In the months before January 2018, Rodney Brooks publicly criticised what he considers hype around AI and machine learning.
Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
What would count as true or false
Test: in roughly the months before 1 January 2018 (about mid-2017 to December 2017), Brooks published pieces or gave talks that criticised what he called hype around AI or machine learning. True: there are one or more dated public writings or talks by Brooks from that period (for example essays on his blog) that criticise AI/ML hype or overblown predictions. Mostly true: the criticism exists but falls slightly outside 'the last few months', for example earlier in 2017. Mostly false: the only such criticism is from well before 2017, or it does not concern AI/ML hype. False: dated records of his public output for that period show no such criticism.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Robots overhyped, overfeared Axios · 15 December 2017
“We are in a robot-and-artificial intelligence bubble, and experts are starting to push back. Among their gripes: over-the-top hype of AI's capabilities, and its near-term danger to society.”
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E2 Robots overhyped, overfeared Axios · 15 December 2017
“"AI washing is very, very prevalent," Brooks says, forecasting "some disappointments ahead — a bubble that bursts."”
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E3 [FoR&AI] The Seven Deadly Sins of Predicting the Future of AI rodneybrooks.com (Rodney Brooks blog) · 7 September 2017 Own record
“We are surrounded by hysteria about the future of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. There is hysteria about how powerful they will become how quickly, and there is hysteria about what they will do to jobs.”
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E4 This famous roboticist doesn't think Elon Musk understands AI | TechCrunch TechCrunch · 19 July 2017
“When people saw DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat the Korean champion and then beat the Chinese Go champion, they thought, ‘Oh my god, this machine is so smart, it can do just about anything!’”
Reasoning
Brooks's blog essay "The Seven Deadly Sins of Predicting the Future of AI", dated 7 September 2017, criticises the "hysteria" about AI's future (E3). It is his own published writing from inside the period. An independent Axios report from 15 December 2017 quotes Brooks saying "AI washing is very, very prevalent" and forecasting a bubble that bursts (E2, with context in E1). A July 2017 TechCrunch piece also covers his pushback on inflated views of systems like AlphaGo (E4). Together these dated public statements from mid-to-late 2017 meet the "true" criterion.
Cite this claim
Rodney Brooks, “In the months before January 2018, Rodney Brooks publicly criticised what he considers hype around AI and machine learning.” (said 1 January 2018). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_ab30e15c097b, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ab30e15c097b
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Rodney Brooks
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Mostly true
“But no, I had no idea it would be LLMs at the time of my correct prediction that something big would appear.”
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Mostly true
“I have spent my whole professional life developing robots and my companies have built more of them than anyone else”
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Resolved true
“I bought my first electric car this year.”
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Mixed
“they are safe in the presence of humans.”
The warehouse mobile robots built by Brooks's current startup are safe in the presence of humans.
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Mostly true
“I have reported about particular rides, that I or others have taken, when I think that the vehicles have done something for which a human driver would somehow be sanctioned if they had done the same…”
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.