Here’s Where the Smart A.I. Money Is Going Next
What I Learned Trying To Automate Answers To Complex Questions
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The crazy thing about what a lot of folks are calling artificial intelligence these days is that it’s not so much intelligence as it is a question-and-answer routine with some very powerful “magic-behind-the-curtain.”
And there’s nothing wrong with that. But let’s peek behind the curtain a little bit, because the magic is what makes the money.
The Dumbest Explanation of A.I. Ever
My machine-learning friends will drag me for this, but the whole concept of artificial intelligence dumbs all the way down to three simple actions:
- Gather input
- Make decisions
- Respond.
The “intelligence” part is something we humans do a million times every day. For example, you’ve read this far down this article and absorbed it, you make a decision, you continue or click away.
The “artificial” part is something computers have been doing since they’ve existed. For example:
- You hit the power button, and the computer receives binary input from a mechanical switch.
- Because the input is binary and the computer is working, it “decides” to power up.
- The computer responds by firing up its bootloader to turn itself on.
My computer scientist friends will probably drag me for that too. I told you it was a dumb explanation.
However, the neat thing about human decision-making is that it’s inconceivably fast. You gather uncountable bits of input data while reading this article, from how much sleep you got last night to your own personal judgment call on every similar article you’ve ever read, and even the meaning you derive from each of the first few hundred words that I used to get you here. You do all this at blinding speed.
Today’s computers are getting faster, approaching blinding speed. They can gather input, make decisions, and respond in nanoseconds. That’s the magic currently printing the A.I. money. But if you want to follow current money to future money, the real question is: How much data is…
