Artificial Intelligence Still Isn’t All That Smart
Some routine jobs might be at risk someday, but work requiring judgment seems safe.
Can we talk? (That’s probably a silly question.)
Photographer: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesIn the business world, machine learning often goes by the annoying moniker of “artificial intelligence.” That science-fiction buzzword evokes visions of godlike sentient computers, when in fact, the product is much closer to a statistical regression. Machine learning is about using algorithms to predict things — whether a web-security image contains a cat, what a Google user wants to search for, or whether a self-driving car should brake to avoid a crash. No one yet knows how to give a single computer system the mental flexibility to reason and learn like a human being.
But buzzwords or no, the field is hot. AI startups have been getting more and more funding in recent years: