As a computer scientist, I can confidently say that most people who confidently say they are well versed in the subject, actually still know little to nothing.
You’re providing a prime example of misunderstanding. The term AI has been in professional use for a wide variety of algorithms, including machine learning and neural nets like LLMs, since the Dartmouth conference in 1956. It’s the people who only know what AI is like from Star Trek and other such sources that are misinformed.
As a programmer intimately familiar with LLMs and training evaluation… would you mind if I rephrased your comment to “How dare you use the common meaning of our obscure industry jargon that’s mostly just marketing bullshit anyways!”
The ship for “What does AI mean?” has fucking sailed. AI is an awful term that, in my experience, is vanishingly rarely used by developers outside of “Robots that will kill us” and “Marketing bullshit” th3 term needs to die - it implies something much closer to “AGI in a mechasuit with miniguns” rather than “My python code can recognize fuzzy numbers!”
Do we have a better word for what has historically been known as AI? I see lots of complaints about X not being AI, but no proposal for what to call them.
I don’t know what you mean by “historical”, because the stuff we’ve got now is what is historically known as AI.
If you mean the Star Trek stuff, though, then the specific terms for those are AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, an AI that’s capable of doing basically everything a human can) and ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence, an AI that’s capable of doing more than what a human can).
We don’t have AGI yet, but there’s no reason to assume we can’t eventually figure it out. Brains are made of matter, so by fiddling with bits of matter we should eventually be able to make it do whatever a brain can. We have an example showing what’s possible, we just need to figure out how to make one of our own.
ASI is a little more speculative since we don’t have any known examples of naturally-occurring superintelligence. But I also think it’s a bit unlikely that humans just happen to be the smartest things that can exist.
the stuff we’ve got now is what is historically known as AI.
Yeah, and people are complaining that we shouldn’t call it AI anymore because the colloquial usage of the word has changed, so I want to know what alternatives exist.
Yes, you’ve provided the terms that I’m familiar with. That’s not what I’m asking for though. I’m asking for alternatives from people who don’t agree with this terminology.
Make something up and try to get it popular enough to matter, if you refuse to use the terms that have already gained traction and that you’re familiar with. As far as I’m aware there’s just AGI and ASI.
If you mean the Star Trek stuff, though, then the specific terms for those are AGI
Even in Star Trek only Data, Lore (and Peanut-hamper) were intelligent, all the computers ran on what is being called ‘AI’ now. Massive DBs and search algorithms.
The ship’s computer could whip up an AGI (Moriarty) in response to a simple command. The Federation later systematized this in the form of emergency holographic officers.
Search algorithms are, depending on the specifics, potentially “ai” now. If we’re tokenizing out vectors and running a straight match query (i.e. postgres full text search) that’s not AI - that’s just string matching. Some of the offerings get into NN guided or LLM powered… these tend to suck though because they’re unpredictable and inconsistent. That may just be the novelty of the technology though, we’ve had decades to work on small word exclusion and language specific dictionary mapping - it’s possible the consistency will get up and, at least when it comes to searching, everything really good already uses weird heuristics so it’s not like we can reason on why specific results are preferred, we just know they’re consistent.
You’re technically correct, but these products are marketed as though they were like Star Trek’s computer. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Google Assistant’s codename was “Project Majel”?
I don’t see what this has to do with the meaning of the term AI.
If a marketing department somewhere starts trying to push the slogan “ice cream for your car!” As a way to sell gasoline, would it make sense to start complaining that the stuff Ben & Jerry’s is selling isn’t actually gasoline?
This is more like all petro-companies and gas stations all coordinated to call gasoline “ice cream” and media pick up the term as well, so that everybody suddenly starts calling gasoline ice cream. Some of us are on the sidelines reminding people that “ice cream” has a distinct and different meaning.
Who can blame them when the industry itself misrepresents its product, starting with the name.
It’s SELF reported “knowing little to nothing”.
As a computer scientist, I can confidently say that most people who confidently say they are well versed in the subject, actually still know little to nothing.
You’re providing a prime example of misunderstanding. The term AI has been in professional use for a wide variety of algorithms, including machine learning and neural nets like LLMs, since the Dartmouth conference in 1956. It’s the people who only know what AI is like from Star Trek and other such sources that are misinformed.
As a programmer intimately familiar with LLMs and training evaluation… would you mind if I rephrased your comment to “How dare you use the common meaning of our obscure industry jargon that’s mostly just marketing bullshit anyways!”
The ship for “What does AI mean?” has fucking sailed. AI is an awful term that, in my experience, is vanishingly rarely used by developers outside of “Robots that will kill us” and “Marketing bullshit” th3 term needs to die - it implies something much closer to “AGI in a mechasuit with miniguns” rather than “My python code can recognize fuzzy numbers!”
Do we have a better word for what has historically been known as AI? I see lots of complaints about X not being AI, but no proposal for what to call them.
I don’t know what you mean by “historical”, because the stuff we’ve got now is what is historically known as AI.
If you mean the Star Trek stuff, though, then the specific terms for those are AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, an AI that’s capable of doing basically everything a human can) and ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence, an AI that’s capable of doing more than what a human can).
We don’t have AGI yet, but there’s no reason to assume we can’t eventually figure it out. Brains are made of matter, so by fiddling with bits of matter we should eventually be able to make it do whatever a brain can. We have an example showing what’s possible, we just need to figure out how to make one of our own.
ASI is a little more speculative since we don’t have any known examples of naturally-occurring superintelligence. But I also think it’s a bit unlikely that humans just happen to be the smartest things that can exist.
Yeah, and people are complaining that we shouldn’t call it AI anymore because the colloquial usage of the word has changed, so I want to know what alternatives exist.
I have provided them.
Yes, you’ve provided the terms that I’m familiar with. That’s not what I’m asking for though. I’m asking for alternatives from people who don’t agree with this terminology.
Make something up and try to get it popular enough to matter, if you refuse to use the terms that have already gained traction and that you’re familiar with. As far as I’m aware there’s just AGI and ASI.
Even in Star Trek only Data, Lore (and Peanut-hamper) were intelligent, all the computers ran on what is being called ‘AI’ now. Massive DBs and search algorithms.
The ship’s computer could whip up an AGI (Moriarty) in response to a simple command. The Federation later systematized this in the form of emergency holographic officers.
Search algorithms are, depending on the specifics, potentially “ai” now. If we’re tokenizing out vectors and running a straight match query (i.e. postgres full text search) that’s not AI - that’s just string matching. Some of the offerings get into NN guided or LLM powered… these tend to suck though because they’re unpredictable and inconsistent. That may just be the novelty of the technology though, we’ve had decades to work on small word exclusion and language specific dictionary mapping - it’s possible the consistency will get up and, at least when it comes to searching, everything really good already uses weird heuristics so it’s not like we can reason on why specific results are preferred, we just know they’re consistent.
Neural networks, deep learning, Generative pre-trained transformers…
Those are all very narrow subtopics within AI. A replacement term for “AI” would have to be more general and include the things you’ve listed.
Nondeterministic Computing. There is no intelligence in what is now called ‘AI’.
That’s even more “wrong,” though. Plenty of AI is deterministic, and plenty of nondeterministic computing isn’t AI.
Counterexample: There exists an optimal deterministic policy for any MDP.
Prep-cook. Magician’s Apprentice. Understudy. Artificial intern.
I use these tools to barf code examples. It’s like asking the prep-cook to get the stock going so you can do other things.
You’re technically correct, but these products are marketed as though they were like Star Trek’s computer. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Google Assistant’s codename was “Project Majel”?
I don’t see what this has to do with the meaning of the term AI.
If a marketing department somewhere starts trying to push the slogan “ice cream for your car!” As a way to sell gasoline, would it make sense to start complaining that the stuff Ben & Jerry’s is selling isn’t actually gasoline?
This is more like all petro-companies and gas stations all coordinated to call gasoline “ice cream” and media pick up the term as well, so that everybody suddenly starts calling gasoline ice cream. Some of us are on the sidelines reminding people that “ice cream” has a distinct and different meaning.