The state of Computer Vision and AI:
we are really, really far. (2012)
To me, that means we are really close to achieving it, because we are really, really far along the path. But reading the article immediately creates a cognitive dissonance - that can't be right, can it?
No, the author means "we are really, really far away from our objective," which is not the same thing at all.
Was this deliberate, or did the author, in his focus on the question of interpreting images, simply not notice that his text was ambiguous as well?
It's not just you. My initial reaction was that it meant "we have come far", meaning that "we are close". My next thought was "That can't be right, he must mean we are distant from the goal."
Why is this so ambiguous? Far and distant are synonyms, right?
I suspect that it's because you can use "far" to describe a path you have traveled, in a way you can't with "distant". "We have come far", "We are far along our journey." So that "far" can mean far from a point of origin as well as a point of destination. Whereas "distant" only means distant from that point of reference.
So I thought the title was ambiguous without a preposition to clarify "far": "far away", for example.
Perhaps it's in the framing of the question: "the current state of x" implies that it's being considered as an ongoing process, which implicitly has an origin and a conceivable end.
Also, putting the subject as "we are..." puts it in the frame of an ongoing journey. If you say "That lighthouse over there, it is far." there is no ambiguity that the lighthouse is distant from us. Also "Effective computer vision: it is far" is not really ambiguous.
It's not just him. I'm a British English speaker and read it the same way. I read it as "We are far [along our course]". It came across as a bit of an odd phrase but I don't think it's really good English either way, it needs an object to be clear.
The problem is nobody ever says "we're really far". It's either "we've gone really far" or "we're really far away".
It's almost gramatically incorrect to say "we're really far", unless it is a response to a question - "how far are we from home?", "we're really far". In that case it works because the subject is implicit.
It's like you can't have a title that is "It is the best smartphone yet."
hmmm, I feel if anything tech people are more optimistic then warranted about AI. I found it refreshing this made it clear there are still a lot more to intelligence then just recognizing a face in an image. Now the tech industry being pessimistic about many other things, sure, but in my experience that hasn't been the case with AI.
I assumed the author took the statement "we are really, really close" and then replaced "close"with its opposite, "far". This is the sort of thing a non-native speaker would do, and I suspect he was unaware of the ambiguity caused by this. The implied idiomatic continuation '... far from the goal' or '... far along the path' is what throws native speakers, however non-native speakers simply parse the sentence the way the author intended in a much simpler way.
The point here is the question of what comes after far:
* We are really, really far along the way
* We are really, really far from our objective
It seems clear that most native English speakers in this thread have seen the ambiguity and started by assuming the first option, whereas non-native English speakers seem to have assumed the second, and may not have noticed the other option at all.
I think this is a great example of the points illustrated in the article: Namely that interpretation of a {photo, sentence, whatever} depends on the history/background of the subject receiving the information and is one of the reasons why the field is "so far [away]".
For example, a person who had no experience/knowledge of scales like that shown would have a tough time discerning what the reason for humour was.
The title needs rephrasing, but I wouldn't expect someone to say that we're almost there with AI, as it would sound ridiculous, so I used my natural intelligence to correct the meaning of the title and understood it as the author had intended.
I agree that the title could be read both ways, but as someone who works with CV, I knew immediately what it meant. CV outside of a few specific applications on controlled images is only just starting to work at all.
Except the "along the path" the path part is neither stated or implied. Rather then just being a grammar or language issue I think people are projecting their optimistic opinion of AI onto the title, with no basis for it based on what's actually written. Objectively if you read the title how it should be construed as negative, we have a long way to go, etc.
I'm not a native English speaker and understood it, as the author intended it. It was a bit confusing at first, because "far" is seldom used by itself in English in this way, but I settled on "far from" as opposed to "far along".
It's not seldom used in that way. In my experience, I would say that "far" by itself more commonly refers to "far along" until otherwise clarified with "far away".
No, the author means "we are really, really far away from our objective," which is not the same thing at all.
Was this deliberate, or did the author, in his focus on the question of interpreting images, simply not notice that his text was ambiguous as well?
Or is it just me?