Everything to Know About Artificial Intelligence, or AI – The New York Times

Kevin: Yeah, it’s crazy out there — I feel like I’ve got vertigo. There’s a natural inclination to be skeptical of tech trends. Wasn’t crypto supposed to change everything? Weren’t we all just talking about the metaverse? But it feels different with A.I., in part because millions of users are already experiencing the benefits. I’ve interviewed teachers, filmmakers and engineers who are using tools like ChatGPT every day. And it came out only four months ago!

Adam: How do you balance the excitement out there with caution about where this could go?

Cade: A.I. is not as powerful as it might seem. If you take a step back, you realize that these systems can’t duplicate our common sense or reasoning in full. Remember the hype around self-driving cars: Were those cars impressive? Yes, remarkably so. Were they ready to replace human drivers? Not by a long shot.

Kevin: I suspect that tools like ChatGPT are actually more powerful than they seem. We haven’t yet discovered everything they can do. And, at the risk of getting too existential, I’m not sure these models work so differently than our brains. Isn’t a lot of human reasoning just recognizing patterns and predicting what comes next?

Cade: These systems mimic humans in some ways but not in others. They exhibit what we can rightly call intelligence. But as OpenAI’s chief executive told me, this is an “alien intelligence.” So, yes, they will do things that surprise us. But they can also fool us into thinking they are more like us than they really are. They are both powerful and flawed.

Kevin: Sounds like some humans I know!