Deep learning mostly seems to be the good old back-propagation in feedforward
neural networks which is rediscovered every 10 years by a new generation. Plus
more data and more servers. The result is reasonable pattern recognition which
lacks explainability. As Noah Smith saidDeep learning is basically just a
computer saying "I can't quite define it, but I know it when I see
it."https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1361752362969272321-J.
-------- Original message --------From: jon zingale <[email protected]>
Date: 2/24/21 18:13 (GMT+01:00) To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM]
Interview with Jeremy Howard I appreciate Jeremy's spit and elbow grease
approach to developing his lab, his youthful heart/naivety, and the emphasis he
places on architecture and profiling over analytic bounds. His position mostly
focuses on the importance of "getting up, getting out, and getting something"
with respect to AI, though something about his enthusiasm and virtue signaling
gives me pause. Silicon Valley 2.0 is hyper-obsessed with the ethics of its
earlier form, and so there remains something disturbing about white men
continuing the pattern of imperialism under the guise of missionary work, a
mission to serve the noble savages. This pattern is by no means new and to the
extent that his desire to help is as authentically quixotic as he presents, it
can likely be remedied with a little self-reflection.
While I continue to hold out for high-level neural network theories, I do very
much appreciate the attempts to remove false barriers to entry. One tension I
feel, when I take a few steps back, is repeated in the very development of the
web and more generally in the euro-centric story of westward expansion. The
former conveys the tribulations of a world now burdened with Javascript in
which we (in the field) scramble to work out what's next (web assembly?) and
determine the meaningful patterns. The latter is the story of opportunity in
the wilderness followed by the inevitable harness of law (True Grit). If the
goal is authenticity wrt distancing ourselves from Silicon Valley 1.0, I wish
to see authentically new narratives and archetypes.
All that said, I am excited about the work Jeremy and his wife are doing and I
mostly agree that coding is an essential literacy. --trigger warning-- Even if
tomorrow the world's computers were to disappear, we would continue to depend
on this literacy.
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