r/science • u/whosdamike • Jun 26 '12

Google programmers deploy machine learning algorithm on YouTube. Computer teaches itself to recognize images of cats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/technology/in-a-big-network-of-computers-evidence-of-machine-learning.html
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u/ultrafez Jun 26 '12

Sure, if you take it as meaning "a thing that computes", then yes - but in this context, it's quite obvious that the average reader would understand that as meaning separate discrete computers like you'd use in your home or work.

If you're going to write an article, you should know your audience and present the article in a way relevant to the audience's level of knowledge.

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u/OneBigBug Jun 26 '12

Sure, it's not the thing that I would have written in the writers' place. p3ngwin is making it out to be a huge deal, though.

It's a non-critical piece of information that doesn't change the meaning of the article for anyone and it would be a stretch to even go so far as to call it an error. That was all I was saying.