Faking It

In an increasingly AI-driven world, renowned expert Toby Walsh examines what the 'artificial' in artificial intelligence truly means.

If you want to understand artificial intelligence, you will have to put aside your preconceptions. You will need to forget all those fanciful ideas Hollywood might have given you – especially the bits about humanoid robots. You aren’t, unfortunately, going to have a robot butler anytime soon. And robots aren’t likely to destroy humanity anytime soon either. We’re pretty good at doing that to ourselves!

You know what intelligence is from being intelligent yourself. But artificial intelligence isn’t going to be like your human intelligence. For one, AI isn’t going to have all your weaknesses. It isn’t going to think as slow as you do. Nor is it going to be as forgetful. And it might not be hindered by your emotions, like anxiety and fear.

Artificial intelligence is about being artificial – about pretending to be intelligent. It is about faking it. This book is about that artificiality. It is partly a strength: by abstracting intelligence, we can hand over many tasks to machines. But it is also a great weakness – and something that should be of concern to everyone.

TOBY WALSH is one of the world’s leading researchers in Artificial Intelligence. He is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales and leads a research group at Data61, Australia’s Centre of Excellence for ICT Research. He has been elected a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of AI for his contributions to AI research and has won the prestigious Humboldt Research Award. He regularly appears on the BBC and writes for The Guardian, New Scientist, and The New York Times.