Are they really worth the effort ?

[Javier Movellan]

I'd like to have a debate about the advantages of distributed over local
representations. 

I mean sure, distributed representations are great for they work in 2^n
instead of n space, they degrade gracefully and all these PDP Bible type
of things. But ...  are they really that good ? For one thing they make
our life awfully difficult in terms of undertanding and manipulating
them .. .Are they really worth the effort ? Do you have concrete
examples in your work where they did a better job than local
representations ?



Javier