Virus and AI Reset

There are two kinds of AI: classifier and recognizer. Both are in affected by this pandemic. First the classifier - which is just statistical analysis to categorize scenes, events etc. and issue predictions need movement among the subjects i.e. a continuous data feed. With everybody at home across the globe that feed is quite stale and boring. Those annoying ads that were being served which sometimes got you to think that you were being observed are gone aren't they? Second, the recognizer is the AI-technique that has multi-billion dollar industry behind it. Its biggest customer is China and other governments. That industry is facing the same problem as the small biz during shutdown. It had trouble recognizing faces with dark skin and now it is completely stumped recognizing faces with masks. But most of all AI has no answer to these multiple models which are driving multi trillion dollar policy decisions. I was a fan of AI in grad school, saw it find some traction in expert systems and then disappear. I believe we might see that again. This time, I won't be mourning it.