Deep Black Box
Open up the black box of AI one problem at a time, with your own hands. 21 problems in all.
Question 1
Turn two knobs by hand
What we are about to build
Input
Hours studied
y = a × hours + b
Output
Test score
Red lines
= the
vertical gap
between each dot and the line. Each length becomes one term in the formula below
Knob
b
height of the line (the score at 0 hours)
0
Knob
a
slope of the line (points gained per hour)
0.0
โ
points = error (students with a longer
red line
count for more)
0 (exact)
goal 3.0 ↑
30
Turn the two knobs until the red lines get short.
It goes faster if you shorten the longest line first.
What to take away
What you just did is what “learning” means.
An AI does the same thing; the only difference is that it has
175 billion knobs
.
Where this pays off
An AI takes one input and returns one output.
Inside, it multiplies and adds, and what changes are the numbers on the knobs.
2
3
4
5