and memorise the formula for BMI you've compressed all that knowledge into a few bytes worth. That's understanding. Both are just memorising something.
Taken a bit further, what AI's turn the knowledge encoded in whole pile of specific examples (the training data) into a understanding (ie, a formula encapsulating the knowledge).
Yes, at some level both are just memorising something. But in the way I like to think about it, they are different things.
For example, you could figure out if someone is overweight by memorising a whole pile of weight & height stats. If someone height 170cm and they are over 75kg, they're overweight. If they are 180cm and over 81kg they're overweight, and so on. That's knowledge.
But if you understand being overweight is a statement about height versus weight, and memorise the formula for BMI you've compressed all that knowledge into a few bytes worth. That's understanding. Both are just memorising something.
Taken a bit further, what AI's turn the knowledge encoded in whole pile of specific examples (the training data) into a understanding (ie, a formula encapsulating the knowledge).