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Comment by robsws | Hacker News Reader

Hard agree on AI, hard disagree on Tech Debt. The sheer force of opinion saturated into so few words made me smile :) My highlights:

- OOP 'modules, but using the word class'

- Agile 'It used to mean “not waterfall” and now means “waterfall with a status meeting every day and an internal demo every two weeks'

- AI 'an algorithm pushed to production by a programmer who doesn’t understand it'

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I like defining AI as a catch-all for higher-order solutions. Rather than defining a specific process for taking in input and producing the desired output, you define a process for taking in input to produce a process that takes in input and produces the desired output. That ends up including a lot of boring applications, like SAT solvers, Bayesian statistics engines, as well as the more hip deep learning stuff.

ML is the specific case where the inputs to both the higher level and base level processes are similar, and the goal is for the application to identify patterns to apply to specific cases.

> AI 'an algorithm pushed to production by a programmer who doesn’t understand it'

This is precisely how I read it too. The microsecond I hear a person say “AI” or “ML”, I’m thinking “oh ok so it’s untraceable, non-deterministic bullshit I’m gonna be held responsible for if I approve this.”

Probably still net profitable to continue using this marketing language. Certainly does me a favor too.

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