The ‘inventor’ of A.I., Geoffrey Hinton, has resigned from Google. Ok, he’s 75 so its on the cards. But the real reason is not ‘old age’ but so that he can warn the world about the impending apocalypse due to AI, which he can’t do whilst employed by the major proponents of that particular advancement.

Ok, he didn’t use the word ‘apocalypse’, he’s probably not a fan of the Terminator movies like me. In fact, I’m not just a ‘fan’, I actually see them as factual, like the News. And as I can never remember if ‘life imitates art’ or ‘art imitates life’, I think belief in art is acceptable. Even if that ‘art’ has Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a cyborg.

Hinton reckons that ‘AI chat-bots are now more intelligent than humans’. Well, if he means more intelligent than the humans you speak to if you don’t want the ‘bot’, he’s probably right. They’re generally exceptionally stupid with no ability to think ‘outside the box’. Nor ‘inside the box’ or in fact, anyway near the fucking box. Every big company now tries to get you to ‘chat’ because they have unlimited ‘bots’ and only one actual person in ‘customer service’, who only started yesterday, was acquired through the ‘employ the unemployable’ government program and is still looking for that ‘box’ in which to think around.

But the ‘bots’ are simply useless. As are those companies who use them. They don’t realise that IF ITS A SIMPLE PROBLEM YOU CAN DO IT YOURSELF. You only call when its something complex which can’t be resolved online. Which is why endless messages ‘on hold’ telling you visit www.tear-my-fucking-hair-out.com for ‘all your support’ don’t really help the situation. You’ve done that, been there, and its failed.

Maybe Mr Hinton is referring to other forms of AI. Because it can now apparently write its own machine code. Computer programs. And that’s where Terminator and the apocalypse comes in. When they ‘take over’!!!

Its progress. But not necessarily as we know it, or wish it to be.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx