[[A figure stands behind a woman sitting at a desk with a computer on it.]]
Figure: When a user takes a photo, the app should check whether they're in a national park...
Woman programmer: Sure, easy GIS lookup. Gimme a few hours.
Figure: ... and check whether the photo is of a bird.
Woman programmer: I'll need a research team and five years.
In CS, it can be hard to explain the difference between the easy and the virtually impossible.
{{Title text: In the 60s, Marvin Minsky assigned a couple of undergrads to spend the summer programming a computer to use a camera to identify objects in a scene. He figured they'd have the problem solved by the end of the summer. Half a century later, we're still working on it.}}
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