Artificial Intelligence does NOT exist
A case study
I was upping a subscription to NHLTV.com yesterday and I encountered a problem with their website that was preventing me from hitting submit on the payment form. I could fill out the form with my credit card information but the submit button was below the screen and there was no way to access it. I tried a couple of different browsers without success
Against my better judgment (I wanted to watch the Leaf’s game) I clicked help and I got the 'AI powered bot.' and I typed in a very concise explanation of the problem I was experiencing. The bot’s response was ‘contact your bank for payment problems’
I tried explaining the problem in simpler terms - in a way that one might describe a straightforward issue to a mentally retarded 7 year old. Same result ‘contact your bank for payment problems’
The reason the bot responded as such is because that is how the bot was coded to respond. The bot’s ‘intelligence’ was limited to identifying the key word ‘payments’ and firing back the response that was coded into the bot’s computer program. The bot has absolutely zero ability to think - it could only regurgitate the response coded into its program by the computer programmer.
Trying to escape the doom loop I tried typing ‘person’. The bot responded and asked me again what the problem was - over and over and over and over and over. The coder who made the bot did not code the bot to recognize a customer’s frustration and code a response to ‘person’ such as ‘we are connecting you to one of our customer service agents’.
So then I tried typing fuck .. fuck you .. fuck your sister... fuck your mother... hoping the coder had coded in a function that recognized profanity and would connect me with an agent. Nope. Instead the bot was confused and it asked me again what my problem was giving me half a dozen options (coded in by the coder). I selected ‘Other’ then typed in my payment problem. And of course was told to ‘contact my bank’.
Round and round and round and round we went. The bot could not understand my problem because whoever programmed the bot did not code that problem in.
There would be an infinite number of other scenarios that were not coded for. Even if NHL TV employed an army of computer programmers for 100 years working around the clock they could never code in all the potential problems a customer might encounter.
And because the bot is not intelligent - not even as intelligent as a retarded 7 year old - it cannot learn. All it can do is what the coder programmed it to do. It cannot contemplate the details of my problem and self program to deal with the issue. The bot is not stupid because stupidity requires some level of intelligence. A nail gun is similarly not stupid.
I finally sent an email to the site’s customer service and this morning received a response - from a real person - informing me that they had manually processed my payment and would have the programmers optimize the site so that the submit button was not hidden.
Think about this. If a bot does not have the intelligence to solve a very simple problem like the one I encountered, then does that not demonstrate that AI is bullshit? How is it going to solve complex problems?
Like a calculator or a computer, AI can help solve problems but it cannot solve anything independent of the human being who is making use of it.
AI is a tool - a ‘nail gun’. Nothing more. Nothing less.
When attempts are made to have AI act independently of a human e.g. a customer service bot on a company website - it’s complete lack of intelligence is exposed.
Replicates my anger with these "computers" and the idots that design the software and programs. Ever try using Electronic Hospital Records (EHR) or Electronic Medical Records (EMR)? I did during the last few years of practice and it's amazing i didn;t smash the computer. It mad my life hell. Other colleagues agreed.
The problem is that the programmers have no fucking clue how a doctor who is in a clinic needs to a program to run. The programs are designed for what the geeks need to design a software program, just like getting an erector set and just connecting all the pieces into a nonsensical pile of junk.
Basically, they don't know the sequence a doctor would need a computer to perform, so they throw in all the options and the kitchen sink in at every step, "just in case they missed something" so that you are presented with an information overload at every step. The thing that is missing is logic and intelligence.
When I sign in, I would like to start out giving my name, and the list of scheduled patients ONLY. On the next screen, I would select a single patient from the list. Then on the next screen, his medical history and then on the next screen any labs or studies. Don't throw in all the other junk on every screen at every step. Require every programmer to pass a screening/qualifying test to demonstrate his ability in human logic and its application for the niche task. But we don't do that. We have geeks.
And as it applies to cell phones, no wonder the kids are so dumb. They waste all their time learning how to operate their cell phones and not engaging in true problem solving or critical thinking.
It's like the rat that is placed in the maze who has to learn the path to get to the end to collect his cheese reward. Just mindless memory of knowing which way to go at every turn to get a reward, or for humans which key to press and what sequence.
In the same way, think of typing keys on your computer or your cell phone as a series of decisions
the rat makes in a maze. Your reward is the screen or the web site or if you're really brain dead, the videogame. You are the rat! Or those people who can type quickly, you are like the chicken looking to eat seeds and bugs on the ground pecking at your keyboard.
They get away with calling it Artificial 'Intelligence' because most people view intelligence as being book smart.
Ingest -> regurgitate.
Critical thinking is at an all-time low, we are slowly devolving.