Artificial intelligence is as important as electricity, indoor plumbing, and the internet to modern society.
In short: it would be extremely difficult to live without it now.
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Yet none of these fantasies have come to fruition.
AI cannot do anything a human cant, nor can it do most things a human can.
But the assumptions driving such systems are faulty at their core.
Its the same with hiring AI.
It might seem difficult to digest.
There are tens of thousands of legitimate businesses peddling AI software.
And a significant portion of them are pushing BS.
So what makes us right and them wrong?
Hiring AI is a good place to start.
There is no formula for hiring the perfect employee.
The bottom line is that AI cant determine more about a candidate than a human can.
At best businesses using hiring AI are being swindled.
At worst, theyre intentionally using systems they know to be anti-diversity mechanisms.
The simplest way to determine if AI is BS is to understand what problem its attempting to solve.
Next, you just need to determine if that problem can be solved by moving data around.
Can AI determine recidivism rates in former felons?
But it cannot determinewhichhumans are likely to commit crimes again because that would require magical psychic powers.
Can AI predict crime?
Sure, but only in a closed system where ground truth crime data is available.
Butwhat about self-driving cars, robot surgeons, and replacing writers?
These are all strictly within the domain of future tech.
And thats because AI isnt the right solution, at least not real AI that exists today.
What is a good driver?
Someone who is never at fault for an accident the entire time they drive?
This is also why lawyers and writers wont be replaced any time soon.
AI cant explain why a crime against a defenseless child might merit harsher punishment than one against an adult.
And it certainly cant do with words what Herman Melville or Emily Dickinson did.
Take Spotify or Netflix for example.
So they make AI systems to do it faster.
Its the same with medical AI.
AI that uses image recognition to notice anomalies or perform microsurgery is incredibly important to the medical community.
But these systems are only capable of very specific, narrow tasks.
The idea of a robotic general surgeon is BS.
Other AI BS to be leery of:
Fake news detectors.
Not only do these not work, but even if they did, what difference would it make?
Furthermore, detecting fake news isnt a problem.
Much like pornography, most of us know it when we see it.
Gaydar:we wont rehash this, but AI cannot determine anything about human sexuality using image recognition.
Basically, be wary of any AI system purported to judge or rank humans against datasets.
