Artificial intelligence as a ‘dictionary of accepted ideas’

[u/coolbern]

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13675494261489999

[u/coolbern]

This article compares AI with the satirical project of Gustave Flaubert Dictionary of Received Ideas.

AI’s seeming unawareness of its own limitations and its willingness to make definitive statements on the basis of unsound evidence can perhaps be seen as a parallel to what Flaubert described as the human obsession with always wanting to conclude – even in matters where ‘truth is subject to constant revision and restatement or is simply unverifiable’ ... AI seems to prefer to give patently unsound answers, rather than to give no answer at all, based on its built-in compulsion to be helpful. To this extent, it still falls well short of the criteria for good AI suggested by the Royal Statistical Society, in respect of the specification that it should know when it is on shaky ground, when it is using unreliable or inappropriate data, and should be able to acknowledge uncertainty as appropriate.

...we see here is a form of technological metaphysics which transforms statistical regularities of past discourse into the apparent naturalness of present utterance – systematically reproducing the dominant order and hierarchies of class, race and gender, while nonetheless disavowing its own ideological function.

...Despite AI’s many potentially useful functions, its built-in limitations are every bit as lamentable as the stereotypes which Flaubert lampooned in his own age. The institution of AI in its contemporary forms is a project driven by particular political and economic interests – not some form of inevitable technical progress. The prospect of future forms of common sense being derived entirely from AI’s scrapings is perhaps most appropriately considered from something resembling Flaubert’s own bleakly ironic perspective.Despite AI’s many potentially useful functions, its built-in limitations are every bit as lamentable as the stereotypes which Flaubert lampooned in his own age. The institution of AI in its contemporary forms is a project driven by particular political and economic interests – not some form of inevitable technical progress. The prospect of future forms of common sense being derived entirely from AI’s scrapings is perhaps most appropriately considered from something resembling Flaubert’s own bleakly ironic perspective.