AI And BS

AI is now in the same fantasy phase that online advertising was in 20 years ago. We are being bombarded with horseshit about how AI has made everything so wonderful -- and in the future is going to make everything even wonderfuller.

Here are a couple of spots from AT&T and IBM going all goofy about AI.

And this...

As always with new technology, the benefits are easy to foresee and the dangers are either invisible or willfully ignored. Twenty years ago, when the ad world started to go all gaga over "interactive advertising," who could have foreseen...

• Billions in ad fraud 
• "Pervasive" corruption
• FBI investigations 
• Federal grand juries
• Bot pollution
• Widespread ad blocking
• Privacy nightmares
• Security breeches
• Election tampering
• Secret files about each of us in the hands of people we don't even know exist
• Degradation of journalism
• Fake news 
• and the distrust of governments and the public  

The current mania for AI - and its relentless promotion as our fabulous future - ignores an enormous potential for mischief and danger. The brainless enthusiasm for every flavor of online advertising only cost us money (ok, and maybe a few elections, and our reputation as an industry, and our confidence in democratic institutions, and our privacy rights.) The same wide-eyed stampede into AI could be a lot more costly.

Stephen Hawking said, “Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.” Hawking went on to say that ignoring the dangers of AI “would be a mistake, and potentially our worst mistake ever." AI could "spell the end of the human race".

Hawking is not alone. Elon Musk, hardly a technophobe, says, “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that.” 

Bill Gates, another famous Luddite dinosaur, says, "I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned."

Of course, the simple-minded marketing industry - armed with its usual obsessions and delusions - can't see anything in AI but 1) another miracle to promote, 2) a topic for dreadful gee-whiz "content", and 3) a great new jargon term to insert into every sentence.

This time around, can we please be a little more mature and thoughtful?

Us? Only kidding.