AI: The Missing Piece
Recently, I had written a Facebook post stating that I was not particularly impressed with deep learning -- from an academic perspective. This is not to say that deep learning is not significant at all. Indeed, the applications and impact of deep learning are opening up so many possibilities (mostly scary ones), like never before! There is indeed a lot of "scope" for young professionals to major in deep learning. My reservations has to do with the dearth of conceptual insights provided by deep learning. My post had understandably caused a lot of consternation from many in my network -- most of all, in my former students. And predictably I was subject to argumentum ad throwing-the-book-at-me with links to several high end mathematics that gets used in deep learning. There is a difference between using high-end mathematics to do something, and obtaining a conceptual breakthrough in understanding some underlying principle. Despite all the really awesome mathematics that...