Finally an insightful article about ai

It was, but it punted in the conclusion...

> Mitchell in her paper compares modern AI to alchemy. It produces dazzling, impressive results but it often lacks a deep, foundational theory of intelligence.

> It’s a powerful metaphor, but I think a more pragmatic conclusion is slightly different. The challenge isn't to abandon our powerful alchemy in search of a pure science of intelligence.

But alchemy was wrong and chasing after the illusions created by the frauds who promoted alchemy held back the advancement of science for a long time.

We absolutely should have abandoned alchemy as soon as we saw that it didn't work, and moved to figuring out the science of what worked.

	▲	musicale a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> But alchemy was wrong Yet alchemists developed and refined many important chemical processes including crystallization, distillation, evaporation, synthesis of acids/bases/salts, etc., as well as many useful substances and compounds from gunpowder to aqua regia. Also various dyes, drugs, and poisons. Their ranks included the likes of Paracelsus, Tycho Brahe, Boyle, and Newton.
	▲	dumpsterdiver a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You know what they say though about folks who don’t know any better: https://home.cern/news/news/physics/alice-detects-conversion...
	▲	jokoon a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There is always an "age of ignorance" that precedes an age of knowledge. Alchemy helped to create chemistry. I think that's often how science works, the models improves over time.