Having mentioned artificial intelligence yesterday, I return to the subject again today, and will probably find reason to again soon enough—even though I can hear people’s eyes rolling out of their heads and across the floor from here. But bear with me.
If we think of AI as a tool it gets a bit easier to think about the technology in practical terms rather than in terms of hype and media excitement. As such, it promises to be a bit exciting at first as something of a novelty, but it will become increasingly mundane.
Because it’s a tool, we could think of it as a hammer when Ogg’s next-cave neighbor first invented the device. There were a lot of smashed body parts at first, before people figured out its best practical uses.
It feels like we’re still in the finger-smashing phase, or the phase where everyone sees what it can do and is left feeling unimpressed because, well, it was possible to perform the same tasks as before, so what’s the big deal?
For my part, I can say I’ve struggled to find the right practical uses for AI in my everyday tasks and chores, in the humdrum parts of a human life. I’m still somewhat in the Ooh! and Wow! phase when it comes to recognizing the potential behind demonstrations of AI tricks. I’m still searching for the practical implementations.
I’ll try to post more on some as I try them out for a few hours.
Another use for AI, in which it is more clearly a tool. It is used to identify questionable images in research papers submitted for publication.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/-ignored-community-science-sleuths-now-research-community-heels-rcna136946
I do worry that the uses described in the conversation below will become crutches rather than tools. Giving students notes so they don't have to write them themselves- in the interest of time and attention - means they are far less likely to learn to pick out the important points them and won't get the memory boost that comes with physically writing things down.
The official headcount for the Spanish Ash Wednesday service was 835, but I think they missed all the people lurking in the entryway of the left transept. There were probably 900 total.