Before you run to buy the next 'AI' stock/ learn the next new 'artificial' skill, here is an unfiltered view on the current hype wave:
- Crowd Information (CI) , not Artificial Intelligence (AI): The algorithm does not 'know' anything about what it produces and gives you. It cannot find or create something on its own but is running multiple mathematical calculations on the past information across internet and other sources to 'guess' what should be each word of the answer you are looking for. Even a self driven car is repeating what 'should' be the action, based on millions of actions it observed. It has no mind or discretion of its own. So if anyone is imagining an artificially intelligent monster behind the screen, you are more likely to find them in a Hollywood horror flick.
- Having found that paying 30% to a toll booth operator like Apple or Android is not good for their own business or ideas, many have shifted to open source and the models that do the mathematical churns are likely to be not 'owned' by anyone. As a corollary, the next best model /algorithm may be free in the open source world. So AI printing bundles of money is currently a dream.
- Any job loss due to AI ( or CI more accurately) is more due to the predictable /biased behavior of humans rather than a sinister plot. We are creatures of habits and it is not very difficult for someone to imitate us at lower cost. Same for the biases and consequences. If we have taken centuries to slowly reduce them, the algorithms will take a bit more time to learn from our behavioral changes.
- Intelligence is a complex idea. There is no uniform definition of what is intelligent. If it is about avoiding errors/mistakes, doing the right thing, finding the most optimal solution etc , all of these are continuously evolving. A masterstroke may become a costly mistake in retrospect and there is always a more optimal solution if we imagine better.
- Artificial: How is anything artificial if it has all been 'learnt' from human actions and is programmed /managed/modified/enhanced by humans all the time?
Like all buzzwords, AI is more a clickbait than what it says. In simple words, as our physical education/yoga teacher says, it is "Observe and repeat"!
