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AI Can Predict When Patients Will Die From Heart Failure 'With 80% Accuracy' (ibtimes.co.uk)

New submitter drunkdrone quotes a report from International Business Times: Scientists say they have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) program that is capable of predicting when patients with a serious heart disorder will die with an 80% accuracy rate. Researchers from the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) believe the software will allow doctors to better treat patients with pulmonary hypertension by determining how aggressive their treatment needs to be. The researchers' program assessed the outlook of 250 patients based on blood test results and MRI scans of their hearts. It then used the data to create a virtual 3D heart of each patient which, combined with the health records of "hundreds" of previous patients, allowed it to learn which characteristics indicated fatal heart failure within five years. The LMS scientists claim that the software was able to accurately predict patients who would still be alive after a year around 80% of the time. The computer was able to analyze patients "in seconds," promising to dramatically reduce the time it takes doctors to identify the most at-risk individuals and ensure they "give the right treatment to the right patients, at the right time." Dr Declan O'Regan, one the lead researchers from LMS, said: "This is the first time computers have interpreted heart scans to accurately predict how long patients will live. It could transform the way doctors treat heart patients. The researchers now hope to field-test the technology in hospitals in London in order to verify the data obtained from their trials, which have been published in the medical journal Radiology.

153 comments

  1. Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is pretty meaningless if the doctors are 90% accurate. Also what would the accuracy of just saying very patient is going to be alive in a year. Maybe 85%?

    Exciting AI can interpret data and give a result, wake me up when it can actually do something more useful like predict when I want a coffee with 80% accuracy and make it for me.

    1. Re:Can it beat the doctors by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 5, Funny

      You can get to 99.9% accuracy, but you need the autonomous auto-loading shotgun mod...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    2. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can get to 99.9% accuracy, but you need the autonomous auto-loading shotgun mod...

      You sick bastard, that wasn't even slightly funny.

                                                    That was HILARIOUS !

      Thanks for the laugh.

    3. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also what would the accuracy of just saying very patient is going to be alive in a year. Maybe 85%?

      64% as given in the paper.

    4. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That is the key. is 80% a good number? Are Doctors better? is the 20% random?
      Is it useful as a pre-screen for doctors?

      There is not a lot of useful information here.

    5. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the key. is 80% a good number?

      When asked if BSD was dying it said no.

    6. Re:Can it beat the doctors by alvinrod · · Score: 0

      What's the problem with that exactly? Since health care like anything else is a finite resource it doesn't make a lot of sense to allocate resources to someone who's on the way out when it could be put towards patients who have decades of life ahead of them.

    7. Re:Can it beat the doctors by sheramil · · Score: 1

      indeed. health care is wasted on sick people, just like education is wasted on the ignorant and compassion is wasted on the rich.

    8. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      wake me up when it can actually do something more useful like predict when I want a coffee with 80% accuracy and make it for me.

      Hell, I can do that for you today:


      int wants_coffee()
      {
            return 1;
      }

    9. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I hope you get that 20% miss diagnosis and die due to lack of preventable treatment asshole.

    10. Re:Can it beat the doctors by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      It also depends on how it fails vs people.
      If a doctor is 90% correct, but this this only gives false negatives, this + doctor could be used to save lives by using an OR style process in determining more aggressive treatment.

      It if it's 80% accurate when never giving an uncertain answer, but very accurate when allowed a certainty interval but passing on making a determination on 20% of the cases it could at the very least act as a check against doctors that missed something.

      Additionally, if only false positives it could perhaps be used as a first screening saving doctor time (and therefore healthcare money) by having them only fully examine instances where it gives a positive.

      These types of diagnostic engines are starting to be used in animal care so I'm sure they'll be well vetted (ugh, a pun) before used largely on humans.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    11. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The point, as in TFA, is to suggest which patients should receive more intensive treatment. If there is a higher chance a patient is going to die, you would be more willing to apply riskier treatments with more potential to cause harmful side effects. If the chances are low, you then are more careful with treatments, because sometimes the treatments can do more damage if there is too low of a risk from the actual condition.

    12. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah it just has to yell at the patient that it has foreseen his or her imminent death until a heart attack ensues.

    13. Re:Can it beat the doctors by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is a common problem with most AI announcements. Is 80% accurate better than a simple statistical model? Often not. Does it scale up from a small sample size? Remember the recent face recognition thing that managed with only a hundred or so pixels? Sounded impressive, until you realise that the training set and the testing set were the same and that they only included around 1,000 faces, so simple information theory tells you that you only need 10 bits of information to identify each one and 800 bits doesn't sound quite so impressive.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    14. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's the problem with that exactly? Since health care like anything else is a finite resource it doesn't make a lot of sense to allocate resources to someone who's on the way out when it could be put towards patients who have decades of life ahead of them.

      So you're OK with death panels and health care rationing.

      Note that's not a question.

    15. Re:Can it beat the doctors by alvinrod · · Score: 0

      No, healthcare is wasted on patients that are going to die even with treatment. If you have no way to accurately predict that, you have no fair basis for discriminating between two patients. If you can do that with a high degree of accuracy, you don't spend a lot of money on an expensive treatment that will do any good. At some point everyone is going to die, no matter the amount of medical intervention, or do you believe we should just keep people alive no matter the cost until they grow sick of it and ask to die?

    16. Re:Can it beat the doctors by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      Yes, and we already have that. There are people who die every day waiting for a transplant organ. There's a limited amount available so they must be rationed and someone (or a panel of people most likely) has to determine where the limited supply will do the most good. That means skipping the older man in his 70s in favor of a young person with kids or rejecting the person that drank a liver into oblivion in favor of another person. If there's enough livers to go around, those other patients can certainly get treatment.

      Get a big disaster and an influx of too many patients at one time and medical staff is going to have to start prioritizing and some people that might otherwise live or going to die because there's a finite amount of doctors and time they can devote. It might be possible to transport some patients to other hospitals, but there's only a limited number of vehicles capable of doing that. Give me a computer system that can make accurate predictions and judgements over a doctor who can only try their best. If the computer system can keep more people alive because it can make those kinds of tough decisions better than a human, you'd be foolish not to use it.

      So are you a health care professional then? Because if you're not, you'd probably better get comfortable with rationing or your so-called "death panels" because otherwise you're not doing anything to help the situation from what I can see.

    17. Re:Can it beat the doctors by gnick · · Score: 1

      ...but you need the autonomous auto-loading shotgun mod...

      Oddly enough, guns are one of the only things covered in the new US health plan.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    18. Re: Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like the inspiration for a comic sci-fi story. A health department develops software that can predict when someone is going to die from ill health or accident, and take remedial action. Thus preventing anyone from dying for several years. The universe then becomes increasingly determined to correct this anomaly, sending natural disasters and asteroids to no avail.

    19. Re: Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also pretty meaningless in grneral. These are worst case scenarios. If people make changes after a disgnosis, the pre-existing data is useless. This is where the *actual* ability to think, rather than just parse data, is infinitely superior, and no, even if systems were programmed with infinite healthy scenarios, people's biology is far too individuated for it to ever be fully applicable beyond basic things. Fail. AI scientists need to realize all this will ever be is an assistive tool, Commander Data ain't gonna happen. I would worry less for doctors or nurses and more for PAs who are already essentially just mouth pieces for data and not terribly useful to all but the most ignorant of patients.

    20. Re: Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doctors cannot do it this accurately. That's part of the point of the article.

    21. Re:Can it beat the doctors by losfromla · · Score: 1

      indeed. health care is wasted on sick people, just like education is wasted on the ignorant and compassion is wasted on the rich.

      Way ahead of you there pal, I waste no compassion on the rich.

      --
      Only I can judge you.
    22. Re:Can it beat the doctors by losfromla · · Score: 2

      So you're OK with death panels and health care rationing.

      Just to add to what alvinrod said. We also have them due to economic disparities. Those who choose to be poor (by being lazy and not working 36 hours a day, or stupidly choosing to be born to poor parents) get significantly worse health care. Thus we have self-selection of health care, which is rationing in other words.

      --
      Only I can judge you.
    23. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Yes, and we already have that. There are people who die every day waiting for a transplant organ. There's a limited amount available so they must be rationed and someone (or a panel of people most likely) has to determine where the limited supply will do the most good.

      That's what other western countries do. The US goes by who has the best health insurance, like how big of a bill can we justify sending...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    24. Re: Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly Terry Prachett is no longer around to write it.

    25. Re:Can it beat the doctors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a just statistical model. nothing much more than multivariate regression. Oh and the 80% figure, is that if it says your should be alive in one years time, it was right 80% of the time. This suggests at the very least it is MASSIVELY over predicting heart attacks in the less than one year period!

  2. Yet another monolithic wall of text by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

    A /. editor who does understand what paragraphs are for....

  3. This is how it "detects" it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if (!mt_rand(0, 8))
    {
      kill_patient();
      lie_about_detecting_it();
    }

  4. "developed an artificial intelligence(AI) program" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No. It's just a fucking program. All of these "AI" claims are just programs. AI doesn't exist. Just stop with the AI already, the word has lost all meaning.

  5. I ran the algorithm and here's what I got by Will_Malverson · · Score: 1

    1) Eventually.
    2) Eventually.
    3) Eventually.
    4) Never.
    5) Eventually.

  6. How long do I have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WEASEL: So the doctor says: "Well the bad news is, you don't have that much time to live." He says, "How long do I have?" The doctor says, "Five." The guy says, "Five what?" The doctor says, "Four, three, two..."

  7. Doctor, how long have I got? by Gary+Perkins · · Score: 1

    You know the joke...

    "10"
    "10 months?"
    "...9...8...7..."

    1. Re: Doctor, how long have I got? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "10"

      "10 months?"

      "...9...8...7..."

      Huh?

      I don't get it.

    2. Re:Doctor, how long have I got? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn't pay his bill, so he gave him another six months."
        - Henny Youngman

    3. Re:Doctor, how long have I got? by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 1

      A doctor examined his patient and asked, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
      The patient replied, "Don't beat about the bush; give me the bad."
      Doctor: "You've got six weeks to live"
      Patient: "Ah shit. So what 's the good news?"
      Doctor: "I've won the lottery!"

      --
      No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
    4. Re:Doctor, how long have I got? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The way I heard it, the punchline was: "You know that blonde receptionist out front with the big tits? I'm fucking her!"

  8. So by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The same algorithm can predict when a patient is already dead with 80% accuracy.

  9. Duke U said I would die before second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    week of September, and while I wish I was dead, I pretty sure I'm still alive. Well, for certain definitions of still alive. They also said my liver cancer would kill me before the end of November in 1998. I hate my life and have nothing to live for, but again they were wrong. The only thing I'm looking forward to is seeing the end of The Big Bang Theory since it just keeps getting worse and worse, and I can't not be curious about how bad that show is going to get. Sara Gilbert was in the last episode I watched which was nice, but the rest of the episode was Dr Cooper's birthday which made me insanely jealous. I was happy then that made me sad.

  10. Don't let the GOP have this any flagged will be bl by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 0

    Don't let the GOP have this any flagged will be black listed.

  11. Just like the Death Clock by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    It can occasionally be off by a few seconds, what with free will and all.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  12. prior art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Professor Farnsworth invested the death clock, which is capable of predicting one's death (from heart disease or whatever) with an accuracy of a few seconds, all the way back in the 30th century.

  13. not the headline by phantomfive · · Score: 2
    This quote is not the same as the headline, but it's what the computer actually did:

    the software was able to accurately predict patients who would still be alive after a year around 80% of the time

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  14. Look at the doctors by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    Start a better database on doctors and all their medical procedures.
    Find good pathologists to report on every case. Link all past complex work with a pathologist's reports over years.
    Who ordered what procedures? What did a specialist do? What did an average doctor on duty do?
    Over time the really good professionals who have the skills to save lives will get listed and the average doctors who do things wrong will really stand out.
    Work out who your best specialist are, support them and get them working with the next generation of experts.
    No new AI needed. Just track all your doctors and have pathologist's report on every interesting case.
    Why some doctors just cant get the same average results as a specialist on duty is a question that can be discovered by looking at results.
    If a hospital wants good results, stop funding average doctors and having average doctors try to deal with the same very sick people every shift.
    Move the average doctors to other areas of medicine and ensure only the best staff get supported.
    How to stop the flow of very average doctors into the wider medial profession? Stop accepting very average students into universities to study medicine. Make sure every doctor sits the same national exams and passes well.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  15. So.... are the other 20% by jpellino · · Score: 1

    false positives or false negatives or what mix of those?

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
    1. Re:So.... are the other 20% by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      A specialist, an expert who has years of experience. The kind of person expected to be on duty.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:So.... are the other 20% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are the ones that got away.

  16. Considering Trump rules us now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and wants us to die so hard, it doesn't take an AI to determine that we are going to die. We are all going to die. I'm most especially distraught since I've never been with a girl. With a girl.

    1. Re: Considering Trump rules us now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better. The girl would also want you to die. To die.

  17. Confusion matrix by fatp · · Score: 1

    This is pretty meaningless unless the full Confusion matrix (with false positive and false negative %) is provided

    1. Re:Confusion matrix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uncertainty and error bars don't matter to silicon valley. They're disruptive.

  18. self-fulfilling prophecy by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    Researchers from the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) believe the software will allow doctors to better treat patients with pulmonary hypertension by determining how aggressive their treatment needs to be. ... The LMS scientists claim that the software was able to accurately predict patients who would still be alive after a year around 80% of the time.

    Hmm... Software predicts patient probably won't be alive after a year, doctors don't treat as aggressively, patient dies shortly thereafter. Sounds like researchers have discovered the self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Of course, anyone could make those accurate predictions by simply killing off patients -- of course, not 100% accurate as that would be suspicious.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  19. 80% accuracy by bagofbeans · · Score: 1
    I'm sorry, but the statement

    The LMS scientists claim that the software was able to accurately predict patients who would still be alive after a year around 80% of the time

    does not have anywhere near the same meaning as

    ...capable of predicting when patients with a serious heart disorder will die with an 80% accuracy rate

    1. Re:80% accuracy by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      You don't even need to find out what their claim was to know that the headline is horse shit. The word "when" sets things up grammatically to offer a claim, but by itself it doesn't mean anything. But death has meaning, and a prediction having 80% accuracy has meaning, so it combines to a false claim. When could mean anything, it could mean the minute, second, picosecond, day, year, decade, millennium, etc. But it can't mean all of those, so it is false if you use the given precision.

  20. Predictive Modeling, not AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is predictive modeling as done at least the last 20 years. For example SPSS Modeler (formerly Clementine) was released 1994, and similar stuff was done with custom solutions long before that..

    1. Re:Predictive Modeling, not AI by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. The AI fans are trying to make AI happen by misclassifying a lot of things as AI which are not. Fact of the matter is, even with a wider area as "AI", there are not many AI things that work, and if you go closer and require actual intelligence (sometimes called "true" or "strong" AI), there is absolutely nothing, not even credible theories.

      The only thing this shows is that the AI fans are not very intelligent.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  21. The headline lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From TFA:

    The LMS scientists claim that the software was able to accurately predict patients who would still be alive after a year around 80% of the time.

    That's quite different from claiming that the software is able to correctly predict when 80 percent of the heart patients are going to die.

    One thing that never changes... journalists fuck up statistics, and people pushing studies or products are willing to help them fuck up so that the public can be properly deceived.

  22. This is not AI by gweihir · · Score: 1

    First, this is not AI, it is statistical classification. No intelligence involved at all. Second, at 80% accuracy (and the thing it actually predicts....), it sucks badly. You will probably have to search a while to find an experienced expert that does this badly on this classification task.

    So while this may have some value as triage, that is about it. And even as triage, it may kill people because of the 20% where it is dead wrong. So maybe this is useful and maybe not. It will of course get misused as the AI fans are lacking in natural (i.e. actual) intelligence.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:This is not AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No intelligence involved at all.

      Hmmm, who posted this anyways?

    2. Re:This is not AI by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Second, at 80% accuracy (and the thing it actually predicts....), it sucks badly. You will probably have to search a while to find an experienced expert that does this badly on this classification task.

      What stands out to me is that there is no control. They mention in the limitations of the study that they're comparing the output of the program to predictions based on the somewhat arbitrary reporting categories for heart disease, when the disease it known to have multiple components in real patients. The categories are not a viable stand-in for human predictive performance, they are intentionally over-simplified. If the software was given data segmented by reporting category it would have lower performance, but perhaps it would give a better idea of how good the predictions are.

    3. Re:This is not AI by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Excellent point.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  23. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by chetmurphy · · Score: 1

    Yep! It sounds like a statistics program - not really AI.

  24. I see that you are about to die by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

    Can I haz ur toyz?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  25. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

    In the US with our health care System it will have to be AI to work

  26. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by mark-t · · Score: 2

    The only reason the term doesn't have any meaning is because everyone's definition of "intelligence" is different in the first place. If you can define an unambiguous metric for intelligence, then it becomes pretty obvious what AI has to be: intelligence that is artificial, rather than natural.

  27. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's how it was back to the 60s, eventually they will find another buzzword and move on.

  28. Health Insurance... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The health insurance and organ harvester monsters are like "Predict away my precious..."

  29. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What this usually means is that the 'fucking program' uses neural nets which
    emulate aspects of how the brain works, and trained these neural nets on the
    problem data at hand. The neural net thus gains the information and can apply
    this to predict some situation.

    Anything in the 'artificial intelligence' department will be a 'fucking program'.

    AI has not lost its meaning, rather - it has been rather poorly defined
    to begin with. Some think it means sentient, other think it means sapient
    other think it must be human-like self-aware cognition.

    In reality intelligence means 'the ability to apply knowledge and skills'

    This program has a very limited knowledge / skill set indeed, and this
    information has indeed been acquired in a very limited way. This limitation
    seems enough for some to discount the term 'intelligent'. Indeed such a
    definition would make almost any program 'intelligent' in some way. And
    it is this flaw in the definition that would justify that 'AI does not exist', or
    alternatively 'AI is trivial, but perhaps not what you were hoping for'.

  30. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

    You mean like back in the day when it was called with less sexy Multivarate Analysis? Ahhh, 1958 had such unimaginative people,

  31. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1
  32. This is so depressing by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can remember when /. attracted some of the best informed and intelligent people you could find anywhere on the Internet. Now, all we have are members who inform us that we do not need computers, and their ability to find correlations in huge data sets. All we need is the intuition of smart people.

    Look back at the early proposed tests for artificial intelligence. When supervised deep learning systems can use the immense processing capabilities of modern computers, to not only match, but to exceed the capabilities of humans in a wide range of problem spaces, it is appropriate to describe the result as "artificial intelligence". We do not mean literally that we have an intelligent bunch of integrated circuits and harddrives. But, the overall system can produce results that we would until recently have considered only achievable by human experts. Indeed, our AIs, in many situations, exceed the capabilities of the best human minds.

    I am used to the idea of the general public feeling threatened by the capabilities of modern technology. I just wish sites supposedly intended for intelligent, scientifically-informed individuals could be exempted from such lack of reason.

    1. Re: This is so depressing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's gotten pretty bad over the last 2 years, most of the people here don't seem to be educated at all or at most community college level. The enlightening comments and engaging discourse is now few and far between as politics and pop culture continues to slowly creep into and dominate the direction of the conversation. The firehose is filled with garbage; the editors don't seem to be particularly astute, nor scientifically inclined. It can't be that im that old yet since I'm only 31; been on here since I was 15. It just seemed that the content was more scientifically inclined at one point, and it slowly devolved into low level technical lamentation with few of the participants having more then a very elementary grasp of STEM topics. I used to love coming here to learn from the pros.

    2. Re:This is so depressing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > When supervised deep learning systems can use the immense processing capabilities of modern computers, to not only match, but to exceed the capabilities of humans in a wide range of problem spaces, it is appropriate to describe the result as "artificial intelligence".

      also known in the **technical** literature, as an automaton. CNC exceeds my capability to follow a repetitive set of instructions. Doesn't make it "smart".

      dork.

    3. Re:This is so depressing by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1

      I guess your point is that artificial intelligence can never exist. Even when, as now, the final trained system operates in ways we do not fully understand, we still know the algorithms that underlie the learning process. Only something mysterious and not properly understood in its entirety could be regarded as "intelligent". As a corollary, scientists who rely on computer simulations to predict climate change are not showing intelligence. Only climate deniers who use their intuition, unbiased by stupid computer models are showing creativity and intelligence. In fairness, intelligence is a difficult thing to define. However, dissing everything involving algorithms and processing power as inherently unable ever to be considered as "artificial" intelligence appears to me misguided.

    4. Re: This is so depressing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously it is all your fault. You're the pro now, and you've not been properly teaching the new folks. Hence the abysmal state of things.

    5. Re: This is so depressing by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Seriously, you come at us with anonymous elitism? Wow, this place has gone downhill! Even the academic snobs are fucking morons now.

    6. Re:This is so depressing by imidan · · Score: 1

      For some reason, Slashdot attracts a lot of armchair experts who read an article summary, immediately think up a trivial reason that a new bit of science or engineering can't possibly work, assume that the scientists/engineers never thought of this obvious flaw, and dismiss the whole project out of hand as a waste of time and money. But this has been the case for some years--I remember an article in 2010 about my then desk-neighbor's NASA-funded PhD work that the majority of posters just shat on without knowing anything about it. I'd helped him out a bit here and there with data analysis, so it was clear to me that clueless posters' objections were based on bad assumptions. I'm not sure why so many people here are set on auto-hate for new science and tech.

  33. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Kiuas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All of these "AI" claims are just programs. AI doesn't exist.

    This has always weirded me out as an argument. Intelligence is simply information processing in physical systems. What humans do when they make intelligent decisions is take in data from the environment and process it to make predictions. So when a doctor looks at the same data as the machine and makes a conclusion about treatment, he is making an intelligent decision, but when the machine does the same it's not intelligence it's 'just a program'? When a human being operates a motor vehicle and adapts his/her behavior to react to oncoming traffic he/she is using intelligence but when a machine does it it's 'just a program'? What?

    This whole approach to me reeks to substance dualism; the human brain is a computer, a very advanced one at that, but it's just a computer. there is no 'soul' that somehow makes the human brain the only thing that's capable of intelligent operations. Right now brains are still able to cross-reference data better than computers, making humans as a whole more intelligent than computers but we're already at a point in which computer programs are able to take in data and adapt their behavior to meet a goal, whether it's driving a car or anything else, with better results than your standard humans, but somehow the platform that the program is being run on determines which of these 2 actions is categorized as 'intelligent'. This is nonsensical.

    Intelligence is a scale, not a binary thing. The confusion about AI these days is people read 'AI' and they immediately equate that to either 'human level intelligence' and/or 'consciousness', neither of which are required for a system to be intelligent. A dog is more intelligent than a rat, a monkey is more intelligent than a dog, a human is more intelligent than a monkey and so far overall humans are also more intelligent than computers, but it doesn't mean that computers don't have a level of intelligence already, even though you cannot (yet) have a discussion/debate with the computer.

    Imagine a few decades into the future wherein these systems are able to recognize speech so that a physician is able to consult with it during an operation. Or when they get to the point that the computers themselves are able to perform autonomous surgeries on people and react to complications on the fly. This is the direction we're headed to and getting there does not require the computers to become self-aware.

    You can call it 'just a program' all you want, but using that definition the years of training and practice going on in the surgeon's head as he's trying to figure out the best way to cut the tumor out without causing a hemorrhage is also 'just a program'. The platform on which the program is being run may be wetware or hardware but it does not affect the intelligence of the program.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  34. Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by mmell · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Doctor ran this sort of actuarial bit against me - told me convincingly and with great conviction that I have an 80% chance of suffering a severe cardiac event in the next decade. Says I need to start doing statins if I want to change that.

    Funny thing - she didn't bother telling me what I might accomplish if I start eating right, or exercising more, or even if I quit smoking - in fact, she seemed rather dubious that it would have any real effect at all (except the smoking part, for which she was happy to suggest several types of help if I wanted it). She didn't even tell me what my odds would be if I did start spending money on these drugs. I'm sure that insurance will pick up almost all of the cost - and I'm also sure that some pharmaceutical company somewhere would make a fair chunk of change off me for the rest of my unnatural life, sort of an annuity for big pharma. Problem is, I couldn't be sure I'd always be able to afford the drugs, and I'm told "once you start, you can't stop".

    Yeah. I think I'd rather die living my life than clutching for more days.

    1. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Once the damage is done, it's often irreversible, short of something like a heart transplant. Diet and exercise can help you lose weight and strengthen the hert and lungs, but only if the system isn't already broken.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by cdrudge · · Score: 5, Informative

      she didn't bother telling me what I might accomplish if I start eating right, or exercising more, or even if I quit smoking - in fact, she seemed rather dubious that it would have any real effect at all

      Sounds like you need to get a better doctor.

      I'm also sure that some pharmaceutical company somewhere would make a fair chunk of change off me for the rest of my unnatural life

      Yeah. Generic Lipitor is $9 at Walmart. Generic Crestor is $15. KMart has generic Zocor for $3. That $.10-.$50 a day for the 3 dominate statins. That's not making any pharmaceutical companies rich.

    3. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1
      I'm sorry to hear about your health problems. Good luck -- I'd try the "eat somewhat healthier and exercise more" bit, but *I* wouldn't (I _don't_!) overdo it.

      Yeah. I think I'd rather die living my life than clutching for more days.

      There is a great Pearls Before Swine comic strip from one Sunday. I *CAN'*T FIND IT even though I've looked on and off for years. It was a color two-row cartoon back in like 2010; the strip had beeen running for like 3 years.

      Rat's at the doctor's office. Not good news, too fat, out of shape, the standard bit. Rat says "So I should start eating healthy?" and the doctor agrees. Rat adds more excitedly "and I can start eating broccoli and exercising more and live longer so that I can eat still more broccoli ?" The doctor now wholeheartedly agrees.

      The final pane shows Rat on the couch watching TV and eating chips. "Well that was an easy decision."

      I suspect the description's not QUITE as I remember else I'd have found it by now. But that's the jist, and it's still funny even if I've botched the joke somewhat.

      Good luck to us all!

      --
      If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    4. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by drew_kime · · Score: 1

      That's not making any pharmaceutical companies rich.

      In 2012 it was making them $29 billion per year.

      By 2014 it was $100 billion.

      If that's not making anyone rich, they need better accountants.

      --
      Nope, no sig
    5. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by mmell · · Score: 1
      Wanna multiply that by 365 days per year? Multiply that by a decade (or maybe two)? Multiply that by tens of thousands of men and women just like me?

      I'm middle-aged (mid fifties). Slightly overweight at 185 pounds (I stand 5'7"). I only drink alcohol occasionally. Incidentally, I can point to three generations of males in my bloodline that have all died at the age of 72 - some nonsense about "threescore years and twelve".

    6. Re: Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They didn't tell you how long you'd live with lifestyle changes because it's too late for that. You made those poor choices decades ago and that ship has sailed. And you obviously continue to make poor choices by not taking drugs that could make a difference in your condition. You can stop taking statins at any time. But someone telling you the right thing didn't make a difference before, so why should it now?

    7. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Once the damage is done, it's often irreversible, short of something like a heart transplant. Diet and exercise can help you lose weight and strengthen the hert and lungs, but only if the system isn't already broken.

      That is complete nonsense, my advice to you is: don't give out medical advice.

    8. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Exactly! If somebody wants to be healthy, they want to do it already. If they're in the doctor's office with those problems, most likely they already don't value their health. These are usually easy decisions for everybody; people already know if they value themselves more or less than fried foods!

    9. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Recently published research shows that the Mediterranean Diet works better than statins - I'll let you type the search words. Unlike statins, MD DOESN'T have any of the side-effects of statins: increase your risk of diabetes, muscle pain and weakness (the number one reason people stop statins), induces oxidative stress (mitochondrial damage) during exercise, cognitive decline. It works for both sexes and all age groups, unlike statins which have virtually no utility in older folks. MD also cheap, as in beer.

    10. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      You're selectively quoting me and taking it out of the original context. Lipitor name brand is $372 for 30 days. The generic equivalent, Atorvastatin, is the $9 I stated. The other drugs are similarly priced.

      The name brand drugs are making pharmaceutical companies rich. The generic equivalent is making the generic manufacturers money, but it's not making them rich like the original patent holder.

    11. Re:Yeah, I've been told my odds are bad. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      After my heart attack, I was told to eat better, exercise more, and, here, take these drugs. My cardiologist told me that, whatever my cholesterol level was, it's now officially too high. Admittedly, taking the drugs is the easiest of those three, but I can't imagine being told just to take them without any lifestyle changes.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  35. Can he really? by Trogre · · Score: 1

    I'd sure like to meet him. Good old Al.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  36. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Place+a+name+here · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is called the AI effect.

    Quoting the article, "as soon as AI successfully solves a problem, the problem is no longer a part of AI."

  37. I can predict it with 100% Accuracy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I predict 100% of patients with heart failure will die within less than a hundred years. Every last one.

    Claims of 80% accuracy mean nothing without a lot of context, and little with.

  38. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ahh yes, to be a myopic boomer watching as the world passes by, thinking time and progress has frozen. If only those dumb kids could see it!

  39. Not that difficult. by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure a good cardiologist with a table of all aggregated research on heart conditions and life expectancy can do pretty much the same.
    Health insurances have been doing this sort of thing for decades.

    No big deal really.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:Not that difficult. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure a good cardiologist with a table of all aggregated research on heart conditions and life expectancy can do pretty much the same.
      Health insurances have been doing this sort of thing for decades.

      No big deal really.

      I would argue your first sentence is indicative of just how big of a deal this could be.

      Good cardiologists are in short supply, and the demands on their time and attention are significant.
      Now we potentially have software that can do this particular task "pretty much the same"

      If such software could be made widely available to hospitals it could vastly improve scheduling and triage potentially giving some a better quality of life than if treatment is delayed months to years.

      Yes I do realize with our current health system, that is a big "if", and even so this is only one out of a vastly large number of potential issues to diagnose... but it is more potential than before and is also one more specific problem area we have seen news regarding software diagnosis from test results.

      But it is still easy to imagine a time where your test results are automatically fed into a system where millions of such programs run each cross referencing against data for their own little problem domain, providing a list of issues, their risks, and priorities for treatments much more timely than it would be to have tens of specialists all take an hour of their time when next available to look over the same results.

    2. Re: Not that difficult. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may be pretty sure, but i'm virtually certain you're wrong.

  40. Input parameters by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Closer examination revealed that the main parameters for decision making is the answer to "Patient is insured" and "Patient is a donor".

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  41. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Drethon · · Score: 1

    Calling it a machine learning program is probably accurate. These are self taught predictors but there is still a lot of human involvement to calibrate the learning
     
    My personal feelings is AI should refer to something that learns independently or in a black box manner. I think some neural networks can do this at a simple level but I don't know of any complex independent learning done by any computer programs.

  42. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

    For some reason, in reporting, they prefer to use the term "AI" rather than "fucking program".
    Unless you are planning sexual relationships, "AI" is actually the more accurate term.

  43. Dilbert by bernywork · · Score: 1
    --
    Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
  44. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 1

    Looks like AI is the buzzword of 2017 like "Big Data" back in the days.

    --
    sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
  45. also: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AI can predict who will die with 100% accuracy!

  46. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by admin7087 · · Score: 1

    But it looks like an opportunity for the return of Microsoft Bob in Windows 10.

    "Hi! Looks like there is a 77.2% chance that you'll die from a heart attack within the next five minutes. Shall I call an ambulance for you?"

  47. Not something I'd want to know by nycsubway · · Score: 1

    This would probably make me obsess over my own demise for the remainder of my 80% accurate lifespan. Not something I'd want to know with such accuracy.

  48. Human brain is NOT a computer by bayankaran · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This whole approach to me reeks to substance dualism; the human brain is a computer, a very advanced one at that, but it's just a computer. there is no 'soul' that somehow makes the human brain the only thing that's capable of intelligent operations.

    Start here...https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

    --
    Tat Tvam Asi
    1. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by Kiuas · · Score: 1

      Start here...https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

      The entire point of that essay is to point out that the functioning of (human) brains and electronic computers is fundamentally different. I never claimed otherwise, The core of the point of the essay is summed up by the phrase: "Forgive me for this introduction to computing, but I need to be clear: computers really do operate on symbolic representations of the world. They really store and retrieve. They really process. They really have physical memories. They really are guided in everything they do, without exception, by algorithms. Humans, on the other hand, do not"

      Obviously this is true. No-one is claming that something honed over millions of years of biological evolution and trial and error is identical in its functioning to man-built machines. It does not however mean that the overall point I made about intelligence and machines is incorrect, The human brain is capable of processing data and making predictions, otherwise we wouldn't have any science at all. Computers are capable of the same thing though they achieve it in a different way.

      In other words your brain and the computer process an image entirely difefrently, but it's possible for both human braiuns and computers to use images and visual data to make predictions about what's going to happen, and this is what is at the core of intelligence. Just because my brain performs the calculation 1+1=2 without using bytes and a binary base, doesn't mean that me performing this calculation requires any more or less intelligence than a computer doing the same.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    2. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by ranton · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I read through the paper, but couldn't find any description of what the brain does which couldn't be considered information processing. It may not be digital processing, and it may not resemble how computers process instructions and retrieve data, but even if the physical architecture is different the brain still seems to be processing information.

      He uses an example of a dollar bill, and how a person cannot recall every detail of a dollar bill from memory if asked to draw one. And that is somehow proof that the brain does not store data about the dollar bill? The person was still able to draw some details about the dollar bill, such as a person in the center and the numbers in the corners, so that data was stored somewhere. The author also makes a silly distinction between "storing data" and "changing the brain", as if the way the brain is changed isn't how it stores the data.

      But neither the song nor the poem has been ‘stored’ in it. The brain has simply changed in an orderly way that now allows us to sing the song or recite the poem under certain conditions.

      Sounds a lot like the brain stored the song or poem somewhere in a way it could be retrieved later, under certain conditions. Just because the brain stores information in a less precise way as a computer doesn't mean it isn't storing anything. The rest of the article continues to make similarly odd claims without backing them up. The researcher takes some very valid arguments about how many researchers rely too heavily on computer / human brain metaphors, but then he makes a lot of wild statements himself without backing them up either.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    3. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by drew_kime · · Score: 1

      That article does a lot of assertion without much in the way of persuasion or offering an alternative model. It's got an interesting premise - that describing the brain in terms and metaphors that come from computing may obscure rather than illuminate its functioning - but the few examples given weren't persuasive.

      --
      Nope, no sig
    4. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for that very interesting essay. It does seem to me that Epstein is overly dismissive of the metaphor, in saying that because the brain doesn't function exactly like our contemporary electronic computers, it's not a computer. Perhaps it's just a different kind of computer.

      For example, in saying that the brain doesn't "store and retrieve" information, but merely changes itself in response to that information, is a kind of verbal sleight of hand. Computers make physical changes in their memory when they store and retrieve information. Better to say that that brain adopts a method of recreating that information. On its face, the brain does "store" information, regardless of the mechanism involved, or we would not be able to memorize texts.

      I do agree, though, that the computer metaphor is an oversimplification of how the brain works. Wouldn't it be ironic if we are ultimately incapable of understanding the complete function of the brain, and it required an AI to comprehend it all? :)

    5. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by Aighearach · · Score: 0

      I read through the paper... and it may not resemble how computers process instructions and retrieve data...

      OK so you did understand the parts that were in context of this thread!

      "The brain is just a computer" is hand-wavy and objectively incorrect. It is not necessary to prove it is some other thing to demonstrate that it isn't a computer, for all useful values of "computer" including common English usage.

      "The brain is just a computer" is entirely subjective, and like other opinions when it is claimed as objective fact it is simply false. If you want it to be true, you have to leave it as an opinion, where it isn't claiming to refute or even contradict other opinions.

    6. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by ranton · · Score: 2

      "The brain is just a computer" is hand-wavy and objectively incorrect.

      No it is not. In the context of the rest of the paragraph it is obvious he doesn't mean a digital computer with an x86 instruction set. He was referring to the brain as a machine which accepts inputs, processes the inputs based on it's current physical state, and produces various outputs to initiate action throughout the body. He mentioned Substance Dualism at the beginning of the paragraph the line you are quoting is found in order to clear up any confusion about what he meant by calling the brain a computer.

      I will grant you he is using a definition of computer not used in the common English lexicon, but since we are talking about potentially future human-level AI it's likely the definition of computer in common usage could change by then to include biological computers, not just silicon.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    7. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1

      Bear in mind that, prior to 1940, "the computor" was, in fact, a person!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    8. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by losfromla · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't it be ironic if we are ultimately incapable of understanding the complete function of the brain, and it required an AI to comprehend it all? :)

      Yeah, and to top that off, the AI won't be able to comprehend itself so it will need to build an AI that can understand it... It will be turtles all the way down dear AC.

      --
      Only I can judge you.
    9. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Interestingly both spellings, computer and computor, mean either an electronic computational device, or a human who does computations.

      I was taught in CS that for most algorithms it is useful to picture the pseudocode being implemented by humans passing around slips of paper and doing the computations by hand, because it helps to visualize scale, organization, communication, etc. So if humans were implementing the same predictive algorithm by hand, would it still be accused of being artificial, or intelligent?

    10. Re: Human brain is NOT a computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a human brain is able to run through a program, even if slowly, that conforms to the requirements of a Turing machine, then it is suggestive of the brain itself being at least a Turing machine, and thus a computer.

    11. Re:Human brain is NOT a computer by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      In the context of the rest of my comment, it is also obvious that I wasn't talking about an x86 instruction set either!

      The trick is to understand what was said first, before you decide it was wrong. ;)

      And for the record, we are using English here.

      You don't even attempt to prove that it is objective. My point was that it is subjective, and that is why a claim that the answer is this or that are both wrong and hand-wavy. Anything subjective, if you claim that it is __[opinion]__ then that is hand-wavy. For me to be wrong, it takes more than to present an opposing subjective answer.

      Also, Substance Dualism was not discussed. You might have added that in yourself. People are only using named philosophical concepts when they name them, otherwise you have to go with just the parts that they actually said. Luckily, actually saying specific things has more value than just naming philosophical concepts!

      And BTW, the context was in the present tense, you might be the only one talking about "potentially future human-level AI."

  49. Re: "developed an artificial intelligence(AI) prog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the 1980's it was "expert systems". Sit down with an expert and walk through the decisions he or she made.

    Then it was "fuzzy logic" because binary decisions didn't always come to the right conclusion, and different factors had different weightings.

      Then it was "data mining" to handle vast amounts of data without any human bias. Now it is 'machine learning".

  50. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by WDot · · Score: 1

    In addition, it's such an ignorant devaluation of AI's incredible achievements. The field of AI, a term everyone except Slashdot naysayers have agreed upon, has performed incredible feats of image and language analysis (among other things) that the average software engineer stringing together API calls could never have come up with.

    Honestly, if you told someone to just "write a program" to recognize whether an image has a cat in it or not, what do you think they would come up with? Probably 20,000 lines of messy code that only handles a handful of cases. The insights of learning parameters from data, optimization techniques, and convolutional neural networks were found by groping in the dark for 50 years. For 50 years people couldn't just "write a program" to do that simple task. For a long time people couldn't even write programs that recognized the 10 handwritten numerical digits with competitive accuracy to a human.

    Oh my gosh, why does everyone make a big deal about "making cars?" It's called "engineering a solution," and we've been doing it for millenia! Can we just call "cars" what they really are, "engineered solutions?"

  51. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by richardkettle4 · · Score: 1

    The human brain is not a computer because computing is a very small part of thinking and intelligence.

  52. Re: "developed an artificial intelligence(AI) prog by ranton · · Score: 1

    And all of those have been branches of the AI field. Since the field of AI was created, arguably during the 1956 Dartmouth workshop, it has included topics such as expert systems and statistical methods being used to make decisions based on both simple and complex input. Whether you want to accept it or not, even those Pacman ghosts' behavior can be accurately referred to as AI.

    If you want a term which only refers to human level intelligence, perhaps you should use either Artificial Consciousness, Machine Consciousness, or Synthetic Consciousness. Those probably match your personal definition of AI better than the broad definition used by the scientific community.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  53. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We lost the fight with quadcopter v drone. I predict you have lost the AI fight as well.

  54. Outlyers by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    Far more interesting than how good it is at spotting the average patient, is how close it was on its wrong results. How many people did it give a life expectancy of 30 years that croaked the next week? BMI is a decent measurement, when used on an average human, but is laughably retarded when used on anyone outside of normal. Using a AI, to decide when and how to do treatment might seem like a good idea when you look at the averages, but could be pretty bad for individuals.

    Take for example the BMI again. I could program a AI, put it in a black box, and have it decide which patients need a stomach stapling. It would be right 99% of the time, but would send Arnold Schwarzenegger and pretty much every professional football player to get their stomach stapled along with honey boo boo.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  55. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem is that a human is able to step out of their algorithm and ask themselves, "Is this really correct?". You may say that this is a design flaw, in which human error can crept in, but this is what gives us our creative process.

  56. so... this is how the insurance companies in the U by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they can decide to withhold care from people that they think will be dead anyway. Thus ensuring they are right and saving money

  57. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Kiuas · · Score: 1

    The human brain is not a computer because computing is a very small part of thinking and intelligence.

    Firstly, even if one agrees that this is true, the human brain is still a computer, even if it's not entirely a computer. We're able to perform calculations and predictions based on learned experience, which amounts to computing. You can argue that on top of this the human brain has some 'extra' abilities that make it 'more than just a computer' but I'm not so sure of that.

    The brain is in charge of not only conscious thinking but maintaining the life of the organism. It does this by receiving information from the nervous system and controlling the operation of the organs. It obviously does not (as others have pointed out) receive or process this information in the same way as a human built electronic computer does, but it does so nonetheless, so my way is to view the brain as just an incredibly advanced form of a computer that's way beyond anything we can currently even conceive of manufacturing ourselves.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  58. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Kiuas · · Score: 1

    The problem is that a human is able to step out of their algorithm and ask themselves, "Is this really correct?"

    So is a computer. Error-checking and adapting is something that computers are still not very good at, but the whole point of machine learning and adaptive algorithms is to achieve this same ability.

    Humans are able to error-check their own decisions and calculations only so far as we've learned to do it. If I've performed some task 10 000 times I know what kind of errors can occur in the process and can account for those. If I'm presented with a problem that I've never seen or solved before, my capabilities to do error-checking are nonexistent unless I first study the problem to find out which sort of errors can come up.

    The same is true for machines: they can do error-checking in so far as they have data and experience to check against. The more data they have in their use, the better the error checking capabilities. A learning machine does not perform the same calculations time and time again, it looks at the result and attempts to change the calculations until the desired outcome is achieved.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  59. Al Bundy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Al can predict? Al who? Alvin chipmunk? Al Bundy? Al Smith?

  60. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After twenty-five years in philosophy and having worked in the philosophy of mind for many years, this must be about the weakest argument against hard AI that I've ever heard.

  61. Still would rather have the human do it. by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    No thank you, but trusting the job-destroying AI is not exactly the best of ideas.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  62. Re: "developed an artificial intelligence(AI) prog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And all of those have been branches of the AI field. Since the field of AI was created, arguably during the 1956 Dartmouth workshop, it has included topics such as expert systems and statistical methods being used to make decisions based on both simple and complex input. Whether you want to accept it or not, even those Pacman ghosts' behavior can be accurately referred to as AI.

    If you want a term which only refers to human level intelligence, perhaps you should use either Artificial Consciousness, Machine Consciousness, or Synthetic Consciousness. Those probably match your personal definition of AI better than the broad definition used by the scientific community.

    People have this illusion that AI is a continuum to Computer Sciences. It is not. AI is not digital. AI is not programmable. Computer Scientists and Programmers won't be part of the achievement. It will most certainly come from some physics lab [also involving mathematicians and neuroscientists] when there is a complete Theory of the Mind, which is still beyond the horizon.

  63. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

    This whole approach to me reeks to substance dualism; the human brain is a computer, a very advanced one at that, but it's just a computer. there is no 'soul' that somehow makes the human brain the only thing that's capable of intelligent operations.

    I'd suggest that it has less to do with dualism and more to do with general intelligence vs. domain intelligence. Most of these AIs have decent domain intelligence, but very poor or nonexistent general intelligence. It's hard for most people to think of an autonomous car as being "intelligent" when it has no means at its disposal for answering trivial questions such as, "Can an alligator run the hundred-meter hurdle?".

    When people today dismiss AIs as being "mere programs", what they're really doing is dismissing AIs on account of their lack of general intelligence. They're calling attention to the fact that AIs are only as intelligent as they've been programmed to be, rather than making an argument about dualism. In fact, most people I've talked to have no problem calling AIs "intelligent", so long as you add the caveat that the AI's intelligence is limited to a very narrow domain.

    That said, the day that we have a decent, general domain artificial intelligence is the day that I think a lot of these "it's a program, so it can't be intelligent" arguments will start to become about dualism (or possibly will be about the distinction between weak and strong intelligence). Right now, those arguments are merely standing in as proxies for "it's only as intelligent as it's been programmed to be", i.e. it only understands some things, but one day that may not be the case. I believe you're just thinking ahead a bit, since we're not there yet.

  64. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Show me a robot that can cook a meal, drive a car, compose a song, read a poem, mend a fence, and paint a picture and I'll call it AI.

    Also, no one said anything about 'soul'. Surely /. is still capable of rational discussion without bringing religion into it?

  65. Hi, my name is Zoltar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hi, my name is Zoltar. Please insert the probe into your butt and put on the wired cap. Insert $5 bill and press the start button.... Thank you.... You will die on Oct 11, 2018."

  66. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by orlanz · · Score: 1

    Although I agree that "intelligence" is a scale rather than a switch and totally agree on the confusion point about people. Really people's fear isn't AI, but automation. But I disagree that your examples should be on that scale. Maybe on a "program complexity" scale but not intelligence. Maybe these two meet at one point or blur together a little.

    But "intelligence" should be more than applying past algorithms to current parameters. Intelligence may start at "learning" new knowledge which is a bit more than just reading books. Its imagining the valid and invalid possibilities of the application of such knowledge. Its that "creation" of the internal knowledge that makes something "intelligent". Intelligence moves along the scale in terms of the number of potential possibilities of that application that can be processed. Basically the ability to digest and internalize a new piece of data across the population set.

    Computers are no where close to the kernel of intelligence. WE humans are STILL having to painstakingly through almost a trial&error process, translate, apply, and incorporate the basic definition of what a car is. In the hopes that the definition can be used by the computer to recognize a vehicle in front and to stop before hitting it. There are programs that actually "learn" and create knowledge but so far they have been able to basically build mock bridges after using teraflops of computational cycles.

    To further use the autonomous car analogy, we are struggling with it on standard roads... 300 years ago, we didn't have roads, just terrain to navigate. And even the simplest "intelligence" could figure out a good enough route to get from point A to point B without dying or using up too much energy. And it could do it even in a place it has never been to before.

  67. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1
    5 dim a(32)

    10 input "What is your name";A$

    20 print "Hello ";a$

    30 goto 20

    Artificial intelligence

  68. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    The only reason the term doesn't have any meaning is because everyone's definition of "intelligence" is different in the first place.

    I disagree that that is the only reason. Another reason is that we don't agree on the term "artificial." In most cases I would say that all the intelligence, regardless of how that part is defined, came from the programmer and not the software.

    We actually can't agree on the meaning of any part of the term!

  69. Its Machine Learning, not AI by L'Ange+Oliver · · Score: 1

    Calling it an AI is misleading. The paper itself reports it as machine learning "Machine Learning of Threedimensional Right Ventricular Motion Enables Outcome Prediction in Pulmonary Hypertension"

  70. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    I for one am not being dismissive of the useful of the algorithms at all when I say they're not more or less artificial nor more or less intelligent than other programs.

    That's the problem, it is just regular software. Like calling software an "app" doesn't change anything, it is just a label. The problem with the AI label it is that none of the words are accurate descriptions of how it differs from other software. The problem isn't that programs are "merely" programs, but that software programs are not trees, ice cream, stars, or the feeling of spring. If you called apps "ice cream," people would complain, and it would have nothing to do with them looking down on ice cream.

    It would be better if they just named the specific algorithm that it uses instead of the useless catch-all of "AI." It makes sense for academia to arbitrarily classify which things go into which classes and departments, but it doesn't make sense for programmers generally, or program users, to slavishly follow those categorizations where there are more descriptive and more accurate ones at hand.

    Something might be an expert system, or be an application based on a neural network. But still, unless it is buggy all the intelligence in the system was engineered by the programmers; a "self-learning" algorithm only learns what it was engineered to learn, and what it learned accidentally due to bugs. And the engineer isn't even artificial!

  71. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  72. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1

    Mod parent +1: relevant

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  73. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think many get hung up on the word computer, so let's try an alternative: the brain is a causal physical system. So output is a defined function of input and physical state, and physical state is a function of past inputs going way back to the moment of conception. Of course any causal system can be arbitrarily closely approximated by a computer (thanks Godel, Turing et al), so from a functional point of view a human is isomorphic to a computer.

    The big question here is subjective experience: even if you can make a computer pass the most advanced Turing test does it have consciousness / subjective experience / insert other word meaning more or less the same thing? But that's a moot point as (a) I don't even know if you have this, (b) simple awareness has no effect on function and (c) subjectivity is by definition not definable in objective terms, so we will by definition never know.

  74. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must be newbie...

  75. What machine learning algorithm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It doesn't say in the article what algorithm was used.

    1. Re:What machine learning algorithm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm replying to myself. I think it uses random forests.

  76. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by mark-t · · Score: 1

    The definition of artificial could be obvious... it is anything that is not natural. which is to say that it is not made or caused by mankind. Artificial intelligence would therefore be intelligence that *has* been made or caused by mankind. However, since "intelligence" is so poorly defined, the expression still cannot mean anything, despite half of the expression having an unambiguous meaning.

  77. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    But still, unless it is buggy all the intelligence in the system was engineered by the programmers; a "self-learning" algorithm only learns what it was engineered to learn, and what it learned accidentally due to bugs

    We're perfectly capable of making systems we can't really understand, or which develop uses we hadn't thought of earlier. Lots of software does things that the developers didn't have in mind when they wrote it. We can't understand the internal values in a complex artificial neural net; all we know is how we arrived at them and what they appear to do.

    Artificial neural nets are limited by their base complexity and by their inputs. Make one complex enough and give it enough input and you might well get general intelligence, although I doubt it's that simple.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  78. I tried it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... but all it responded was "Good Luck".

    WTF is that supposed to mean?

  79. Re: "developed an artificial intelligence(AI) prog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rule extraction from neural networks has traditionally been difficult, so whilst you can show the ability to classify, reasoning about why is not necessarily possible. Arguably one characteristic of consciousness is the ability to introspect but whether you could consider it a distinction between machine learning or AI is another matter. Maybe it is not even a useful distinction

  80. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Calling it *just* a program is not very accurate either because it is *just* a program that you can *train* to do many things.

    However, "AI" is much shorter then "Machine Learning Program" so we are kinda stuck with it.

    Now if they were calling it "artificial consciousnesses" I would be agreeing with you.

  81. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by epine · · Score: 1

    The only thing the 1950s needed to obtain recent results in convolutional neural networks, was the planar process of 1959 and a suitably accelerated coefficient of Moore's law. We can get there by applying the inverse Hackermann function.

    When planning a project, increase the amount of time that you estimate it will take by doubling the number and going up to the next time unit.

    Dividing 18 by 2 and shifting to a lower unit gives us a doubling time of nine weeks. Probably we're recognizing cats by 1967. Before the modern API was half fleshed out.

    Seriously, have you looked at the sophistication of mathematics in the 1950s?

    Ramanujan surprises again

    The discovery came when Ono and fellow mathematician Andrew Granville were leafing through Ramanujan's manuscripts, kept at the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge. "We were sitting right next to the librarian's desk, flipping page by page through the Ramanujan box," recalls Ono. "We came across this one page which had on it the two representations of 1729 [as the sum of cubes]. We started laughing immediately." ...

    What the equation in Ramanujan's manuscript illustrates is that Ramanujan had found a whole family (in fact an infinite family) of positive whole number triples x, y and z that very nearly, but not quite, satisfy Fermat's famous equation for n=3.
    ...

    Ono and Trebat-Leder found that Ramanujan had also delved into the theory of elliptic curves. He did not anticipate the path taken by Wiles, but instead discovered an object that is more complicated than elliptic curves. When objects of this kind were rediscovered around forty years later they were adorned with the name of K3 surfaces — in honour of the mathematicians Ernst Kummer, Erich Kahler and Kunihiko Kodaira, and the mountain K2, which is as difficult to climb as K3 surfaces are difficult to handle mathematically.
    ...

    His work amounts to one box, kept at Trinity College, and three notebooks, kept at the University of Madras. That's not a lot. It's crazy that we are still figuring out what he had in mind. When is it going to end?"

    The book is not even closed yet on the mathematics of the 1920s.

  82. Re:"developed an artificial intelligence(AI) progr by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    Nor can a baseball player understand all the complex quantum effects that are required for a baseball to bounce off the bat instead of just mixing together with it! That doesn't keep them from knowing how to hit the ball, though.

    Waving your hands at complexity doesn't keep intent from being simple; an engineer intends to create a complex system, and didn't even intend it to be one that required calculation of all the details. It doesn't really mean they didn't understand what they were doing, it just means that humans have limits and the concept of knowledge can be taken in a way that exceeds human capability. But that is not any more or less true when building a neural net than when hitting a baseball; both are rather simple things to the person doing them, and they only need to understands that steps taken, not the whole Universe.