Emergent properties are phenomena which are a product of the characteristics of the set of entities which are interacting with each other and the structure of that interaction.

A water molecule doesn't have a snowflake hiding in it, nor does it have some quality of "snowflakeness".

Take a bunch of water molecules, have them interact with each other in the right environment, and you get snowflakes.

No technobabble needed.

Tell me: which private companies are investing in pure research, where the payoff is unknown and may well be nonexistent?

Neural networks aren't von Neumann machines. They can be run in software on von Neumann machines, or on custom hardware or FPGAs.

If you're "just guessin'", then why should anyone grant your statement any weight?

Wouldn't it be better to make an actual argument, and support it with actual evidence?

What would you need to see / experience in order to agree that the system you were observing did display what you consider to be "Intelligence", and wasn't simply "... just scaled-up versions of Eliza" ?

You're mis-stating the nature of your objection.

What you're objecting to isn't the entirety of artificial intelligence research, but rather drawing an (IMO false) distinction between the sort of information processing required to qualify as being "book smart", and the information processing you label "common sense."

Human brains detect and abstract out patterns using a hierarchical structure of neural networks. Those patterns could involve the information processing needed to accurately pour water into a glass, or the information processing necessary to accurately answer the question "What's the weather like?" by including the full context in which the question was asked.

Is it your belief that human brains process information in some way that can't be replicated by a system that isn't composed of a network of mammalian neurons, and, if so, why?

What modern company of any size doesn't have an HR Department? I know of companies with thirty or so employees who have an HR person on staff. I call "shenanigans" on this claim... not to mention noting the scent of "Internet Tough Guy" coming off of this post.

Speaking out falls under the heading of "Lobby", so no, I wasn't attempting to discard or restrict your freedom of speech.

Yes, there is an implicit contract. You'll notice that the roads are drivable, the water drinkable, etc. The government (which, I remind you, is a collection of your fellow citizens, and is not in fact staffed by aliens or demons) is beholden to us. We elect them, and we can un-elect them. Is the system perfect? No, but no system is.

Is there some alternative political system you'd like to propose? If so, then please tell us all about it.

There's a simple way of opting out of the contract which is implicit between you and the society which surrounds and supports you.

Leave.

If, on the other hand, you'd like to lobby your fellow citizens to change the system we live in, you can do that... but it will require that you actually put forth effort, and it will require that you, most likely, expend more resources than you would just by paying taxes.

Or, you could just whine about having to actually pay for the benefits you get.

So... which will you choose?

Taxation isn't theft.

Taxation is the honoring of a contract, the social contract you are implicitly a signatory to as a citizen of a civilized society.

You gain the benefit of roads you can drive on, tap water that is available and safe to drink, house fires that get put out, an educated populace (you know, all those citizens who don't happen to be your son), and so on.

You pay for those benefits via your taxes.

If you don't wish to enjoy those benefits, you are free to go somewhere like Somalia, where you won't be burdened with them... and neither will you enjoy all those benefits.

Good luck with that.

You could have answered your own questions with a quick search, rather than assume that that which you are ignorant about is mere "marketing-speak."

deeplearning.net

Deep learning (Wikipedia)

Unsupervised Feature Learning and Deep Learning

Enough of our coddling ignorance.

Enough of our mealy-mouthed, passive acquiescence to the willful denial of reality.

Enough of our society shooting itself in the foot by watering down our science education, and our discussion of science in the public and political sphere by mixing in myth and pseudoscience.

There is no controversy. There is no debate. There is no real "other side" to this discussion.

Modern evolutionary theory is one of the most wel-developed, well-supported scientific theories we have. It as much settled science as science can get.

Evolution is a fact, in that it is the label for a phenomena we can directly and indirectly observe.

Evolutionary theory is not somehow inferior to fact. Indeed, it is in many ways superior to the level of fact, in that it is made up of facts, and is tested and confirmed, repeatedly, against reality.

If your religion claims that evolution isn't true, then, when it comes to this subject, your religion is wrong.

We should stop letting this nonsense slide. Our nation is competing against highly technological, committed, dedicated workers from other countries. We aren't doing ourselves any favors by mixing myth with our science.

The key difference is that a framework is a tool, whereas an App Store contains, or, more to the point, doesn't contain specific content.

If I use jQuery, that doesn't restrict what other code I write, or what other applications I use.