Is AI AIght Yet?

In the future, we will use AI to cure diseases. But right now, [we’re using it] mostly [for] murder, surveillance, and surge pricing for the McRib.Jon Stewart, John Wilson (The Daily Show, S31E111) [h/t Jim Nielsen] I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that it’s been a weird year for ‘AI’ (or, more specifically, LLMs). Two years ago, LLMs struggled with basic maths problems; last month, a model solved one of the Millennium Prize Problems (winning $1m, for a purported cost of $15m, and potentially by plagiarising the work of a human mathematician). ‘AI psychosis’ went from a niche psychiatric proposition in 2023 to claiming multiple victims (including the president of the US) and being cited in legal briefs by 2025. In 10 years we’ve gone from generating psychadelic images out of dog faces to Shrimp Jesus to surreal Gordon Ramsey cooking videos to really struggling with words that begin with ‘w’ to… well, still incoherent slop of interchanging groups of men angrily shooting at…