Artificial Stupidity: A Linguist's Perspective on AI

1203 Words3 Pages

n the article “Artificial Stupidity” linguist Geoffrey Pullum states his opinions on artificial intelligence and how his every day interactions with simple technology affect his opinions on this. He starts his article by reciting a log of the redundancies of specific user-interfaces that he encounters throughout a five day period. Most of these interactions are with simple appliances such as a projector giving a notification that it will go to standby mode in “one minutes” or a self-checkout machine asking him to
“Insert cash or select payment type” after he has chosen to with cash. He then goes on to state that based off these interactions, he’s certain that all technology isn’t capable of communicating with humans on an intellectual level and won’t be for a long time. He …show more content…

What this man doesn’t understand is the process that takes place to make and program these appliances and the decisions that have to be made while creating these user-interfaces versus how artificial intelligence and robotics are developed for interacting with humans. He doesn’t understand that user-interface for basic, older appliances and artificial intelligence operate on a completely different level.
The first thing that Pullum doesn’t understand is that most user-interfaces weren’t made for him specifically. They were made for a wide range of people for a large range of situations. When he talks about the self-checkout line, he points out that the idea of it asking for him to insert his cash or select payment type after notifying the machine that he was going to pay with cash is redundant. He may have changed his mind after selecting cash or accidentally selected the wrong type of payment. This allows users to know that they can still choose a different payment type even after they have made an initial selection. This allows for an easier user experience. Without these prompts

More about Artificial Stupidity: A Linguist's Perspective on AI

Open Document