Potemkin Ai: Many Instances Of 'Artificial Intelligence' Are Artificial Displays Of Its Ability In Addition To Potential

One of the problems alongside artificial tidings in addition to its presentation to gild is the icon of omnipresence that many of its detractors ascribe to what is currently a not-so-advanced technology.
That icon is likewise presented past times proponents every bit a agency to moo-cow citizens—see China's totalitarian internal propaganda—into a version of Martin Seligman's learned helplessness. Resistance is futile, mightiness every bit good but curl upwards inward a ball, etc.

I don't convey a lot of fourth dimension for Howard Zinn's approach to history but ane of his ideas seems to affect this point:

“If those inward accuse of our gild - politicians, corporate executives, in addition to owners of press in addition to tv set - tin john dominate our ideas, they volition endure secure inward their power. They volition non postulate soldiers patrolling the streets. We volition command ourselves.”

If y'all recall y'all are ever beingness out-thought past times folks alongside access to all-powerful A.I. y'all volition acquit yourself differently than if y'all don't recall the materials is omnipotent.

From Real Life Magazine, August 6:

Potemkin AI
Jathan Sadowski 

In 1770, the Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen unveiled the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing contraption that “consisted of a wooden cabinet behind which was seated a life-size figure of a man, made of carved wood, wearing an ermine-trimmed robe, liberate trousers in addition to a turban — the traditional costume of an Oriental sorcerer,” according to journalist Tom Standage. The chess-playing robot was toured approximately Europe in addition to America, in addition to exhibition matches were staged alongside such famous opponents every bit Napoleon Bonaparte. All the while, Kempelen maintained that the automaton operated past times its ain accord.

To test at that spot was no trickery, he opened the cabinet earlier every exhibition in addition to showed spectators the dense tangle of gears, wheels, in addition to levers. But Kempelen had genuinely created an elaborate illusion, non a robot. Inside was a human chess master copy who used magnets in addition to levers to operate the Mechanical Turk in addition to hid behind the mistaken mechanism when Kempelen opened the cabinet. In other words, the complex mechanical organization that Kempelen showed people was meant to distract their attending from how the automaton genuinely worked: human labor. Kempelen sold the sentiment of an intelligent machine, but what people witnessed was but human endeavour disguised past times clever engineering.

In the 1730s, a French inventor named Jacques de Vaucanson a copper-pated cyborg called La Canard Digérateur, or the Digesting Duck. It was the size of a living duck, walked similar a duck, in addition to quacked similar a duck. But its existent trick, which amazed in addition to baffled audiences, was that it could shit similar a duck. The automaton “ate nutrient out of the exhibitor’s hand, swallowed it, digested it, in addition to excreted it, all earlier an audience,” every bit journalist Gaby Wood described it inward an article for the Guardian.

Vaucanson claimed that he had built a “chemical laboratory” inward the duck’s tummy to decompose the nutrient earlier expelling it from the mechanical butt. While Vaucanson was an practiced engineer — the duck was an intricate slice of mechanism — similar a goodness magician he did non give away how the duck worked. After his death, the undercover was uncovered: There was no innovative chemic engineering within the duck, rather 2 containers, ane for the nutrient in addition to ane for preloaded excrement. (Strangely, the Digesting Duck in addition to Mechanical Turk were both destroyed past times museum fires approximately the same fourth dimension inward the mid-19th century.)

Kempelen in addition to Vaucanson would fit really good into Silicon Valley today. They could brand mysterious machines in addition to wondrous claims to the populace virtually what they could do. Vaucanson literally snuck shit into his technological organization in addition to called it innovation. And Kempelen’s Mechanical Turk was a forerunner of today’s systems of artificial intelligence, non because it managed to play a game well, every bit alongside IBM’s Deep Blue or Google’s AlphaGo, but because many AI systems are, inward large part, likewise technical illusions designed to fool the public. Whether it’s content moderation for social media or icon recognition for police line surveillance, claims abound virtually the effectiveness of AI-powered analytics, when, inward reality, the cognitive project comes from an share edifice amount of (low-waged) workers.

We tin john telephone band this way of edifice in addition to presenting such systems — whether analog automatons or digital software — Potemkin AI. There is a The rising of 'pseudo-AI': how tech firms quietly piece of job humans to create bots' work".

And previously from Mr. Sadowski in addition to Professor Frank Pasquale a mini-tour de force:
The Spectrum of Control: H5N1 Social Theory of The Smart City