If a NN is equivalent to $sophisticated_algorithm, that's a positive, not a negative. It means you can blindly let the NN do your thinking for you, and come out ahead.
You're wrong about training times. You can get great results from far less than 117M params. My tiniest music model (similar to https://soundcloud.com/theshawwn/sets/ai-generated-videogame... but not the same one) was around 2M params. Trained it a couple days on my laptop's old CPU. Worked fine.
I think people love to exaggerate their own importance, and in the importance of theory. There's a certain myth of The Smart Hero, where intelligence alone is the decisive factor that saves a project.
Nope. It's determination. Bet on determination every time. And determined people can get very, very far with NNs.
You're wrong about training times. You can get great results from far less than 117M params. My tiniest music model (similar to https://soundcloud.com/theshawwn/sets/ai-generated-videogame... but not the same one) was around 2M params. Trained it a couple days on my laptop's old CPU. Worked fine.
I think people love to exaggerate their own importance, and in the importance of theory. There's a certain myth of The Smart Hero, where intelligence alone is the decisive factor that saves a project.
Nope. It's determination. Bet on determination every time. And determined people can get very, very far with NNs.