Magazines and newspapers discuss ‘AI’ all of the time. If you read any opinion piece or article about the advances being made in computing and software capabilities, you are almost certain to be reading about something they call ‘AI’.
No explanation!
No definition!
But AI has so many faces, and ChatBots / Large Language Models – as well as the infamous image-altering software – are just two – and are arguably the best known, most insidious, and least useful! And probably the least important.
You are almost certainly using a form of AI already in advanced web search engines and through recommendations such as those made by shopping applications. But you should think also of robotics, statistical analysis, planning, strategy work and games (such as chess) as well as image analysis (that aids research and medical diagnostics) – perhaps the most important AI application. AI is also used in agriculture (crop planning, and automation including the in-field navigation of tractors and control of sowing and fertilisation), to take on repetitive tasks, in environmental modelling and in computer animation, to name but a few. The applications are so varied!
And yet ‘AI’ is used ubiquitously – as shorthand – by politicians and journalists… and most readers probably understand them to be discussing and promoting Chatbots – of which I have written at length elsewhere (pdf). I will not repeat that here except to say again that ChatBots are NOT search engines and do NOT offer facts or information; they are tools that make conversation… and at that they are excellent.
So, writers and politicians, please use the right term for the aspect of AI you wish to discuss and explain exactly what it is that you are talking about!
We need to know!
