TV dinners

Ted Gioia asserts “Most of the predictions about AI have proven dead wrong. You could get more reliable information by consulting tarot cards or an Ouija board.” In his post 10 Brutally Honest Predictions on the Future of AI he presumably eschews the Ouija board; I believe he hopes his ten predictions will be accurate. Most striking to me is his analogy of the arrival of AI-generated texts with the introduction of frozen precooked dinners.* People thought great, how easy, just stick it in the oven for a couple of minutes and you’re done. But some quite quickly realized that the home-cooked variety might be more tasty. My point is not that a home-cooked meal is “better” than a frozen microwaved one, but that we have the capability of making up our own minds about which one we prefer on any particular day. (Plus of course we do have to remember that not every meal has to aim to be the best meal you ever eat, just as not every novel has to strive to top War and Peace.) I do think too…