AI is not An Excuse

Internet founder Vint Cerf does a good job putting out a cautious view on the current use of AI.  In theory good research, development and value should never be replaced by emergent Hype.    But in reality research groups, enterprises and startups have limited funds, and they will spend significantly on potential big wins or benefits.  However risky.  And in the case of current AI results, they solve previously unsolvable problems,  so the bait is out there.   So be cautious, arm yourself with as much information and experience as possible, prototype and aim for real value.  Don't wait for AI or something like it. 

AI Is Not an Excuse!  By Vinton G. Cerf

Communications of the ACM, October 2019, Vol. 62 No. 10, Page 7

I keep hearing excuses for not working on difficult problems: "Eventually AI will solve this so there's no point working on it now." Sorry, wrong answer.

First, we should be cautious about putting too much expectation on artificial intelligence which, by most metrics, is really today's machine learning (ML) and neural networks. There is no doubt these systems have produced truly remarkable results. The GO game story of AlphaGo and AlphaZero from Deep Mind is by now a classic example of the surprisingly powerful results these systems produce. A chess-playing version of AlphaZero learned quickly and demonstrated choices of moves unlike those of traditional chess players. I hesitate to label this strategy but the deep neural networks do encode in some deep way experience that one could consider a kind of strategic cache.  .... "