Artificial Intelligence has been about to take off as the next big thing for over sixty years. It is usually said that it will really hit big in about five years. But it never does. Or more precisely, the technology that was predicted does show up five years later but it has been so over hyped that it’s not what everyone expects.
We have been progressively learning more and more about Artificial Intelligence, both so-called weak-AI or machines that do some intelligent things and strong-AI or machines that actually think. Strong-AI may be a pipe dream. Or it may emerge from the detritus of the internet. Or some brilliant programmer(s) will write it sometime in the next fifty years.
I honestly don’t think it will be more than fifty years. Technology does advance exponentially and while we keep discovering that the human brain is more complex than we ever thought it was, The curves have to cross eventually. My money is on 2035 or so. I think Ray Kurtzweil has done his homework.
In the meantime, I have cracked out Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig’s book, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Third Edition. This time I think I’ll make it further than I ever have before. Some topics just take persistence before they sink in.
I’ve been reading books about implementing Machine Learning (ML) with Python. I have decided that I need to backfill my understanding of the basic principles of AI before I dive quite so deep into one of the most productive, if difficult, subdomains of AI. It’s a good book, if a bit on the pricey side. I recommend it if you are persistent and have a basic understanding of computers and how to program fairly well in at least one programming language. Python suggests itself as a good language to have under your belt as you venture forth. Lisp wouldn’t be bad either. There are free versions of both languages that you can download from the internet along with several good free tutorials.
Python is an easy first language although it can take a good while to advance from novice to journeyman. My advice is to find and read code that someone else has written in the language your are trying to learn. That is the best way to learn the idioms of the language that aren’t necessarily immediately apparent from reading the Users Guide or the Reference Manual. The documentation on the Python.org site is good but you’ll still want to find a bunch of working code to read to see how things are done.
The Singularity is coming. Hold on and we may live a good while longer. The world is going to be an awesome place. As if it isn’t already. I just hope the trend of being a selfish jerk stops. We need to be kind to each other and make the world a better place.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.