[virgilp]

Knn works better with little data, rnn with lots of data. But we do have lots of data - that, too, is part of the progress. Also progress is non-linear; and the real world impact is huge, though we may not always like it (social media & content algorithms have literally changed the world, influenced elections and sparked literal revolutions). Driverless trucks would be a huge shift, and it’s not unconcievable that we’ll have them. RPA is threatening a lot of repetitive white collar jobs; sure it’s boring technology, but that’s exactly what makes it disruptive in my mind. Image understanding _did_ get a lot bettter (face recognition along with it) and we still haven’t fully processed the implications of that.

You have grounds to be skeptical about the future and to believe it is dark; but IMO you don’t have grounds to claim that there was no progress.

[scottlocklin]

I don't claim there is NO progress; just that it's extremely weak compared to the huge triumphs of, say 1820 -> 1970.

re: face recognition: Viola Jones is almost 20 years old (we've been talking about 20 years periods). Eigenfaces is over 30 years old.

I don't believe in Driverless trucks, and it is emblematic of current year whenever I talk about technological progress, people bring up something that only marketing departments claim actually exists in the corporeal world.

FWIIW by "KNN" I don't mean the O(n^2) classic; the thing Google was using before was a bit more sophisticated than that, and it worked just fine. For some languages it worked better than the "advanced" RNN version of things.

[virgilp]

Now I'm starting to doubt your knowledge.

How exactly do you do face recognition with Viola Jones? Nevermind an accurate-enough version to be used for biometric identification... just one that can distinguish you in your photo collection.