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I hate this meme. Essentially, an arrogant and condescending straw man argument. Here is what really happens. People who are not familiar with programming assu
by BrainVirus 4y ago
I hate this meme. Essentially, an arrogant and condescending straw man argument.
Here is what really happens. People who are not familiar with programming assume that some mental faculty is necessary to solve a particular problem. Indeed, it is required for a person to succeed at the problem. That mental faculty is often general and can be applied to other tasks. It's some aspect of what we consider general intelligence.
Instead, software engineers look at a problem and solve it by changing its representation to fit the capabilities of a pre-existing algorithm. The solution has nothing to do with mental faculties in the general population. The solutions ends up being specific. If you want to apply it to another problem, you need to transform that problem into some clever representation as well.
People notice the lack of generality and say "no, this is not what we had in mind". It's an entirely reasonable sentiment.
- omegalulw 4y ago+1. You will find such positions often championed by people who don't understand how machine learning works - but maybe have tried out a fancy tool that used such a model (GPT-2, Stable Diffusion, etc). Classic example of "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" combined with Dunning–Kruger effect.
- melagonster 4y agothanks your opinion, I usually see this but can't find a good reply.