Is Artificial Intelligence Bad for Your Health?

It was only about half a month ago that I continued to pursue “the distorted semantics of ‘artificial intelligence [AI].’” The fact is that, when I write about science and technology in my feeds managed by The Old Reader, citations of AI tend to be more abundant than ever. As readers may recall, I came to grasp the concept of artificial intelligence through both the writings of its earliest pioneer, Alan Turing, and my advisor for both by undergraduate and doctoral dissertations, Marvin Minsky, who ran the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I suspect both of them would turn over in their graves if they knew how Google decided to pick up the baton for AI research and development and run with it. Indeed, Google’s approach to AI recalls Lord Ronald, a fictitious character created by humorist Stephen Leacock who “flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” Google apparently wants AI to summarize complexity, which is a risky undertaking, because it is unclear that Google knows which direction to go.

 

Photograph by Caia Image/Alamy from the Guardian article being cited 

That risk reflects a motto I learned during my time with Minsky: “Every complex question has a simple answer … and it’s wrong!” As Andrew Gregory, Health editor for The Guardian, observed: “People are being put at risk of harm by false and misleading health information in Google’s artificial intelligence summaries.” As a good journalist, Gregory provided Google’s side of the story:

Google said the vast majority of its AI Overviews were factual and helpful, and it continuously made quality improvements. The accuracy rate of AI Overviews was on a par with its other search features like featured snippets, which had existed for more than a decade, it added.

The problem is that, where health is concerned, “on a par” is not good enough. A “matter of life and death” is not resolved through the law of averages!

When I have to make decisions regarding my personal health, I have relied consistently on the University of California at San Francisco for over a decade; and I shall continue to turn to the Internet to satisfy my needs to learn more about music!