Even though computer tech is one of my geeky interests, I’ve blogged nothing (except this) about the A.I. hype or hysteria this year. Maybe that’s because I see it as overblown on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. I think AI falls somewhere in the boring middle. Else, there’s really just one very important point I like to make.

Artificial

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a misnomer.

Our computers are very capable tools, impressive in speed and power, able to compute or calculate more and faster than a human brain. But it’s a mistake and a disservice to refer to computers as “smart,” “intelligent,” or worst of all, “sentient.”

Why? Simply because machines can’t think or reason. They might be said to have a “brain” — the CPU — but they certainly don’t have a “mind.”

Computers are capable, but they're not conscious.

Computers can’t create. They can produce output — based on certain input — that resembles human creativity or productivity more than ever before, but computers are not intelligent or becoming self-aware.

So I think it’s dangerous to ascribe undue smarts to a computer or falsely personify it.

Anthropomorphize

Yet that’s something we humans like to do; we anthropomorphize. I see two reasons why we attribute human-like characteristics to seemingly smart devices.

One, it’s simply common for mankind to relate to inanimate objects as if they’re otherwise. People name their vehicle, for example. Or someone will say about a Ford Mustang, “She’s a beauty.” Humans, relational creatures by nature, find it easier to relate to other things when we think or feel they’re more like persons and less like things.

It’s also just easy to say my phone is “smart” as a shorthand way to mean it’s very capable. And when my phone doesn’t function the right way, I get upset and say something like, “My stupid phone isn’t working.” Of course, my phone wasn’t smart and then suddenly became dumb; it never had any intelligence or consciousness at all.

Two, the key way people relate to others is through communication — language — whether the spoken or written word. And the latest advances in AI happen to be based in “conversation” or “chats.” (Large Language Models.)

So now a person can feel (and maybe then think) like they’re having a real contextual conversation with a computer, thus it may be a “real” being on some level, like in the movie her.

Hype or Hysteria

The news media tends to sensationalize events or facts. So it’s no surprise that responses to the impressive ‘chats’ of AI tend to be either hype or hysteria.

The hype is that AI is going to change everything for the better, ushering in the Singularity or whatever. Or at least, it will make our lives far easier.

Conversely, the hysteria is that computers will become self-aware and kill off humans like in The Terminator. If not that, then the fear is that “white-collar” knowledge-worker jobs are about to be made obsolete, like automated robots stealing jobs from “blue-collar” factory workers, leaving them unemployed forever.

But the truth is likely found in between those extremes. AI is a great new tech tool that can help you write your term paper or report. That’s pretty innocuous and kind of boring. It may signal a change, but I doubt it’ll be huge.

Authentic Intuition or Ingenuity

I have not used ChatGPT or any of the recent language-model programs. Why not? It would save me time and energy if I gave the program some input parameters for my blog posts and let it draft for me. Then as an editor, I could just polish and publish.

No, thanks.

Here’s the thing. It’s common for people, like me, to think in order to write, and write in order to think.

I don’t want a computer to write for me because I don’t want a computer — that can’t think — to think for me.

The writing process is a means of thinking through stuff. I love to write because it’s a concrete way for me to think through my thoughts, seeing them out in front of me as I think through them. Drafting a blog post or a journal entry can be therapeutic, cathartic, or satisfying to my thoughts or emotions. My mind can gain insight or understanding; my heart can feel relieved or fulfilled.

If writing is necessary to human flourishing, then I can’t let a computer take that from me. To think is to be human; writing is a manifestation of thinking, of being human.

A computer can resemble writing and thus imitate thinking and thus appear to be human. But make no mistake: artificial intelligence isn’t really smart.