At a meeting I was at recently, a friend questioned whether we had used a certain technology and what everyone thought of it. I was embarrassed because I did not know what she was talking about. Happily, for me, others in the room also questioned what was being discussed.

The technology my friend was discussing was AI (Artificial Intelligence for those like me) and how some people are actually using it to perform their work, i.e. college papers and letters. Intrigued I went home and watched a “Sixty Minutes” report on AI.

In the report the AI technology was asked to do several things. With lightning speed, it produced stories and articles, with a human like tone to them. Interestingly though, in one of the papers the AI suggested several books to read on the topic. Upon later investigation it was found that the books did not exist. The AI made them up. Perhaps also a human trait?

What I found also quite interesting was the capacity of AI to learn. I watched a computer scientist explain that a certain AI had not been programmed with the language Burmese. But they began slowly questioning the AI in Burmese. The AI taught itself the entire language and within a short time was fluent. Self-learning artificial intelligence sounds very Star Trek to me.

And so I bring us back to the beginning of the blog. Have you used AI? What do you think?