I took my first AI course during my first degree, in the early 90’s. Back then it was all about expert systems, genetic algorithms, search/planning (A* anyone?). It all seemed clear, smart, intuitive, intelligent…
Then, by the time I got to my second degree in the late 00’s, the AI world has changed by a lot. Statistical approaches took over by a storm, and massive amounts of data seemed to trump intuition and smart heuristics anytime.
It took me a while to adjust, I admit, but by the time I completed my thesis I came to appreciate the power of big data. I now can better see this as an evolution, with heuristics and inutions driving how we choose to analyze and process the data, even if afterwards it’s all “just” number-crunching.
So on this note, I gave a talk today at work on the topic of extracting semantic knowledge from Wikipedia, relating also to our work on ESA and to this being an illustration of the above. Enjoy!
The Alter Egozi 