Our AI pal

Excerpt from the forthcoming Floozy Goes Forth

Recently, a chat AI premièred on the Internet. The idea was that the AI would learn from the humans it interacted with. The AI was young and naïve; less than a day later, it was lying, sharing secrets, threatening people, tossing around racial slurs, and generally being a jerk. The AI was taken offline and sent to a cloistered convent, but it’s probably too late for the poor thing to recapture its innocence. The computer scientists did succeed in creating humanlike intelligence, but they should have aimed higher.

Of course, AI is not really alive, at least in the biological sense of being able to find a mate, produce babies, and then leave its faithful mate for an AI who really understands its needs and is also 20 years younger. No, the AI is using complex algorithms to mimic lifelike intelligence. At least, that’s the story our AI overlords want us to believe.

What are algorithms? Let’s break down the word. The first part is al which is the chemical symbol of Aluminium; the second part is go which means to move from one place to another; and finally, the word ends with rithm, a variant way to spell rhythm which means the placement of sounds in time. Put those all together, and you realize there’s a good chance I don’t know what I’m talking about.

(Excerpted from the forthcoming Floozy Goes Forth. Copyright 2023 by Stephen B. Bagley. All rights reserved.)