| People feel practical businessmen are money-focused. They think folks who appear to "risk it all" are altruistic. Musk doesn't project the image of being practical. He claims to have almost gone broke when investing in Tesla/SpaceX, and now makes super-optimistic predictions: fully self driving cars in a year, and AGI in 2030-2040. To some, this sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd. Yet, you can think of ways his actions benefit him. By predicting things earlier than most researchers, he can appear to have some knowledge they don't, thus attracting more young (cheaper) AI talent, and a public following whose understanding of machine learning is understandably limited. It's unfortunate because those who research machine learning remember the last AI craze of the 80s and the ensuing AI winter. The same thing happened. Over-hyped technology couldn't meet the wild expectations of the general public. These expectations had been stoked by entrepreneurs who thought (or lied) that they could create AGI. For example, Thinking Machines Corp. Nobody is 100% altruistic. When we mistakenly afford someone that quality, we elevate them to god-like status where they can do no wrong. It's a tough position for practical machine learning researchers. There are a lot of advances that will be made in the next few years. I hope more people will try out machine learning to get their own understanding of its power and limitations. Getting all your information on a subject from sensationalized news or recent products isn't as educational as studying/using the subject yourself. |