The Hyperbole of Artificial Intelligence
We are in a phase of pomp, circumstance and hyperbole with regard to AI. It may be a useful sociocultural reaction. Or not. Maybe?
If all the bombast, embellishing, hype, huckstering, blathering, doomsaying and induced night terrors of Artificial Intelligence over the past 18 months has left a bad taste in your mouth, there is good news. There’s an AI powered toothbrush to help get rid of that. If it’s left you exhausted, there’s a mattress with AI to help you sleep better. Oh, and there’s an AI pillow for that AI mattress.
I am sure this will be followed by a toothpaste with AI that sets algorithms dancing about your teeth, fighting those cavities and leaving your breath feeling minty clean! And a shampoo that will have AI powered algorithms slipping about your hair follicles so you can wander down the street gloriously tossing your AI enhanced locks everywhere.
We are in a rather funny place with regard to Artificial Intelligence in our consumerist world today. In large part because absolutely no one, well, maybe some computer and neuroscientists, really knows what AI is or even means. And sometimes, they seem at odds with what AI is, or does. Which is kind of interesting in terms of a revolutionary technology coming into the world like a three-year old tearing around on a sugar high.
I’m not lambasting AI tools here. Rather, looking at the pomp and circumstance of AI in a larger, sociocultural sense of how we are perceiving AI and it’s roles in our world. How society and culture reacts to a new revolutionary technology provides insights as to how it will end up being useful in the longer term. Some AI, older AI tools are already quite useful and helpful. We just don’t hear much about them.
Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming about as meaningless a term as digital transformation and the word innovation. We know terms are becoming culturally diluted of meaning when government departments start naming themselves with those words and politicians start tossing them about in stump speeches. Satire aside, this is however, a sign of a technology becoming more broadly adopted into a society.
New studies around AI seem to be coming out every day. Some tell us to pack up our office detritus and go live off grid, Marty and family from Homestead Rescue will be there to help you. Or maybe a robot. But there won’t be a self driving car to take you there. Others tell us AI adoption has been slow and is years off.
The not-so-August Sam Altman, the re-hired CEO of OpenAI, has himself been masterful with his contradictions of AI. His favourite straw man is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Which does wonders for stock price bumps and clickbait articles. And some reaching for an AI therapy bot.
We can take some comfort however, that the threats of Mr. Terminator popping into existence tomorrow are more for stock price bumps and blowing up big balloons of inflated valuations at venture capital firms.
It is not Artificial Intelligence that we should cast aspersions upon. No technology is neutral, all technologies are a double-edged sword and perhaps most importantly, no technology has agency. AI has no clue what it’s being used for, even if you do happen to like your new AI chatbot pal. We are in an age of hyperbolic language.
In a way, we are already fighting the algorithms. For attention and affection. And remember, the code is in the culture and the culture is in the code.
The visceral reaction of culture, like people at a rave, some bouncing around the dance floor on ecstasy and some half zoned out in the parking lot. While others are weeping in the bushes at the approach of doomsday. It’s our nature to react in various ways to any new, impactful technology. With emotions that machines do not, cannot, ever have.
Machines can’t think like humans because they will ever only be machines. Even if by some miracle, they become imbued with consciousness, it will not be the same as ours. This is both amazing and terrifying.
Perhaps embedding the words Artificial Intelligence into toothbrushes, mattresses and pillows will assuage our collective social fears? Perhaps that is the soothing balm culture inherently applies to our social anxieties around technology? When words become diluted, pervasive and common, we lose our fear of them. For AI that could present problems. We may not, if the time comes, take AI tools that could threaten us, seriously. What evils might an AI infused teddy bear whisper in our ears as we sleep? Will our AI pillow counter them?
Meanwhile the ancient AI tools such as Neural Networks, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, are doing rather lovely and quite useful things, guided by much more august computer scientists and engineers. Likely making far more progress in far more interesting ways than making images of dogs in spacesuits.
We are in the age of AI hyperbole, it is everywhere while most everyone has no idea what it means. For the AI companies and tech giants, hyperbole is for stock prices, dividends and CEO bonuses. For consumer products hyperbole is fun for marketing teams and senior management to convince the board they are on it. That yes, even a pillow can in fact, have AI in it.
As always, the hyperbole like the trend, will fade. We have been let down by the hyperbolic promises of many new technologies. In the end, we may just be left with more skepticism for the wild tales the technology giants tell. Perhaps that bit more cynical, feeling played and emotionally exhausted. But at least we will have a good sleep on our AI mattress with our AI pillow to record our dreams. And our nightmares.