AI Should Stand for “Alleged Intelligence”

by Sharon Kayne

Last week I wrote about a really annoying AI commercial I’d seen during the Super Bowl. Since that blog was about how much it sucked that this commercial portrayed the AI programs as a boon for workers—when, really, it was all about replacing workers—I didn’t get to my other important point. That point being: AI sucks.

Okay, not everything about AI sucks, just most everything about it. Before I go into my diatribe about why, exactly, AI sucks, I must start off with a bit of a compliment: whoever came up with the term “artificial intelligence” gets my kudos for pulling one over on the public. “Artificial intelligence” is really just a sophisticated way of saying “fake smarts.” But the consuming public won’t likely buy a program called “fake smarts,” so the marketing people came up with a much more compelling name. Congrats to them. They’re a lying bunch of bastards, but congrats to them.

The AI marketers are as smart as the folks who came up with the idea of calling off-site computer storage a “cloud.” Now people think their computers are backed up in some ethereal off-world place that is safe from things like earthquakes and fires. But no. All of your so-called “cloud” storage is actually in a physical server sitting in a building somewhere, just as prone as any other storage facility—including your home—to catching fire, having planes fall out of the sky on it, having rats eat its wiring, and being flooded by overflowing rivers. I’m not at all saying you should not back up your computer to an off-site server. Lord knows, I do. I’m just saying you need to understand that it’s not literally floating around in some “cloud.” That’s just the marketing people’s way of making you think your backup is way safer than it actually is.

Much like “cloud” storage, the term “artificial intelligence” gives the users the wrong impression. “Artificial intelligence” is, in fact, a contradiction in terms. It’s like saying “artificial nature.” Something is either artificial or it’s natural. It can’t be both. In order to have intelligence, you must be sentient. If you are artificial, you are not sentient. Computer programs are not sentient. At least not yet (although I’m betting there’s some evil billionaire oligarch funding work on it). Computers do not think. They are simply programmed to recognize patterns. Language is really just a complex collection of patterns. When language is used to create a novel, for example, words are just being used in a new and different pattern. One that takes actual sentient intelligence to understand. Not to mention, some critical thinking skills to appreciate.

What bothers me most about AI is that so many writers have embraced it. AI is really only good for some very basic stuff—and even then, it’s wrong half the time. For example, in one of my novels, I wrote that a character had to “steel” herself—meaning that she needed to make herself strong (as strong as steel) during an argument with another character. My Word program (which contains the only AI elements I ever use) wanted me to change “steel” to “steal.” Which is ridiculous. One can “steel oneself”—and that’s not even a terribly unusual turn of phrase—but one cannot “steal oneself.” To “steal” is to take something that does not belong to you. But you already belong to yourself! I suppose you could “steal away in the night” if you are being held captive, but that was not the context I was using in my book.

Sadly, in that same novel, I accidently typed “waste” when I really meant “waist”—and the alleged intelligence of my Word program completely missed it. It was my mother, thankfully, who caught that one. So, yeah, I don’t think very highly of AI. And I’d rather run my book through a paper shredder than through an AI program. Seriously. At least I know the paper shredder isn’t going to steal my book so that it can “learn” how to shred other books more effectively. (And, yes, did you notice, I used the correct form of “steal” there? That’s ’cause, unlike a computer program, I’m capable of critical thinking.) Other than the annoyance of the occasional steel/steal and waste/waist issue, I’ve had no first-hand experience with AI. Sadly, I recently had a very annoying second-hand experience with it that only cemented my hatred of the program. But that’s a story for another time.

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