The phrase “artificial intelligence” is everywhere. However, increasingly, I see it used in a way that makes me ask “Is that really artificial intelligence?”
This question demands another. What is the definition of artificial intelligence? Do most people have a delineation between good ole’ fashioned computing and the world of LLMs? Does Clippy the Paperclip suddenly count? Of course not
However, let’s follow this line of thinking further. Take this tweet relating to “Chess AI”-
Chess engines have been beating the world’s best humans since Garry Kasparovs game against Deep Blue in 1979. This didn’t spawn from Sam Altman. If you’ve ever played around with Stockfish or any other Chess engine, you’ll realize the extremely limited view of a chess engine. It knows one thing and one thing only- chess. You can’t plug your English homework into the chess engine, and it certainly wouldn’t know how to process that information if you did.
In these conversations however, the word AI is being thrown around liberally. However, in my estimation, any “intelligence” strictly limited to a 64 square board falls significantly shallow of the moniker of AI. While being able to easily clear humans, I don’t find it surprising to discover that a computer can significantly outperform a human in an activity with finite moves (even when that finite move space is extremely vast).
In my eyes, any reasonable use of the words “artificial intelligence” must at least meet the bar that the tool is capable of some form of (even if it is simulated) reasoning. If normal computer programs are trains on a track, I need artificial intelligence to feel like a car on the road. Modern image/video generation does feel like “artifical intelligence” as well by this metric- it can reasonably create a video based on anything you can imagine to tell it.
Why does this matter?
The cynical reader will tell me now that this is just a logical response to the current hype of OpenAI, who are getting investments on the order of hundreds of billions faster than I can keep up. Remove your “Ruthless Capitalist” brain for one minute though, and indulge me in the fact that although these changes push sales and investment, they are fundamentally misleading. Companies are taking their same products and simply trotting them back out with a new coat of shiny AI paint.The problem only gets amplified by the media.
I don’t care to debate the efficacy of these sales practices, but instead, what this implies about the outlook and thoughts of society.
The proliferation of this phrase gives people, especially those with a limited understanding of how these new tools work, a completely misguided view of the current realities of the world. To them, no longer is artificial intelligence a thing of the future, but a ubiquitous reality of our everyday lives. The onslaught of mentions flying across our screens daily crystalizes this concept in the mind.
You can’t escape it! Want to hire a new candidate? Our AI can help you! Find a new recipe? Our AI will get right on it! Need to wash your clothes? AI Washing machine baby!
I mean seriously, isn’t this the dumbest one of all? You require AI to do some basic weighing of the clothes to calibrate the cycle? It's a borderline parody.
I’m not here to make a stand against higher profits for the washing machine companies, but only to point out that the same people buying this hype could be in charge of companies, schools, and government.
Winners and losers will be forged in the race for adoption of AI; the winners will be those who understand the technology, and not only the hype.