Why True AI Will Never Happen

While it may be "artificial," it is not, nor will it ever be, "intelligence." These algorithms, while powerful, expose for us the hubris of the technologist: that we can breathe life into machines.

Much of our lives are run by technology, and much of technology is run by sophisticated mathematical algorithms. As they have become more powerful, these machines seem to act more alive. This is a lie. A sophisticated lie, granted, but still a falsehood. They are a simulacrum. They seem to be able to write and dialogue with us. They seem to be able to produce art. But all of it is a complex shadow puppet game. There is intelligence involved, but it is not in the machines or the algorithms. The intelligence belongs to the technicians and programmers, the creative, intelligent human beings who invented and made these marvels of technical wizardry. The sooner we divest ourselves of the mythology that has come to surround these amazing machines, and they are amazing, the better able we will be to deal with their place and role in our society.

What is Intelligence?

The only really honest answer to that question is that no one really knows. We see evidence of it in the people we meet all the time. This is where the confusion arises for most. Our perception of intelligence is largely based on what we see and experience in others. But once you look under the hood and ask the question: how does it all work?, things get much more murky. So, you type something into the ChatGPT dialogue box, and within seconds you will start receiving back fairly competent and, at times, sophisticated answers. If you look at surface appearances, it seems to act a lot like an “intelligent” entity. But is it? A clever person of reasonable intelligence can quickly start exposing the flaws and limitations of a program like ChatGPT. But it does, for many, raise a lot of frightening questions. At the top of the list would have to be: will it eventually be able to think on its own?