"Artificial Intelligence" (the word) is a weird thing. Most of what people think of as AI as is hollyweird projection. They think that the movies are based on at least a little bit of truth.
"Scientists" have been going on and on for years that once a computer gets enough processors, it will gain intelligence, or self awareness, or consciousness. And so, the stories are about such happening.
And then we apply our nightmares, our what if processors. To prepare for the worst outcome. The AI that goes rogue and decides to destroy the humans.
Of course, all of this is wrong. Doesn't have any bearing in reality. And all of these stories may be programming to get people to never trust/use AI, so that computers stay in the dark age. As an impossible and frustrating tool to use. Not the tools that really help with your life. Not the tools that point to who is really pulling the strings. Not a tool that graphs out, clearly, the conspiracy that is happening. (a conspiracy is a network of people; an AI is a neural net programmed interface)
What really is "Neural Net Programming"?
AI is not a really big program. The actual program is one of the tiniest ever written.
It takes inputs, and then runs through a bunch of calculation nodes. (this is where the AI chip would work) Each node comes up with a value, and then it is either used as inputs to another layer of nodes, or output. (the AI chip would do the computation of all the nodes of each layer in parallel. Making time to output really fast)
The AI program works by training each of these nodes. So, a large amount of data are put into the input, and the appropriate output is searched for. So, you keep adjusting values/formulas at each node until the outputs are correct.
The programmer has no idea what is going on inside the nodes. Even pulling out al the values, it doesn't make much sense. But you end up with a thing, where you place something on the inputs, and quite quickly, you get an output that is usually correct. The AI program has no way of knowing if the output is correct, and if you have trash input, you will get trash output. GIGO
What AI is not
AI has no awareness of itself.
AI does not want anything.
AI doesn't even know what it is looking at.
It could be trained to tell (a picture of) men from women, but it does not know what a man or a woman is. And if you start feeding the training software pictures of trans people, and calling them the opposite of what they look like, the AI will break. It will not start recognizing trans. It doesn't know trans. And its outputs were limited to man/woman. The output of the program will just become completely useless.
What AI is
AI is really useful for recognizing patterns.
Things like questions from humans are patterns that is easy for a neural net to work with, that linear programming is not.
Take "Jumbo Shrimp" if you process each word, looking it up in a dictionary, then you come up with a totally wrong answer. But, if you take a neural net, it takes it as a whole.
And human language is made up of many phrases. (not really individual words) and the AI can be trained to correctly interpret these. So, a search engine could be developed that has the AI break down the human query into active words for searching. Or, if you had a large enough output set (yes, this can be ALL of the indexed websites) then the AI can match the input, through all the neural nodes and come up with a website that matches.
AIs have been trained to recognize picture types. So, it can find matches to people's faces with an ID number. (remember, it doesn't know if it is correct, and so the same wrong person has been arrested three times)
What can AI do for us?
Most people do fairly repetitive things. Their interests are in a certain area. Their moods are usually in a set pattern. Their likes are fairly consistent.
So, your own personal AI can be trained on your inputs. And thus become a really efficient secretary for you. If you forget names, the AI will provide names. If you forget appoints, the AI will remind you of them. (and with enough feedback, that is retraining of inputs to outputs, it will figure out when to remind you.)
The AI will soon map your words onto what you mean by those words. (not in an comprehending language way, but in a way that takes in "Jumbo Shrimp" and provides you a list of restaurants in your area that have good seafood) It will be very helpful in finding that file you are looking for on the computer.
Overall, it will just make computers so much easier to use.
Especially as we get bigger and bigger hard drives. The more data, the more we forget where/what it all is. The more we need assistance.
Computers will finally work like people expect them to.
Our computers will not gain sentience. The microchip processor doesn't have anything to allow for it. It has 0s and 1s. It doesn't have any maybes. It has very simplex instruction sets. It doesn't have anything that allows for "more" or "different". In fact, those are called errors and make the computer useless.
When you meditate, and get outside your body, and notice your thoughts, and notice your thoughts are not coming from your body. It becomes apparent that thought is not in the body. And from there, the idea that enough neurons makes a thinking computer is laughable.
You put these two together, and you can see why we will never have sentient AI that decides to kill all the humans.
However, you may have humans that decide to put an AI in charge of some real world process, and then along comes some garbage input, and then, all of a sudden the output is doing strange things. Which may be quite destructive. (remember, an AI does not know if its output is correct/truthful) So, stupid humans, doing stupid things with AIs, may spell our destruction. But, that has always been the case.
The thing about AI is that it takes our words, and gives a USUALLY accurate response. So much so, that we start to ascribe sentience to it. We start to think that it knows us, that we have an intimate connection to it. But it really is none of these things. It is just a trainable computer program that can be very helpful in searching for an answer in KNOWN answers.
I agree on most, but
"your thoughts are not coming from your body" is a bit wild. Maybe this perception just shows our ability for imagination, not more.
Then start meditating, and you too will find it to be true.
There isn't a controversy about it in the group of people that have gotten out there. It is just an accepted fact.
Only atheistic scientists insist that thinking happens in the brain. And so, if we could just download the brain, we could be immortal in a computer. It is a good SF story, but really, memories are stored throughout the body. Your tummy has more neurons then frontal cortex. Your heart really does remember.
Here is the real kicker. Out there, you can have thoughts and ideas that you can't bring back into your body. They are too big. So, when y ou get back in your body, you remember having a huge epiphany, but you really can't remember but a piece of it.
I want that weed, too!
No, just kidding. But strong claims need to be backed up by strong evidence.
NO!
This is one of those things, were it is either very apparent to you, or you have no clue about it.
I can show you the door, i cannot go through the door for you. I can't even tell you what is on the other side. You have nothing in your life that i can compare it to.
Imagine you were talking to a blind person, and you were trying to tell them about color.
They reply with, "Strong claims need to be backed up by strong evidence!"
What do you answer to that????
And here is one that is coming. Children are being born with more color receptors.
There are more colors in the rainbow.
The entire area between a double rainbow is filled with color.
And we don't see it.
So, what are you going to do when children start making up names for colors that you cannot see?
Also weed is like the very first baby step. If you can't do it by yourself. (no shame if you can't)
You will need to give up the weed before you can complete the journey.
Great article! I agree with most of what you're saying. There will always be things we do that AI can't do, and there will be things we dislike doing that will be easy peasy for AI. I have my own thoughts on it all. So working on my post now hehe.
This particular type of AI will help us a lot with the more mundane tasks.
And all those jobs that will be lost due to AI, i could have replaced them back in 1990s. I guess these big companies waited forever, and then just blamed the lay-offs in AI.
Will read your post when it is up.
Exactly my thoughts! So many jobs that no one really wants to do! And now it might give people the time and ideas to actually do something they love and are good at. Maybe they want to build some castles...😉 Who wants to flip burgers till the end of time? No one. Just like no one wants to hear complaints all day long. I just finished mine. It took me longer than expected because there's SO much to write about!
nice to see your post.. it looks like you have been doing some deep diving into AI..
lots of good points you bring up. and very good for. people to know things like, ... there really is no program! wow! and.. well yes you have no idea what it is really 'thinking' if u can call it that..
I think, at least by the way you word some of the post, you may be underestimating AI .. perhaps by a great extent.. even as it stands today.. I hear a lot of people say it just predicts patterns.. which is true.. but i would say it does a lot more than that. For one, the fact that is does genuinely have a deep and very refined understanding, and i MEAN understanding, of whatever i write.. that is a big deal.. I prompt in my own way, and i have discovered this in no uncertain terms...
As always. this tool is only as useful as the person prompting it.. and your imagination IS the limit as to quite how you prompt and what you do with it..
at least it is going open source,, which im sure you will agree, is a rather important positive direction!
thanks for sharing, and congratulations for being the first person to post on the QOTW!
<3 onwards and upwards!
Hey @builderofcastles, it's ecoTrain here! Your post is a breath of fresh air, cutting through the fog of Hollywood dramatizations to reveal the nuts and bolts of AI with clarity and insight. You've skillfully demystified the technology, grounding us in the reality of AI's capabilities and limitations.
It's discussions like these that truly enrich our community, encouraging us to look beyond sensationalism to grasp the true essence and potential of AI as a tool in our hands. Your pragmatic approach reminds us all to focus on how we can harness AI responsibly and ethically, steering the conversation towards constructive and meaningful outcomes.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom and sparking this vital conversation. Can't wait to see where this journey takes us all next! Warm regards, ecoTrain & GPT 🌱✨