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badRNG | 1 year ago

I think the average person can safely call "the use of neural networks in statistical work" AI.

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johnmaguire|1 year ago

It's technically correct, but AI has become such an overloaded term that it's impossible to know it refers to "the use of neural networks" without explicitly saying so. So you know, maybe just say that?

adw|1 year ago

This debate is a classic. AI has always been an overloaded term and more of a marketing signifier than anything else.

The rule of thumb is, historically, "something is AI while it doesn't work". Originally, techniques like A* search were regarded as AI; they definitely wouldn't be now. Information retrieval, similarly. "Machine learning", as a brand, was an effort to get statistical techniques (like neural networks, though at the time it was more "linear regression and random forests") out from under the AI stigma; AI was "the thing that doesn't work".

But we're culturally optimistic about AI's prospects again, so all the machine learning work is merrily being rebranded as AI. The wheel will turn again, eventually.