A constant stream of headlines about the latest task tackled by AI gives us the mistaken sense that we are living through an age of discovery, a time when the Enrico Fermis of the world determine the balance of power. In reality, we are witnessing the application of one fundamental breakthrough—deep learning and related techniques—to many different problems. That’s a process that requires well-trained AI scientists, the tinkerers of this age. Today, those tinkerers are putting AI’s superhuman powers of pattern recognition to use making loans, driving cars, translating text, playing Go, and
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