A fundamental trend in AI is that researchers conceptualize the human mind (and intelligence in general) by using as mental models the current technological tools they have available. This is implicit and insidious.
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1950-1990: the dominant implicit metaphor for the mind was a computer, with formal programs and explicit knowledge bases. 2010s: the dominant implicit metaphor for the mind is now that of a freshly initialized neural network deriving knowledge and skills from "training data"
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(both are hopelessly wrong, and it is disheartening to see the blank slate NN analogy be just as uncritically accepted by the average student today as the computer metaphor was a few decades ago)
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And before 1950 there was a lot of nonsense that looked like the hierarchical organizations of offices and factories.
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Before that it was the electrical switching system. Before that? Pneumatic pressure systems
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Clockwork...
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Maybe if we flip it, we’ll get the next ai breakthrough? How to make computers run thought experiments on their own? Hmmm
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We use neural nets because it works. Even if it's voodoo. The end justify the means...
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What do you propose instead?
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We should always treat those metaphors as approximations. Just like newtonian physics or general relativity. The real thing is different, but we just need "good enough" approximations.
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People think the whole universe is a computer. And they swear to God it's fact and not just a useful metaphor thats isomorphic to reality up to a point.
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