Artificial not immediately a hit

Invented in 1869 by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès at the request of Emperor Napoleon III, artificial butter, or as it’s currently known, margarine, wasn’t an instant hit. It had many iterations. The first artificial butters were colored yellow. Outrage by the butter industry, however, transformed margarine into a DYI project. To turn it yellow, packets or capsules of yellow food coloring had to be manually mixed into the dense, white, blocks of hydrogenated oil.

Margarine has since morphed into tubs, sticks, squeeze bottles, saturated and unsaturated, omega enhanced, gluten free, cholesterol void, and amended with olive oil, buttermilk, and even real butter.

Dime store artificial flowers in the 1950’s were made from thick plastic in solid garish colors, barely resembling anything found in nature, and certainly not found in trendy homes. Today, the stigma of artificial flowers is gone with the wide variety of realistic silk, cotton, and polyester flowers. Meanwhile, the non-biodegradable phony flowers of yesteryear are languishing in landfills, scarcely degraded.

Astroturf, previously only suitable for playing fields, putting greens, and doormats, has matured, and is routinely used to replace lawns in homes and business centers, swept and groomed as if they were giant rugs.

And now, we’ve entered the age of artificial intelligence (AI), which thanks to consumer-friendly ChatGPT and other surprisingly consumer-friendly, AI-fueled apps is rapidly being adopted to provide answers, generate content and images, respond to text, emails, and calls, identify faces, objects, and anomalies on diagnostic images, track goods, ensure consistency in manufacturing facilities, and so much more.

"The greatest danger of artificial intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it." Eliezer Yudkowsky, American artificial intelligence researcher and writer on decision theory and ethics

From a consumer point of view, AI’s swift acceptance might be tied to our willingness to welcome imperfection if the outcomes are greater than the failings.

Unpacking that sentence. As toddlers, we accepted fluffy puppets that talked, rainbow-colored ponies and unicorns, crime-fighting dogs, and a square pant-wearing sponge. As we aged, we suspended belief, accepting what is physically impossible as we watched action thrillers, superheroes, and cartoon characters that fell over and popped back up. We believed in magic, miracles, and unlikely coincidences because we saw it on TV, and in movies. And we became addicted to the genres and media that brought us pleasure.

We’re programmed to accept fiction, whether an improbable love story or a hero that can leap over tall buildings. Our adoration for amusement and self-actualization is strengthened by social media, which presents the real and the fabricated.

We like chatbots because “something” is listening and responding to us, instead of leaving us on hold or suspense. And while chatbots don’t always direct you to the answers and help you need, they’re rapidly becoming better, offsetting the failings.

We appreciate the ability to quickly get answers to questions, strengthen (and correct) our writing with grammar- and spell-checking programs, completion of sentences when we type and text, and delivery of content and ads that match our recent browsing history.

Artificial intelligence isn’t artificial, it’s akin to a phone-a-friend lifeline instantly providing what we crave, whether assistance, explanation, or surreal illustration. ?

Image produced using AI feature of Fotor.com