Al is my middle name

This is more true literally than practically at this point.

I’ve long been annoyed that “AI” looks too much like “Al” in sans serif fonts.

That is: I’ve long been annoyed that “AI” looks too much like “Al” in sans serif fonts.

My middle name truly is Allen, so Al is my middle name.

On the practical basis, I consider myself knowledgeable in Machine Learning. I formally studied linear algebra and other math behind ML, and I informally studied it. I have informally studied Large Language Models and consider myself well informed but not expert. I have informally studied image generation diffusion algorithms but don’t feel that I really understand how it works.

Long ago I studied AI of the time, LISP, Prolog, expert systems — state of the art a few generations ago.

My opinion of current “AI” is mixed.

ML is great within many areas but has hard limits.

Generative AI is good and original. But the parts that are good aren’t original and the parts that are original aren’t good.

I think it is more accurate to say that the current “generative AI” is really “regenerative AI” or maybe “regenerative a guy named Al”. Like “regenerative breaking” only uses the energy provided by the original acceleration and is not generating anything, the so-called “generative AI” only uses human-generated material. It has no model of the world and no way to assess the accuracy of what it generates.

To the extent that it returns something from its training material, it is good, but when it comes up with something new (commonly but incorrectly called a “hallucination”) it is original but not good. Or it is good only by accident.

I think this will be improved in the future, but use of generative AI is currently dangerously premature. And the societal and economic impacts are subjects for future posts.