Fuck AI

Speaking about AI, Stallman warned that "nowadays, people often use the term artificial intelligence for things that aren't intelligent at all..."

Ah... Something just dawned on me.

Didn't he … I think I'll just quote Wackypedia for this:

In 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard, he became a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory …

In 1971 there was nothing that was intelligent at all in the world of computing. (And, as is normal, in 99.44% of humanity. This is a constant. 😉) It's almost as if the term "Artificial Intelligence" has never meant, you know, actual intelligence. And it goes on:

He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left the program to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory.

[…] in September 1983. Since then, he had remained affiliated with MIT as an unpaid "visiting scientist" in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Until "around 1998", he maintained an office at the Institute that doubled as his legal residence.

That's an awful lot of "not intelligent at all" places he's worked for or been affiliated with that use the term artificial intelligence...

I like calling them "Bullshit Generators", because that's what they actually are.

No

Exhibit A people are beginning to describe empty, hollow mass produced corporate slop as AI, it has become an adjective to describe worthless trash and I love it.

AI has a very broad definition. Their products are AI.

Yes we say Fuck AI, but when we see it in the wild we call it slop, bot, clanker, or vibe coded, etc.

And starting splitting hairs about naming is very geeky but it doesn't help, as 90% of people have very little concept about what AI or LLM's are in the first place.

It's just a word. It's more important to let people know what this is about and any terms that may be more "accurate" won't do that.

This is why I call chatbots "LLMs" and refer to image and video generators as "slop generators". It isn't AI, a software can't be intelligent.

I disagree with this post and with Stallman.

LLMs are AI. What people are actually confused about is what AI is and what the difference between AI and AGI is.

There is no universal definition for AI, but multiple definitions which are mostly very similar: AI is the ability of a software system to perform tasks that typically would involve human intelligence like learning, problem solving, decision making, etc. Since the basic idea is basically that artificial intelligence imitates human intelligence, we would need a universal definition of human intelligence - which we don't have.

Since this definition is rather broad, there is an additional classification: ANI, artificial narrow intelligence, or weak AI, is an intelligence inferior to human intelligence, which operates purely rule-based and for specific, narrow use cases. This is what LLMs, self-driving cars, assistants like Siri or Alexa fall into. AGI, artificial general intelligence, or strong AI, is an intelligence equal to or comparable to human intelligence, which operates autonomously, based on its perception and knowledge. It can transfer past knowledge to new situations, and learn. It's a theoretical construct, that we have not achieved yet, and no one knows when or if we will even achieve that, and unfortunately also one of the first things people think about when AI is mentioned. ASI, artificial super intelligence, is basically an AGI but with an intelligence that is superior to a human in all aspects. It's basically the apex predator of all AI, it's better, smarter, faster in anything than a human could ever be. Even more theoretical.

Saying LLMs are not AI is plain wrong, and if our goal is a realistic, proper way of working with AI, we shouldn't be doing the same as the tech bros.

I support Stallman's take. I think just saying "Fuck AI" is going to have almost zero effect on the world. I think we need to add nuance, reasoning, be accurate... Tell people WHY that is, so we can educate them. Or convince them to do something...

The term “Artificial Intelligence” has historically been used by computer scientists to refer to any “decision making” program of any complexity, even something extremely simple, like solving a maze by following the left wall.

I like LLMbeciles myself.

Spicy autocorrect

It's the popular term, at the end, the meaning doesn't really matter as long as everybody has the same agreement on what we're talking about.

Don't get too attached to cientific meaning of things.

I think it’s AI. The artificial part is key. There’s no real intelligence there, just like there’s no real grass in an artificial lawn.

I like orphan crushing machine best.

Fuck LLMs

The term "AI" has been used for decades to refer to a broad spectrum of things, often times including algorithms that had nothing to do with machine learning or inference.

Technically, what most of us have a problem with isn't "AI" as a whole, but just LLMs and how companies are trying to replace people with them. I agree that people should be specific, as there's a lot of practical application for machine learning and AI that has nothing to do with LLMs.

But you're not going to get anywhere by trying to change the words people use for these things. We saw a similar thing happen with "smart" home automation devices, and before that it was people complaining about "smartphones" not being actually "smart". But both of those terms are still in common use.

I don't think you'll convince anyone by trying to police the terminology for technical accuracy. The focus should be on the specific problems and harmful effects of how the technology is being used

Standard disclaimer: I do not want to grow up to be like Stallman.

That said, every time I have thought that Stallman was too pedantic about terminology and the risks involved, I have been wrong, so far.

"Slop Constructors" is what I call them. It's good to remember that calling them "AI" helps with the fake hype.

I say LLMs or GenAI but neither exactly rolls off the tongue

Gartner refers to it as GenAI

"AI" was around way before LLMs, and they were used for good stuff, like discovering new proteins and amino acids among many other specialized uses.

I would say there are different categories of AI and I disagree with the statement that LLMs are not AI.

All LLMs are AI, but not all AI are LLMs.

LLMs are trash.