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A comment on Why machine learning struggles with causality. Parent comment

Re:Why machine learning struggles with causality by Jtsummers on Friday April 02, 2021 @12:13PM (#26672746)
And you can gain experience/understanding without needing to either observe or directly experience something, merely by thinking about it or being told about it. Not every kid has to be or see a burn caused by touching a hot stove to learn it's a bad idea to try it.

If you require actual experience or direct observation to learn, then you're not using your brain to its full potential.

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Re:Why machine learning struggles with causality by shkkmo on Friday April 02, 2021 @01:10PM (#26673428)
You can certainly generalized previously gained knowledge without direct experience in that particular instance.

Would a child who has never experienced the human body's pain response be able to infer the causal connection between the heat of a stove and the response after touching it?

Arguably, language is a tool that allows us to generalize the direct experience of other agents. It is unclear if it is possible to remove direct interaction from a learning system and still reach the same level of understanding.

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