alt Hacker NewsSomeone "actually working with it" checking in, if that matters at all to this conversation. I'm very bearish on the industry even if I think the tech is going to stick around.
If we separate the tech from the industry, it's clear one has some value (albeit very hard to say just how much) and the other is a lot of smoke and mirrors. This is not a healthy space.
One might point out that this is the story of AI since at least the 1930's. Impressive technology demo's ... wild investment, crash, bankruptcy ... but the tech remains and in fact has useful applications all around.
AI Winters. I finished school in 2008 and have seen it happen twice.
Convnets. LSTM (and various RNNs).
Both are in wide use today.