"Hey Cool challenge dude, any relation to AI? Didn't think so..."
or
"You too could solve this problem, a get a Phd and joined that overcrowded labor market"
Just consider that if you have M categories and you have N Phd students who can each four years to create one clever algorithms to distinguish category i from category j, then you need M(M-1) Phd students for a complete classification system - which when you consider many, many categories there are in human knowledge, works out to being more than can even be pumped out by excess student loans today and exponentially more than can find tenured positions.
IE, once you'd add to the "deep but not wide" algorithms of computer vision, And twenty years ago, we might have believed this adding-to would lead to something broad and general but it's been twenty years and the trend is becoming clear.
or
"You too could solve this problem, a get a Phd and joined that overcrowded labor market"
Just consider that if you have M categories and you have N Phd students who can each four years to create one clever algorithms to distinguish category i from category j, then you need M(M-1) Phd students for a complete classification system - which when you consider many, many categories there are in human knowledge, works out to being more than can even be pumped out by excess student loans today and exponentially more than can find tenured positions.
IE, once you'd add to the "deep but not wide" algorithms of computer vision, And twenty years ago, we might have believed this adding-to would lead to something broad and general but it's been twenty years and the trend is becoming clear.
See:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6401026