Psychoanalysing AI

Desciphering the Internet’s Unconscious

Given the current hysteria around AI (largely fomented by its owners and those who stand to gain from it) is it worth treating it with the seriousness it purports itself to need? Probably not, as most Ai is a dumb-as-rocks ‘if/when’ procedural script that draws from an unregulated pool of data and is not true intelligence as we understand it. Or at least not a complex form of intelligence.

The issue with human intelligence, or what it is that makes humans intelligent, is that it is so hard to define. It’s also not one thing, there are different kinds of intelligence such as cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, pattern recognition, physical intelligence, spatial awareness, memory and recall, and so on. Consequently, Ai only addresses one or two of these forms of intelligence, and even those not very well. It draws from the ocean of data that is the internet but has no understanding of relevance, context or precision so it just regurgitates anything it finds based on the search words. Ironically, this does sound like a part of the human mind but not the higher cognitive functions. No, AI doesn’t behave like our conscious mind, it behaves a lot more like the subconscious.

When people use AI image programs such as midjourney a frequent comment below the picture is that they look “like…