Artificial Stupidity

I like AI. I like the concept, the programming, the sheer niftiness of it. I like concepts that I barely understand, like data mining and neural nets and all of that. I even like when people who are deep-breathers about AI use phrases like this one: Before too much time goes by we will all have a smart computer with an internet connection in our shirt pocket everywhere we go. Riiiight, I think. Real Soon Now.

I wish that it were true, because if it were, then I think we might be able to make sense out of things that are just inexplicable now. Things like, oh, why aren't greed-driven trends in public finance more visible, instead of coming only to light when they crater, requiring massive public bailouts. And, why does society have a fascination with pre-pubescent girls. What is it about anal sex? For that matter, why are guys perpetually fascinated with women's crotches, the basic design of which doesn't change from person to person? (Leaving aside pubic hair trimming, which I don't understand, either.) And even amazingly complex issues would be addressable, like Who really won the vote in Florida in 2000? All of this would be resolved with simple questions to the BrainOBot MultiCortex. Your question is important to us.....please wait. And then DING! And there's your answer.

But, you know, I don't think we're anywhere close to that. I suspect that in twenty years we'll look at things now and be able to pick out events that in retrospect obviously lead to the dawning of whatever hideous monstrosity or brilliant acheivement is in vogue then, and what was, in the clarity of hindsight, a dead end. The EyePhone, was it? What was that, some kind of visual aid, or what? Just like now we look at Pong and can easily extrapolate from it to Grand Theft Auto IV. Just a matter of scale, right? So its possible that the Great Hive Mind, or HAL, or whatever, does have its little bitty origins percolating right now, somewhere.

You see it? Me, neither.