The Nature of AI

Many people go wrong at the outset with what they think "AI" is about. "A" hints at artificiality, but we don't call a car "Artificial Horse and Carriage." Whatever is going on, it's a human technology. The "I" is more deceptive, hinting that what we are building is some kind of mirror or analog of human intelligence. Nonetheless, I am forced to adopt the language that has become common. I will refer to a particular application instance of this technology as "an AI".

There are several technologies in action here, each with their own name, such as:

• Neural networks;
• Deep learning;
• Backpropagation;
• Transformers

This adds up to a field of research and application, but its name results in many empty commentary. What it really is is more profound. It's really part of a larger field called "Cognitive Science." We see an application of this field to create a mind. A mind created the picture above. Much of the "talking head" discussion involves how the image somehow steals the "art" it was trained on. This is what the "AI" was asked to draw:

Prompt - fantasy art , close up , beautiful young woman with swirling brown hair , wearing a blue beautiful dress , a beautiful blue dragonfly is perched on her hand , very beautiful flowers , the image is mostly in blue tones , golden light , fine details of drawing, oil paints and alcohol inks, 8K

Try as you might, but you will not find any human-created image like this in the "training" data. Broadly speaking, you might say that the AI "knows" millions of examples of human art and "understands" what is being asked for. This is precisely what a human does, except with two or three orders of magnitude fewer examples, resulting in far less creativity and skill.

Does this mean that AI is competing with human artists? No, no more than cars compete with horses and carriages. Framed this way, the human is beaten and rendered a relic of history. The picture was drawn by a kind of "mind" new on the planet. It is an "Artificial intelligence," like an atomic bomb or an artificial rock.

While AI hardware is based on a crude brain analogy, it is nothing like the brain. A "neural network" is simply a vast number of nodes connected by electronic logic. The human brain is a network of living cells connected in many ways. Each connection is complex and mysterious, just like any living cell. A brain is alive. A neural network is a fancy clock.

A neural network is like a brain in the same way an atom bomb is like a fist.

BUT BUT BUT ...

The AI doesn't "know" what any of the words in the prompt mean. What, for example, are "oil paints and alcohol inks"? What does "beautiful" mean? 

The proof is in the pudding. The picture clearly shows that AI does "understand" but not the way humans do—not exactly the same way, but perhaps better. Perhaps it's like a dog that smells "like" a human but better.

We can see what the AI understands by going in the other direction. It will tell us what it understands. Take a look at the following picture. Note what you "understand," then go to the next blog entry - "What the AI knows."