Rebooting AI
by Gary Marcus, Ernest Davis · first published 2019
18mentions
3recommended by
11HN commenters
2019–2026first – last mentioned
27% recommend73% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Argues that deep learning alone lacks the robust, real-world reasoning needed for dependable AI, lays out its specific limits and what must change; suits readers wanting an accessible, critical look at AI hype.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Two leaders in the [artificial intelligence] field offer a compelling analysis of the current state of the art and reveal the steps we must take to achieve a truly robust artificial intelligence." -- From book jacket.
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Gary Marcus has articulated it much better than I could in his new book with Ernie Davis: https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Inte... I really dislike the single minded focus on deep learning to the exclusion of everything else.
on “What happens when your career becomes your whole identity” ↗I started reading Rebooting AI last night. I think that Marcus and Davis (so far in the book) take a reasonable approach by wanting to design robust AI. Robust AI requires general real world intelligence that is not provided by deep…
on “We can’t trust AI systems built on deep learning alone” ↗I read the GATO paper. I also saw the press hype. It is clear that the press has no idea about what GATO seems to be able to actually do. I can highly recommend the book "Rebooting AI" by Marcus and Davis (http://rebooting.ai/). They lay out a clear case why the current emphasis on things like deep learning won't get very far toward more general AI. In my research project the task…
on “Gato and Rebooting AI” ↗If only there was some way to compute entailments from unlikely combination of events :-) But seriously, Gary Marcus and Ernie Davis make a good case in their new book Rebooting AI that logic has to play a role in any real AI.
on “Driverless cars are stuck in a jam” ↗This seems similar to the recent book Rebooting AI that he wrote with Ernest Davis. Good read (both paper and their book). A little off topic, but I have been an AI practitioner since the early 1980s. The beginning of my career was "symbolic" AI, the…
on “The Next Decade in AI: Four Steps Towards Robust Artificial Intelligence” ↗I like your comments, even though I fall into the DL fanboy camp. I hope that you read Gary Marcus’s and Ernest Davis’ book “Rebooting AI” - I think it would resonate with you, and it made me get a lot more interested in so-call “hybrid-AI” systems.
on “The Principles of Deep Learning Theory” ↗Sure, he can sound strident but I still think Gary Marcus's riffing on the limitations of deep learning is important. The book "Rebooting AI" that he wrote with Ernest Davis is well worth reading if you are an AI practitioner (a term I use to describe myself). I think Marcus is also well worth following on Twitter to get a contrarian view…
on “Did GoogleAI just snooker one of Silicon Valley’s sharpest minds?” ↗I have mixed feelings about Gary Marcus. I enjoyed reading Rebooting AI that he wrote with Ernest Davis, and he makes some valid points in this article. However, I think he ignores some practical use cases. I am not a good example since I am retired (I limit myself to about…
on “What if Generative AI turned out to be a Dud?” ↗…Alexander Statnikov, & Berna Bakir Batu (eds) 22. Propositional, Probabilistic, and Evidential Reasoning: Integrating Numerical and Symbolic Approaches - Weiru Liu 23. Human Compatible - Stuart Russell 23. Rebooting AI - Gary Marcus & Ernest Davis 24. Artificial Intelligence - Melanie Mitchell 25. Protocol Analysis - K. Anders Ericsson & Herbert A. Simon 26. The Robot's Dilemma: The Frame Problem in Artificial Intelligence…
on “Ask HN: What projects are you working on now?” ↗…from what I can tell, purports to do that. I have not read the book (yet) so I can't personally attest to how well it meets that goal, but at least be aware that it exists. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Inte...
on “The Sam Altman Playbook: Fear, the Denial of Uncertainties, and Hype” ↗…etc. > In 2029, AI will not be able to read a novel and reliably answer questions about plot, character, conflicts, motivations, etc. Key will be going beyond the literal text, as Davis and I explain in Rebooting AI. > In 2029, AI will not be able to work as a competent cook in an arbitrary kitchen (extending Steve Wozniak’s cup of coffee benchmark). > In 2029, AI will not be able to reliably construct bug-free…
> In 2029, AI will not be able to read a novel and reliably answer questions about plot, character, conflicts, motivations, etc. Key will be going beyond the literal text, as Davis and I explain in Rebooting AI. Can AI actually do this? This looks like a nice benchmark for complex language processing, since a complete novel takes up a whole lot of context (consider War and Peace or The Count of Monte Cristo).…
I'm reading the new book on the failings of pure ML based AI by Gary Marcus and Ernie Davis (Rebooting AI) that makes a similar point
on “Why do companies with unbounded resources still have terrible moderation?” ↗I'll start: 1. Ben Thompson - He is the writer and founder of Stratechery.com 2. Gary Marcus - A cognitive scientist and AI researcher, author of books like "Rebooting AI" 3. Oren Etzioni - CEO of the Allen Institute for AI 4. Andrew Ng - influential figure in ML 5. Steve Sammartino - Futurist with good ideas about education
on “Ask HN: Who writes well-researched posts on ChatGPT's impact on each profession?” ↗I prefer not to engage further on this topic, to be honest. It's not a productive use of our time. Instead, to get more educated on it, I'll read Gary Marcus's "Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust" that discusses this in more detail ;)
on “All the Hard Stuff Nobody Talks About When Building Products with LLMs” ↗