Ask HN: Is learnig just pattern matching and project known patterns to find new
1 celurian92 1 6/4/2025, 10:04:46 AM
I am trying to study ML/AI and the more I dive into it to teach these models to recognize stuff and generate stuff, this question came to my mind like is the process of learning and synthesizing information to knowledge and wisdom is just pattern matching? We use other patterns to find new pattern and try to fit novel stuff into those known patterns? or extend those pattern?
just some rumbling thoughts if someone willing to think and answer.
if this true then wont it be possible to create AGI like the machine from person of interest?
I mean "just" is doing a lot of work there. Or rather, "pattern matching" is doing a lot of work - ignoring emergent properties like "creative leaps" for example, or tactile learning, muscle memory (is that "pattern matching" too?), and other such cases.
But are we saying something meaningful aside from "if we expand our definition of pattern matching to cover all aspects of intelligent behavior, learning is just pattern matching"?
Feels to me like reducing chemistry or medicine to physics. Ultimately it's all physics, but...