AI effect
Encyclopedia
The AI effect occurs when onlookers discount the behavior of an artificial intelligence
program by arguing that it is not real intelligence.
Pamela McCorduck
writes: "It's part of the history of the field of artificial intelligence that every time somebody figured out how to make a computer do something—play good checkers, solve simple but relatively informal problems—there was chorus of critics to say, 'that's not thinking'." AI researcher Rodney Brooks
complains "Every time we figure out a piece of it, it stops being magical; we say, Oh, that's just a computation."
Pamela McCorduck
calls it an "odd paradox
," that "practical AI successes, computational programs that actually achieved intelligent behavior, were soon assimilated into whatever application domain they were found to be useful in, and became silent partners alongside other problem-solving approaches, which left AI researchers to deal only with the "failures," the tough nuts that couldn't yet be cracked."
When IBM
's chess
playing computer Deep Blue succeeded in defeating Garry Kasparov
in 1997, people complained that it had only used "brute force methods" and it wasn't real intelligence. Fred Reed
writes "A problem that proponents of AI regularly face is this: When we know how a machine does something 'intelligent,' it ceases to be regarded as intelligent. If I beat the world's chess champion, I'd be regarded as highly bright."
Douglas Hofstadter
expresses the AI effect concisely by quoting Tesler
's Theorem: "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet."
When problems have not yet been formalised, they can still be characterised by a model of computation
that includes human computation. The computational burden of a problem is split between a computer and a human: one part is solved by computer and the other part solved by human. This formalisation is referred to as human-assisted Turing machine.
Michael Swaine reports "AI advances are not trumpeted as artificial intelligence so much these days, but are often seen as advances in some other field. 'AI has become more important as it has become less conspicuous,' [Patrick] Winston
says. 'These days, it is hard to find a big system that does not work, in part, because of ideas developed or matured in the AI world.'"
According to Stottler Henke, "The great practical benefits of AI applications and even the existence of AI in many software products go largely unnoticed by many despite the already widespread use of AI techniques in software. This is the AI effect. Many marketing people don't use the term 'artificial intelligence' even when their company's products rely on some AI techniques. Why not?"
Marvin Minsky
writes "This paradox resulted from the fact that whenever an AI research project made a useful new discovery, that product usually quickly spun off to form a new scientific or commercial specialty with its own distinctive name. These changes in name led outsiders to ask, Why do we see so little progress in the central field of artificial intelligence?"
Nick Bostrom
observes that 'A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labelled AI anymore.'"
".
Patty Tascarella writes "Some believe the word 'robotics' actually carries a stigma that hurts a company's chances at funding"
By discounting artificial intelligence people can continue to feel unique and special. Kearns argues that the change in perception known as the AI effect can be traced to the mystery being removed from the system: that being able to trace the cause of events implies that it's a form of automation rather than intelligence.
A related effect has been noted in the history of animal cognition
and in consciousness
studies, where every time a capacity formerly thought as uniquely human is discovered in animals (e.g. the ability to make tools, or passing the mirror test
), the overall importance of that capacity is deprecated.
Herbert Simon
said "What made AI different was that the very idea of it arouses a real fear and hostility in some human breasts. So you are getting very strong emotional reactions. But that's okay. We'll live with that."
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
program by arguing that it is not real intelligence.
Pamela McCorduck
Pamela McCorduck
Pamela McCorduck is the author of a number of books concerning the history and philosophical significance of artificial intelligence, the future of engineering and the role of women and technology. She is also the author of three novels. She is a contributor to Omni, New York Times, Daedalus, the...
writes: "It's part of the history of the field of artificial intelligence that every time somebody figured out how to make a computer do something—play good checkers, solve simple but relatively informal problems—there was chorus of critics to say, 'that's not thinking'." AI researcher Rodney Brooks
Rodney Brooks
Rodney Allen Brooks is the former Panasonic professor of robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1986 he has authored a series of highly influential papers which have inaugurated a fundamental shift in artificial intelligence research...
complains "Every time we figure out a piece of it, it stops being magical; we say, Oh, that's just a computation."
AI is whatever hasn't been done yet
As soon as AI successfully solves a problem, the problem is no longer a part of AI.Pamela McCorduck
Pamela McCorduck
Pamela McCorduck is the author of a number of books concerning the history and philosophical significance of artificial intelligence, the future of engineering and the role of women and technology. She is also the author of three novels. She is a contributor to Omni, New York Times, Daedalus, the...
calls it an "odd paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
," that "practical AI successes, computational programs that actually achieved intelligent behavior, were soon assimilated into whatever application domain they were found to be useful in, and became silent partners alongside other problem-solving approaches, which left AI researchers to deal only with the "failures," the tough nuts that couldn't yet be cracked."
When IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
's chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
playing computer Deep Blue succeeded in defeating Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
in 1997, people complained that it had only used "brute force methods" and it wasn't real intelligence. Fred Reed
Fred Reed
Fred Reed is a technology columnist for The Washington Times and the author of Fred on Everything, a weekly independent column. He also writes books and other material. He has also written for The American Conservative and LewRockwell.com...
writes "A problem that proponents of AI regularly face is this: When we know how a machine does something 'intelligent,' it ceases to be regarded as intelligent. If I beat the world's chess champion, I'd be regarded as highly bright."
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
expresses the AI effect concisely by quoting Tesler
Larry Tesler
Larry Tesler is a computer scientist working in the field of human-computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!...
's Theorem: "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet."
When problems have not yet been formalised, they can still be characterised by a model of computation
Model of computation
In computability theory and computational complexity theory, a model of computation is the definition of the set of allowable operations used in computation and their respective costs...
that includes human computation. The computational burden of a problem is split between a computer and a human: one part is solved by computer and the other part solved by human. This formalisation is referred to as human-assisted Turing machine.
AI applications become mainstream
Software and algorithms developed by AI researchers are now integrated into many applications throughout the world, without really being called AI.Michael Swaine reports "AI advances are not trumpeted as artificial intelligence so much these days, but are often seen as advances in some other field. 'AI has become more important as it has become less conspicuous,' [Patrick] Winston
Patrick Winston
Patrick Henry Winston is an American computer scientist, and is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Winston was director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 1972 to 1997, succeeding Marvin Minsky, who left to found the MIT Media Lab and succeeded by Rodney Brooks...
says. 'These days, it is hard to find a big system that does not work, in part, because of ideas developed or matured in the AI world.'"
According to Stottler Henke, "The great practical benefits of AI applications and even the existence of AI in many software products go largely unnoticed by many despite the already widespread use of AI techniques in software. This is the AI effect. Many marketing people don't use the term 'artificial intelligence' even when their company's products rely on some AI techniques. Why not?"
Marvin Minsky
Marvin Minsky
Marvin Lee Minsky is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence , co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.-Biography:...
writes "This paradox resulted from the fact that whenever an AI research project made a useful new discovery, that product usually quickly spun off to form a new scientific or commercial specialty with its own distinctive name. These changes in name led outsiders to ask, Why do we see so little progress in the central field of artificial intelligence?"
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
observes that 'A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labelled AI anymore.'"
Legacy of the AI winter
Many AI researchers find that they can procure more funding and sell more software if they avoid the tarnished name of "artificial intelligence" and instead pretend their work has nothing to do with intelligence at all. This was especially true in the early 1990s, during the "AI winterAI winter
In the history of artificial intelligence, an AI winter is a period of reduced funding and interest in artificial intelligence research. The process of hype, disappointment and funding cuts are common in many emerging technologies , but the problem has been particularly acute for AI...
".
Patty Tascarella writes "Some believe the word 'robotics' actually carries a stigma that hurts a company's chances at funding"
Saving a place for humanity at the top of the chain of being
Michael Kearns suggests that "people subconsciously are trying to preserve for themselves some special role in the universe".By discounting artificial intelligence people can continue to feel unique and special. Kearns argues that the change in perception known as the AI effect can be traced to the mystery being removed from the system: that being able to trace the cause of events implies that it's a form of automation rather than intelligence.
A related effect has been noted in the history of animal cognition
Animal cognition
Animal cognition is the title given to the study of the mental capacities of non-human animals. It has developed out of comparative psychology, but has also been strongly influenced by the approach of ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology...
and in consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
studies, where every time a capacity formerly thought as uniquely human is discovered in animals (e.g. the ability to make tools, or passing the mirror test
Mirror test
The mirror test is a measure of self-awareness, as animals either possess or lack the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror.The test was developed by Gordon Gallup Jr. in 1970, based in part on observations made by Charles Darwin. While visiting a zoo, Darwin held a mirror up to an orangutan...
), the overall importance of that capacity is deprecated.
Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
said "What made AI different was that the very idea of it arouses a real fear and hostility in some human breasts. So you are getting very strong emotional reactions. But that's okay. We'll live with that."