It has been about three years now since the purported visionaries who engineered the most recent slate of so-called artificial intelligence (AI) programs raced each other to the nearest podium to announce that their particular approach would solve all of humanity’s problems in the next few years. Other than a short declaration that there won’t be any AI-generated content on this site, I haven’t had much to say about AI because the average technology consumer — let alone the average citizen — simply doesn’t know what they don’t know about these applications, and that makes meaningful dialogue impossible. From time to time I have run across earnest attempts to pull back the curtain on what is essentially an industry-wide scam, but those efforts were either flawed by the same ignorance or merely sought to steer AI research in a different but equally dubious direction.

If anything has surprised me over the past three years, it is the speed with which masses of humanity have not only given themselves over to various implementations of AI, but done so enthusiastically, regardless of any potential risk. In retrospect, of course, I should have expected that because the same thing happened with cell phones and smartphones, which are now not only ubiquitous but de facto extensions of their owner’s minds, even as they are also often a demonstrable detriment to sanity. (Present the average consumer with a product which simultaneously generates and resolves an insecurity, no matter how absurd — like the fear of appearing in public without applying a crevice deodorant, or the fear of being thrown in the trunk of a car without a smartphone — and you will have an emotionally dependent customer for life.)

A few weeks ago, however, I happened across a recent lecture by Professor Michael John Wooldridge at the Royal Society, titled This Is Not the AI We Were Promised, and I have to say it’s pretty good on all fronts. If you are interested in understanding what is happening behind the AI curtain in Silicon Valley — and why you may have a persistent feeling that there is less to AI than currently meets the media eye — I think you will find that lecture worth your time.

— Mark Barrett