"Fourth Industrial Revolution" passed Go, but singularity not yet a stone's throw away

Fun to hear the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" buzz at the WEF in Davos: years after Germany coined the corny "Industry 4.0", we're still applying XIXth century terms to XXIst century issues.

In a revolution, the old order is toppled by a new one. But in the previous 3, humans were in charge. So we're not just talking industries when we're talking 'bout a revolution, as Chapman sung (Tracy, not David).
What matters is that, in case you missed Elon Musk's howls of outrage weeks ago, worries about singularity are really getting mainstream. They're making headlines every day and Google's AlphaGo defeating a Go master* just confirmed the impression that our irrelevance is only a stone's throw away.


Impressive, but AlphaGo succeeded by studiously analyzing every move made by said master in his previous games. Here's a quick learner, but not yet a fully disruptive mind. Even go is finite, after all. We have yet to see A.I. set really new rules, invent really new games.

And get really silly.

Until then, as always, "I'm with stupid".

mot-bile 2016

* see "AlphaGo: using machine learning to master the ancient game of Go" (Google Blog 20160127)