Smart (part 6) - a world view we don't share

This is the sixth and final post in the Smart series where I have been exploring why so much of the writing about ‘artificial intelligence’ causes me such irritation. I’ve identified so many wordly issues with key terms like intelligence, language, agency, learning, personality, decision-making, etc. You can read previous posts here: 

• Smart (part 1) - now did things get to be smart
• Smart (part 2) - a way with words
• Smart (part 3, an interlude) - toons on AI perils
• Smart (part 4) - convincing or human hacking
• Smart (part 5) - the not-so-secret AI agents

This post will draw on all this previous content. 

Okay, it’s definitely time to stop adding to the plethora of writing about so-called ‘AI’ . 

But before I do, I must spend some time exploring some better names, more accurate names, less misleading names. Alternative names that can help us be smart about this amazing technology. Alternative names that might help us avoid selling off our future cheaply.

Smart (part 5) - the not-so-secret AI agents

First an apology: I know I said I would finish this series with this post, but the word agent started coming up everywhere. I had to explore (just a little more) the latest ways we are being convinced (aka tricked) that a sophisticated program is an agent with human-like intelligence.

In part 4, I explained how the first required step in convincing someone that a thing is intelligent is to convince them that it is an agent – an individual with potential agency over its own actions, behaviours and responses. I highlighted what I called ‘human hacking’: the covert and deliberate programming of Smart ChatBots to use language that implies the existence of an agent, and then relying on humans to do what they always do: impute agency, intelligence, sentience, and even consciousness.

Well, now the techies have abandoned the covert methods, to openly declare that 2025 is going to be the year of the AI agent. 

And here I was thinking 2025 was the Year of Glaciers' Preservation; Peace and Trust; Quantum Science and Technology, and Cooperatives.

Smart (part 4) - convincing or human hacking?

The problem with taking so long to write this Smart series about Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the 34,372 extra articles published on the topic in the meantime! 

Interestingly, though, not much has really changed. I still find most of this writing incredibly irritating and I'm still trying to work out exactly why. Here is a brief summary of my explorations so far.

In Smart part 1, I pointed out that intelligence is a complex concept (and not a thing) created to talk about human abilities. Consequently, our tests of intelligence are based on human attributes and physiological limitations. Intelligence is a contested concept – there is not broad agreement about what it even means. I asked, given intelligence is not a discrete thing in humans, how could we actually know when it ‘appears’ in machines?

In Smart part 2, I explored the concept of language to show why the conversational abilities of ChatGPT and its ilk are easily explained by sophisticated programming and the nature of language use by humans. It’s nothing to do with intelligence. And yet, the tech developers seem to be using the natural language capacity of the smart bots as a (quite flawed) proxy for intelligence. (Smart part 3 was a diversion into some of the fabulous toons on this topic, but now back to being serious!) 

As a reference, I keep coming back to the Turing Test that says if a machine can convince a knowledgeable human observer of its intelligence, then it should be considered to be intelligent. 

In this post, I explore how the focus of recent development has been more on the convincing than on the intelligence part of the Turing Test. Convincing, or perhaps more accurately it could be called human hacking.

Words - betrayed, but still beautiful

So, it's a new year. Wordly Explorations is still holding on, though with a heavy heart. 

In the chaos of contemporary politics, it is the betrayal of words, and then of people through these injured words, that particularly weighs on me. Do people who lie so readily, who misuse and abuse words to advance their personal power, who aim to obfuscate using words that were entrusted with complex and hopeful concepts... do they not appreciate the beauty of language at all? 

Today I read a review of a book, supposedly for children, that presents the most beautiful love letter to words themselves. I felt joy that, yes, many people continue to find words themselves beautiful and mystical and worthy of deep attention. 

While I gather my thoughts to continue the Smart series, I want to reproduce that book review in toto. I do hope the author, Maria Popova of The Marginalian, understands my need to do so. And if you enjoy this review, consider subscribing to her wonderful blog; it's full of interesting and beautiful books described through careful, thoughtful and gentle words.

Below is the full text taken from https://www.themarginalian.org/2025/02/04/the-wordy-book-julie-paschkis/