19 Oct Artificial Intelligence is not Artificially Intelligent

Artificial intelligence is not artificially intelligent.

Is there artificial intelligence in artificial intelligence?  Unfortunately, there isn’t.  Artificial intelligence is just a computer taking data and using its programming to analyze it.  We can’t present a computer with a data set and have it give a result that it hasn’t been programmed to give, at least not yet. 

Today’s AI

Today’s AI only automates what we program it to automate.  It can’t make decisions that haven’t been pre-programmed in some fashion.  This doesn’t mean that the machine’s capabilities aren’t impressive.  But AI is not intelligent enough to make decisions that aren’t pre-programmed into its system.

My Definition of AI

For me, true artificial intelligence means that a machine can see a piece of data and know what to do with it without adhering to any pre-programming or pre-defined outcomes. The reality is that AI cannot produce results outside of its pre-programmed parameters.

Is Speech Recognition Artificially Intelligent? 

It is amazing how well Alexa and Siri recognize voices.  But speech recognition alone doesn’t indicate true intelligence.  The pre-programming in Siri and Alexa just understand my words.  If these devices were actually intelligent, they would know that I want to turn off the lights without me having to pre-program anything.

AI in Marketing Analytics

When using AI in marketing analytics,  marketers need to define the business question for the machine. They need to specify the data.  They need to vet the data.   Lastly, they have to interpret the data and apply the results.  This task is not something that AI  can do, at least not yet.

In the end, it’s not artificial intelligence at work – it’s just programming.