What’s going on with AI?

Make Me Smart

Marketplace

News, Business

4.6 • 5.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Artificial intelligence. It’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot. But what are we really talking about?

“Artificial intelligence is not one thing. It’s not a single technology. It’s a term that is applied to all sorts of technologies that vaguely behave like the human brain, and in some cases, aren’t even close to behaving like the human brain,” said Cade Metz, a technology correspondent covering artificial intelligence at The New York Times and author of the book “Genius Makers: the Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook and the World.”

When the artificial intelligence field was created in the 1950s, the aim was to mimic human intelligence. Today, some researchers believe we’re already there or really close. But the thing is, there’s still lots about human intelligence we don’t understand.

On the show today, we’re going to get smart about the state of AI as Metz walks us through how far AI has come, where it’s at, where it’s headed and what it has to do with cat photos!

In the News Fix, Russia is saying the quiet part out loud, and an important marker in the ongoing aftermath of Jan. 6 insurrection.

Then, we’ll hear from a new mom about quiet quitting, and what happened after one listener switched Siri’s voice to the one that sounds like Kimberly. Plus, a TikTok finance wiz answers the Make Me Smart question.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?” from The New York Times
“The ABCs of AI, algorithms and machine learning” from “Marketplace Tech”
“More Than 1 In 2 Americans Will Have An Election Denier On The Ballot This Fall” from FiveThirtyEight
“Russia has cut off gas supplies to Europe indefinitely. Here’s what you need to know” from CNBC
“Couy Griffin: New Mexico county commissioner removed from elected office for role in US Capitol riot” from CNN

Join us tomorrow for Whaddya Wanna Know Wednesday. If you’ve got a question you’d like us to answer, email us at [email protected] or leave a voice message at 508-U-B-SMART.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So Drew can hit his buttons. That's right. It's all about button
0:07.0	Not quite almost
0:10.2	There we go. He's like our version of George Jetson. That's right
0:16.2	Hello, I'm Kimberly Adams and welcome to make me smart where none of us is as smart as all of us
0:21.2	I'm Kai Rizdala. It is Tuesday
0:23.0	That means a single topic on this podcast today artificial intelligence is our subject of choice
0:28.2	Because really what is it people are talking about it? How big a deal all of that stuff we're gonna talk about
0:34.8	Yeah, we want to know how far AI has come not just in sort of the public
0:40.9	Mind and narrative but and the actual technology as well as where it's headed because some researchers have come out saying that they believe in
0:50.0	Some cases AI is just as smart as humans
0:53.1	Kate Metz is the subject matter expert for this Tuesday. He's a technology correspondent covering artificial intelligence at the New York Times
0:59.8	He's also the author of the book genius makers the Mavericks who brought AI to Google Facebook and the World K
1:05.5	It's good to have you on the pot great to be here. Thank you. So look is there a 32nd definition of artificial intelligence that you can offer or is that just a ridiculous question?
1:14.4	Well, I think it's I think it's the the question that needs to be asked and I'll do my best here because this is
1:20.7	This is part of the issue is how you define that term and I think it has just the choice of that term has confused a lot of people
1:29.4	Artificial intelligence is not one thing. It's not a single technology
1:34.3	It's a term that is applied to all sorts of technologies that vaguely behave like the human brain and in some cases
1:43.2	Are even close to behaving like the human brain or if they do vaguely behave like it. They don't do a very good job of it
1:52.1	That's what people need to remember. It's a term that was coined in the 50s the 1950s
1:57.2	It was an aspirational term
2:00.2	Referring to what scientists wanted to build they still haven't actually built that they have not built a system that can behave
2:08.9	Entirely like the human brain. We have technology that can perform specific tasks
	...

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