Google's AI 'TensorFlow' Software Is Coming To iOS (cnet.com) 33
An anonymous reader writes: Google published an early version of TensorFlow that adds support for iOS. TensorFlow is "neural network" software that lets computers process data in a way similar to our own brain cells. Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said it advances machine learning capability by a factor of three generations. With the software running on your iPhone, its capabilities will allow for more sophisticated apps to run on iOS. We can expect the apps to be released later this year and into next year from Google and others who use TensorFlow. Some of the tasks TensorFlow can allow for include being able to recognize subjects in photographs or being able to teach your phone what a particular object looks like, which is what another neural network software project called MemKite aims to do. Google has released its TensorFlow software as open source, where anyone can use or modify it for free.
And I thought (Score:3)
So many words meaning nothing (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, that summary is terrible, I'm not going to bother reading the article because the summary is so bad. It advances machine learning by 3 generations? Compared to what? It already exists so isn't it current generation and the previous one 1 generation prior? You can't really skip generations. Also, it processes data the same way our brains do? I was unaware we understood how our brains processed data. Somebody should inform the neuroscientists, they'll be excited to find this out. Granted contrary
Re: So many words meaning nothing (Score:1)
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It advances machine learning by 3 generations? Compared to what?
They mean three Moore's law doublings. 2^3 = 8, so it is roughly 8 times as powerful as the previous state of the art, in terms of computation per watt. But that is only if you use their ASIC accelerator, which the iPhone doesn't have, so the "three generations" doesn't really apply here.
Also, it processes data the same way our brains do?
Basically, yes, artificial neural networks (ANN) work on the same principles as a brain, in the same way that 747s work on the same principles as hummingbirds.
I was unaware we understood how our brains processed data.
We don't understand how brains work at a gestalt level, but we
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I was unaware we understood how our brains processed data
We understand how neurones work, which is roughly the equivalent to understanding how transistors work and saying that you understand a CPU. We also know that you can approximate any mathematical function with a network of neurones. The accuracy of the approximation depends on the complexity of the network and with modern computers you can simulate very complex networks (not in comparison to an actual brain, but in comparison to the networks built by the people who worked on this stuff 50 years ago). The
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Spyware (Score:3, Informative)
Why would I want to install Google spyware on my Google-free iPhone?
Re:Spyware (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would I want to install Google spyware on my Google-free iPhone?
To give the Apple spyware some company?
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not that TensorFlow is necessarily spyware (I have no idea), but what "Apple spyware" are you referring to?
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Ever used Google translate?
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It does a lot better than me at about 90% of the languages it knows. Maybe 95%. And it's faster than anybody.
Also, AI != better than human intelligence.
hype from google (Score:4, Insightful)
other comments have pointed out the terrible confused inaccurate content of the summery here. and in article, and the claims google is making about this.
there is no new technological breakthrough here, that " advances machine learning capability by a factor of three generations", instead this is another implementation of a, long known, trade off that increase computation power/capability by decreasing precision.
this is hyped as how to "process data in a way similar to our own brain cells"(while real brain cells continue to be a mystery btw) or "AI" (whatever that vague, and useless, term mean or does nor mean), etc etc.
fact that google, from very top down, felt the need to hype such things, in totally exaggerated and inappropriate way, does tell something; google is in trouble new technology wise.
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there is no new technological breakthrough here, that " advances machine learning capability by a factor of three generations", instead this is another implementation of a, long known, trade off that increase computation power/capability by decreasing precision.
Actually, it's worse than that, and it looks like a submitter and/or editor error. That quote about 3 generations (and the associated /. link) refers to a hardware coprocessor designed by goog that is, from their declarations, what they run their in-house branch of the tensorflow software on.
The submission is thin on fact and heavy on the word salad, since 'hey, we tagged v0.9 RC0 with iOS support on github' would have been too terse, I suppose. And python3.5 support, OSX gpu processing support, nevermind m
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Yep, the summary is cringe-worthy. Tensor flow is just a framework that lets you easily build multi-step pipelines for processing multi-dimensional matrices (aka tensors). The matrices/tensors flow thru the pipeline, hence the name. The main targeted application is deep neural nets, and there are layers of functionality built into TF for building deep neural nets. There are a number of other preexisting open source frameworks that provide similar functionality. TF appears well designed (very modular, good f
TensorFlow requires Python; iOS forbids Python (Score:4, Insightful)
Since hen does iOS forbid Python? (Score:3)
iOS has had python apps [apple.com] for quite some time, a few years ago Apple decided it was OK to let things like that on the store.
You can easily ship an iOS app with a python library...
TensorFlow DOES NOT require python (Score:2)
TensorFlow has a C++ API as well.
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If using Python between batches is a problem for you, make your batches bigger. Or use a C optimizer. Or use Cython for the training loop.
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many TensorFlow pipelines take a huge performance hit by dropping out to Python after every training batch, in order to feed the next batch from a Python data structure
Since most of the time is spent in the training batch not in the pipeline, so what? And let us note that the primary reason the functionality is in Python rather than C++ is because it is faster to develop in Python. CPU cycles aren't the scarce resource here.
Does this mean (Score:2)
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