Your buddy, the A.I.

Welcome, friend! Please join me in a bit of speculation.

Imagine you and I (your friend) are discussing books and you mention that Title A is the best book you’ve ever read, and that you happen to own a copy of it.

A few weeks later, as we again discuss books (I, as your friend, know how much you love books), you tell me you are reading Title B, and that it is one of the best books you own.

As an attentive and perceptive friend, I should naturally conclude that Title B is one of the best books you’ve ever read – right?

Title B (hypothetically)

But wait: What if you only own two books? Oh, right – I’m your friend, and I know you love books. I should probably assume you own quite a few. (As if I haven’t seen your extensive library!)

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I suppose you might have read 50 extremely good books in your lifetime, of which you own only one: Title A (which happens to be the best of the best). Title B might fall in a (distant) second tier, and perhaps all the other books in your library are crap – leaving mediocre Title B as the second-best book you own. So many possibilities! Can I really conclude anything about where Title B ranks in your esteem?

Let’s be real: Your buddy would know what you meant. Not “know”, as in “deduce”; “know what you meant” as in “grasp quickly what you are likely getting at”. Your buddy would never expect his buddy – you – to mislead him, intentionally, or to highlight something trivial or of dubious relevance. (“I don’t really care for this book – but I feel you must know it’s one of the best books I own!” Huh?)

The “friend” who tries and fails to prove a theorem about the value you place on Title B, and who therefore fails to grasp that you are saying Title B is really good, isn’t paying the right sort of attention to you. This friend is no confidant. They’ll never be your best buddy.

If artificial intelligence (A.I.) is ever to provide true “personal assistants”, or to collaborate on an equal footing with human coworkers, it has to pay the right sort of attention to its human “friends” (all right, masters). A true A.I. has to absorb and filter all its interactions with each human individual, and, dynamically on the next interaction, determine which of those data provide the most relevant context. It needs the capability of forming and cultivating a relationship with this individual. It needs to form reasonable expectations of this individual, and interpret their behaviour in the context of those expectations.

Let us not lose our perspective on the meaning of “Strong A.I.” If it doesn’t share the strengths of human beings, it isn’t strong – it is brittle.