AI Scams Are the Point | The New Republic
November 25, 2024
Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor open their new book, AI Snake Oil, with a thought experiment: Imagine a world where “vehicle” was the only word we used to refer to every mode of transportation. Debates about environmental impact, safety, cost, and so on would be confusing because we would be conflating bikes with spacecraft or trucks with buses. The field of “vehicle technology” would be rampant with scams, propaganda, deceit, and an overwhelming mountain of bullshit. “Now replace the word ‘vehicle’ with ‘artificial intelligence,’ and we have a pretty good description of the world we live in,” Narayanan and Kapoor declare.
I think this is a very pertinent observation. We talk about so many things when we talk about “AI”. I’m strongly on the record about the many valuable uses of these technologies I think they have (and use them extensively), but also very skeptical about the most commonly touted benefits (hint, we get tripped up by the word ‘generative’).
