One truly serious philosophical problem

(originally published on 33rd Square www.33rdsquare.com/2017/03/machine-learning-one-truly-serious.html)

Machine learning is in the news again this week as it was announced that systems can now surpass humans at identifying those at risk of taking their own life.

Following a seemingly endless series of breakthroughs in recent years the news may seem like just one more thing that computers can now do better than humans but is there a deeper existential significance to the fact that AI now knows more about the likelihood someone might end their life than we do?

In his 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus, calls suicide the “one truly serious philosophical problem” and yet, even as suicide rates are rising in many Western societies, it seems we are stubbornly……continue reading on Medium.

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