Two Letters, Infinite Noise
I’m tired of hearing two letters, next to each other. You know which ones I am talking about.
Very ironic, isn't it? That (1) someone who is going into a field focused on the advancement of such technology and (2) someone who genuinely enjoys talking, learning, and using it, among other things, feels this way.
Yet I can’t help but think, the more I read the news or see advertisements, that I am tired of hearing these two letters being placed together.
To clarify, when I say that I'm tired of hearing this acronym, I refer to the fact that it's being pushed onto everyone, across all professions, on every single product (sometimes with no actual need)! You open your email and you can tell that some of the messages in your inbox were obviously generated by it. You go to watch a YouTube video, and the ad is either created by it or is pushing the product itself. You read the news and it appears that we, as humans, are now being compared to it because we 'take a lot of energy to train' in comparison to it.
What makes me sad about this, is that this tool genuinely has a lot of potential, and to me was a mind-blowing development when I first toyed around with it in 2022. We hear promises of curing diseases, solving the most complex neuroscience problems, landing on mars, yet the general focus seems to be on subpar quality advertisements, writing that doesn’t even feel human anymore (side note, but I’m currently reading ‘Freakonomics’ and they use a TON of em dashes, but it was written in 2005 so I know it was 100% human), and a lot less of these transformative use cases.
The funny part is, I do also genuinely believe that this is life-changing work, and that a future where humans are assisted by current available tools is a positive one. I’ve heard so many good stories, and as a user myself, do believe in the potential it has! Yet I just don’t want to hear it about it in every single crevice of the internet, or every billboard, or even while I’m buying food. I almost wish there was a way to detangle the acronym itself and the actual foundational tool from the wave of commercialization that has swallowed it whole.
Now, I know that it is human nature to grab onto whatever new position they are told is the moral high ground (and also the one that brings money), but as someone going into this field I sometimes find myself not even wanting to talk about what I want to do because of fear it might get associated with noise. Again, it’s really cool technology that can open so many doors, but I think it’s deviated so much from the type of systems that I want to build or intelligence that I truly believe has human-level cognition. So in order to combat this, I will come up with a new acronym rather than to be using the buzzword that seems to be everywhere.
This acronym shall focus on the human, or honestly even natural aspect of it (cats are so intelligent and they don’t even have a language!) while emphasizing the fact that it’s modeled around humans. Modeled to be efficient (not relying on tons of money, compute, etc.), modeled to be safe, and modeled to be intelligent (inspired by our brain, that can plan across long horizons, reason, and is intrinsically motivated).
And I’m calling it TI (True Intelligence). While the original acronym does have a point when it talks about the artificial aspect of it, I don’t think we necessarily have to include it on every single system’s name that takes inspiration from living beings. Planes aren’t called artificial flyers or artificial birds. Lamps aren’t called artificial suns. And I could go on for a while, but I’ll save you some time.
I probably won’t actually use this when talking to people (because they have no clue what it is, and is probably silly), but I truly want at least for my own sake to use new terminology. So, if you are wondering, I am working on TI (obviously for the next x or so years of my life). I’m not 100% sold on the name yet, so I might change it, but I do think it encapsulates the fact that its not just modeled around humans, but also every other truly intelligent being out there.
P.S. If you somehow made it through this entire piece without knowing what I was referring to: first, I envy you, and second, a quick search for those two letters will tell you everything you need to know. I will refrain from even mentioning it for the irony and sake of this piece.