| >> I am of the surprisingly-controversial opinion that ML’s future is going to be as a human empowerment tool — a bicycle for the mind, yet so much more. I don't think this is controversial at all, rather it's what Donald Michie called Ultra-Strong Machine Learning back in the 1980's [1]. Briefly (and with modern interpretations) Michie defined three "levels" of machine learning system: Weak, Strong and Ultra Strong. A machine learning exhibits Weak machine learning ability when it is only capable of improving its predictive accuracy when trained on data. A machine learning system exhibits Strong machine learning ability when it satisfies the Weak machine learning criterion and can additionally output its model in symbolid form that is readily understandable by humans. And a machine learning system exhibits Ultra Strong machine learning ability when it satisfies the Strong machine learning criterion and can additionally instruct the human user so as to improve the human user's performance. In a sense, not a bicycle, but more like a jetpack, for the mind. Unfortunately we don't have anything like that today. Yes, I'm aware of claims that Go players have learned a lot by observing AlphaGo play. But AlphaGo/Zero/blah is not capable of instructing a human directly. Michie envisioned Ultra Strong Machine learning as a kind of coach basically, or teacher, an AI teacher. _________ [1] Michie, D. (1988). Machine learning in the next five years. In Proceedings of the third European working session on learning (pp. 107–122). Pitman. Online here (but behind a paywall): https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3108771.3108781 Full disclosure: I'm one of Donald Michie's grand-students; he was my thesis advisors' thesis advisor. Additionally, Michie was besties with Alan Turing, so I have the privilege of being a grand-nothing of Turing's :P |