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You can see that here. However, most of the questions here feel rather more on the technological side of artificial intelligence. Those questions are on-topic on Data Science. That site was created as a site for the technological aspect of machine learning and AI, and that is the site that is in the Technology category (see here), in spite of having "Science" in its name.

This was already emphasized by Robert Cartaino on Area 51:

Data Science is an applied site for all the programmers/statisticians/mathematicians who are trying to make this stuff work. [...]

Notice that this proposal is in the 'Science' category; not 'Technology'. [...]

It was convincing enough to give this site another try, but if this site were to simply start reiterating the implementation/tools questions that are already covered elsewhere, this site will not likely make it out of private beta.


I already tried to give a hint where we could find science questions here: Where can we find the science part of Artificial Intelligence? That is one thing we could do: ask more science questions. The other thing we can do, is closing questions. Please do close questions that are highly technological or asking for applications.

I'd like to link some questions that are, in my opinion (but I could be wrong), scientifical :

There are more questions around that are scientifical and high-quality (fortunately), I just picked a few from the first page of the highest voted list.

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  • $\begingroup$ Maybe, just maybe Data Science and Artificial Intelligence should fuse. That way we would not need to worry about where a more theoretical/practical question belongs. $\endgroup$
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 19:25

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I've seen this argument come up here and several times in other discussions about scope:

I don't see why both kinds of questions can't be on-topic

It's because the OPPOSITION against creating this site argued (correctly) that we already created sites to handle this subject explicitly. The argument FOR creating this site claimed that we have a missing socio-scientific angle that needed filling.

Private beta tests if that is a valid premise for creating a NEW site.

If the founding community does not live up to those expectations, it creates a strong argument for "I told you so" — that the initiative has failed.

Stick to the mission.

Don't give credence to arguments for closure.

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    $\begingroup$ It's possible that questions can be ontopic on several SE sites in which case the asker can usually choose to ask wherever he likes. A bit of overlap in the scope of stackexchanges is okay, but I agree that Artificial Intelligence should clearly find it's niche and also define the limits. It just seems quite difficult to clearly define the limit between concepts and implementations (so pseudocode is okay, but any actual used language not?). $\endgroup$
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 19:29
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Data Science is an applied site

Yeah, for data science. Data science is not artificial intelligence. There is overlap around the statistical techniques for machine learning, but they just are not identical.

Please do close questions that are highly technological or asking for applications.

I'm sorry, but I think this is very misguided. Ignoring all aspects of implementation and technology on a se like this, is like a football team fielding an offense, but no defense (or vice versa). Or maybe I should say, it's like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup without the chocolate.

The simple truth is, you can say "programming questions belong on xx.se (or so)" but there are programming questions which - in principle - would be best suited for this site. If somebody is asking about an AI specific technique or something highly specialized like rule induction using OPS5, this community is probably a better resource than datascience.se, stats.se, or possibly even so.

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    $\begingroup$ I agree that I am exaggarating a bit in my post, it is just that it was very important for the site to not have too much overlap with other site to get out of private beta. $\endgroup$
    – wythagoras
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 19:03
  • $\begingroup$ @wythagoras you should add to your post why explicitly it is important to not overlap, and how this overlap will/might prevent getting out of beta $\endgroup$
    – MolbOrg
    Commented Sep 10, 2016 at 16:04
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Also a friendly reminder that our tour page (also proposal) states:

A question and answer site for people interested in conceptual questions about life and challenges in a world where "cognitive" functions can be mimicked in purely digital environment. It's built and run by you.

So I don't see the reason why both kind of questions can be on-topic, conceptual and scientific or similar, otherwise we're limiting without any good reason.

Also please remember that it's run by us, so everybody can decide whether question should be on-topic by voting on it.

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  • $\begingroup$ Yes, conceptual questions are also on-topic. This are questions like ai.stackexchange.com/questions/17/… and ai.stackexchange.com/questions/10/what-is-fuzzy-logic, asking to explain the concept of Technological Singularity and Fuzzy logic respectively. But we must be careful that it is a concept related to AI and not to much form the machine learning side. $\endgroup$
    – wythagoras
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 11:30
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    $\begingroup$ Machine learning is a branch of AI, so it should be automatically included as well. $\endgroup$
    – kenorb
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 11:32
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    $\begingroup$ Please see Will machine learning be considered as on-topic on Area 51. $\endgroup$
    – wythagoras
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 11:33
  • $\begingroup$ 'machine learning as far as implementation goes', so it's more about implementation being off-topic, not exactly 'machine learning'. Secondly the scope can be clarified/defined by community, as per comment on that post: 'Everything in the proposal is considered when evaluating whether the site would likely be viable.'. $\endgroup$
    – kenorb
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 11:35
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    $\begingroup$ I don't see why both kind of questions can't be on-topic Because the OPPOSITION against creating this site argued (correctly) that we already created sites to handle this subject explicitly. The argument FOR creating this site claimed that we have a missing socio-scientific angle that needed filling. Private beta tests if that is a valid premise for creating a NEW site. If the founding community does not live up to those expectations, it creates a strong argument for "I told you so" — that the initiative has failed. Stick to the mission; don't give credence to arguments for closure. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 18:50

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