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[D] "AI systems are always deterministic," AI teacher says. How can I reply (with examples and papers)? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by shiftingsmith@alien.top to c/machinelearning@academy.garden

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I had a discussion in class with one of my teachers. He says that AI is and can only be always deterministic because "even a deep learning neural network is a set of equations running on a computer, and the stochastic factor is added at the beginning. But the output of a model is always deterministic, even if it's not interpretable by humans."

How would you reply? (Possibly with examples and papers)

Tysm!

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[–] damhack@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

It depends on what level of abstraction you are claiming deterministic behaviour. As stated elsewhere, at the upper level of qualia, it’s hard to say whether something that looks and feels like a decision made with free will is or isn’t.

Likewise, if you move to the lower levels of bit patterns, electron flow or quantum events, it looks to an outside observer to be non-deterministic.

So, at the absurd level of abstraction that posits symbols being manipulated by executing software are real phenomena, you could argue that neural nets are deterministic.

But at what point and to which observer does complexity become indistinguishable from randomness?

It’s a shaky argument that is based on the perfect functioning of an ideal of a computer to claim determinism, when we know in practice that abstraction levels bleed into each other, form strange loops and the Blue Screen Of Death is only ever a couple of bits away, especially when the sun flares and you’re not using ECC RAM.