Readers React: Don’t call Google’s DeepMind computer ‘artificial intelligence’

To the editor: I was dismayed by the article on Google DeepMind’s computer. It was further evidence of how the media’s naivete regarding the term “artificial intelligence,” or AI, has totally corrupted its meaning. (“AlphaGo beats human Go champ in milestone for artificial intelligence,” March 12)

DeepMind, as well as IBM’s legendary Jeopardy super-champion Watson and numerous other cited AI systems all have the intelligence of a rock. The intelligence of these systems lies in the human intelligence of the programmers that created the systems, not in the systems themselves.

The generally accepted test for true AI is the Lovelace test, which was created, in partnership, by David Ferrucci, who not incidentally was the head of IBM’s Watson development team. A layman’s interpretation of the test is that in order to be considered intelligent, a computer system must be able to repeatedly create something (such as prose, poetry, music, an idea or a joke). Moreover, the creator of the system cannot explain how it was able to accomplish this — that is, it was not done programmatically by the creator.

The computer industry is figuratively light-years away from true AI. Some pundits predict that it will never be accomplished.

So thanks to the media, the term “artificial intelligence” is recklessly applied to systems that, well, AIn’t.

Mark Wallis, Thousand Oaks

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To the editor: When AI worked on chess in early days of computer science, the rationale was that if you could solve chess you could solve anything.

That proved to be false. Improvements in computer power and using learning techniques have evidently solved the much more complex game of Go, but many ask, “So what?” What’s missing is the power to adapt to changing problems without reprogramming.

To me, the field should change what AI stands for: It shouldn’t be artificial intelligence, but autonomous intelligence.

David Wilczynski, Manhattan Beach

The writer is a retired computer science lecturer at USC.

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