I had some time to think on an eight hour drive yesterday. And, while “AI” is certainly all the rage these days, I’m curious as to what really constitutes AI. I Froalawas using Google Maps to drive back to Germany from Italy at the end of a big holiday week here in Europe. The app was constantly assessing real time traffic data, making predictions about whether the traffic would change (for example a crash that was still several hours ahead of us on the route that Google deemed would be clear by the time we reached it), and suggesting alternative routes and updating our predicted travel time. This is data in/data out. Similarly I’ve used a music program (mostly for jazz) called Band In A Box for maybe 20 years. If I want a band to comp me I can choose the instruments, the style, even a player to emulate (so say I want Art Tatum playing a Moog synthesizer I can get that sound). Again, data in/data out. But none of the so-called AI things I’m seeing seem like more than that to me. It’s still data in/data out. It’s just that tools have a much broader base of knowledge to draw from (more data in equals better data out). It seems like we crossed some major threshold with the way everyone is talking about AI, but to me it seems like we’re just on a continuum and it’s just all a relatively competent Clippy.
What am I missing?