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by memory_grep 2809 days ago
Surely there has to be a single learning algorithm for most of the skills a modern human learns. There has been no time to evolve specialized algorithms for things like chess, programming, riding a bike, etc., and yet we can easily learn these skills.
3 comments

"There has been no time to evolve specialized algorithms for things like chess, programming, riding a bike, etc., and yet we can easily learn these skills."

Not necessarily. We got a mix of innate head-start and training from parents/others for a really, really, long time before we could do that. The brains learning style and speed even changes over time going from rapid learning in intuitive way to learning slower and with more stability in a combo of self- and others-driven way. At some point, our mind is pretty well-formed where our own thoughts and explorations are driving much of our behavior. And somewhere between the kid and adult parts we start easily learning new skills.

There's probably a mix of general, specialized, and stuff in between algorithms. It changes over time, too, instead of being a static, pre-trained model.

You could conceivably have different algorithms at different layers - e.g., early inputs directly from sensors vs deeper representation layers.

You could also easily have different algorithms for different senses, evolved at various historical stages...

They’re all just optimizable functions, right?