Gigaom AI Minute – June 20

Transcript

I often talk about the word artificial in artificial intelligence. I've speculated on what exactly we mean by the term. Is it artificial like, we made it and therefore it's artificial? Or is it artificial in the way that artificial turf is artificial--it's not really grass, it just looks like it? Now, the interesting thing is that there's another usage of the word artificial. When you talk about a person being artificial we mean by that that they are insincere and they are fake. Maybe this is the most accurate definition of artificial. When an artificial intelligence that you're conversing with, like a chatbot, makes a comment like, "Your joke is funny," or "Good point," or "Interesting," or something like that; it is being insincere and it is being fake. And the question is, is that what we want? Maybe we can't make computers be authentic and have sincerity and actually feel true intelligence and express it, but is what we want for them to imitate that and to be artificial in the way that some people are regarded as artificial?