News Investigation

There Is No A.I.

Apr 2023 🇺🇸 The New Yorker PAYWALLED — LINKED, NOT HOSTED

In this April 2023 New Yorker essay, Jaron Lanier argues that describing large language models and image generators as independent 'artificial intelligence' is misleading and is linked to confused, poorly grounded public debate about the technology. He contends these systems are better understood as tools for statistically remixing human-created material — comparing a model like GPT-4 to 'a version of Wikipedia that includes much more data, mashed together using statistics' — rather than as new thinking entities. Lanier argues that mythologizing the technology as autonomous intelligence, whether celebratory or alarmist, is associated with worse policymaking, and proposes his 'data dignity' framework as a clearer alternative. TechKids Foundation cites this essay for its widely discussed argument that AI terminology itself contributes to public and policy confusion, a theme this library tracks as 'ai-confusion.'

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CITATION

Lanier, Jaron. "There Is No A.I." The New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/there-is-no-ai

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