Mustafa Suleyman, a Microsoft executive, recently said that,
The fact that people are unimpressed that we can have a fluent conversation with a super smart AI that can generate any image/video is mindblowing to me
What I find incredible is that Mr. Suleyman has demonstrated one of the most perfect examples of how deluded a person can become. It’s hard to even believe that he has any awareness at all, because he is so caught up in the technical achievement of artificial intelligence.
Personally, I find AI completely unimpressive and rather boring, and a lot of people apparently feel the same way. People like Mr. Suleyman are naturally shocked at this because they have completely forgotten the purpose behind conversation and the creation of artistic imagery, and that is the communication between biological beings. If a computer can do the same, it is exactly like a car beating a human being at the 100m dash. A car can easily beat any of the best runners but that is entirely unimpressive because it lacks the hard work and soul that was put into training to become so fast.
So, it doesn’t really matter whether AI can speak in ten languages fluently and converse as if there were another person sitting behind a keyboard. Even if it could sound exactly human (it doesn’t), then it still would not be impressive because it’s not human.
A car can still be an impressive achievement because at least it does something novel. It can carry heavier loads for us and take us to far away places. But AI? Does it really offer anything new? The key difference between the car and AI is that AI only does things that humans should be doing by themselves: art and expression. At least with a car, you can still enjoy the destination, but with AI there is no destination. It just does what we should be doing.
AI is like a cheat code to a video game. It takes the fun away from the game. It saves time because you can get through the game faster, which is ridiculous because you likely wanted the time to play the game in the first place. Only, the game is real life, and AI robs us of opportunities to feel valued in the world.
The worst thing about Mr. Suleyman’s comment is that he calls AI “super smart”. Is it? Imagine if you met a person who had no real opinions, no personality, no charm, no uniqueness, no real experiences…nothing. Would you call that person “super smart”? But that’s exactly what AI is: a dead machine that has never experienced anything. If AI were food, it would be something with exactly the right amount of protein, fat, carbohydrates, and fiber, but no taste.
There is no place for AI in a biological world. It should not exist here, but does because our society is sick and accepts it. But isn’t AI someone’s achievement, too? Well, imagine if someone had a child and that child loved to draw. Then imagine if the child had to draw something for school, but instead of letting the child draw, the parent ripped up the child’s drawing and just drew something for the child. “Here,” said the parent. “I already learned to draw so you might as well use that.” That is what AI is: a rather embarrassing display of buffoonery, which shows the incredible immaturity, greed, and idiocy of all those involved in its creation.
To be honest, I am rather ashamed that I am even the same species as Mustafa Suleyman and people like him. Although AI is unimpressive, what is even less impressive is that our society rewards people like Mr. Suleyman, instead of locking them behind bars where they belong.