Cognitive Computing and Machine Learning from the Cynic

Another in the series introduced here.

Ambrose Bierce

A couple definitions from his book:

Stan Kelly-Bootle

Mr. Kelly-Bootle sometimes provided extended explanations of the words he defined:

Definitions for 21st Century Computing

A couple more from the student:

Cognitive Computing

A totally, absolutely brand-new approach to making computers that are really smart. Cognitive computing is already a success primarily because it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with certain lame technologies that have a decades-long, proven track record of achieving perpetually imminent success. Cognitive computing is primarily backed by a giant company whose roots go back to the technology that popularized the term "hanging chads," whose TLA name is alphabetically adjacent to HAL, the star of movie set in 2001.

Machine Learning

The term for a growing collection of dozens of techniques that have been developed in the continuing quest to teach machines enough so that they can score better than they do on the college entrance exams. Until the quest for effective machine learning yields better results, machines will continue to be relegated to second-class status among the company of educated things.

The advocates of machine learning are known to be a fiercely contentious lot, each asserting that its own approach is superior to all others, and that any evidence adduced to the contrary is propaganda, fake news of the worst sort, stemming from jealous advocates of inferior approaches. The closest approximation to the internecine warfare of the machine learning field is the human learning field, in which advocates of public, government-run and union-staffed schools exchange harsh words with advocates of charter schools, with a level of invective and passion that indicates that someone is strongly in favor of hopelessly uneducated machines and/or humans.

Conclusion

I apologize in advance: there could be more to come.