What is AI? This is what people had to say
AI is everywhere these days, especially in the Bay Area. Advertisements are on billboards that line the highways and streets; it's on the roads; it's in the palms of our hands. There is a sense of familiarity with it, yet also a lot of apprehension.
Ask people what they think about it?
"It's still a very new technology, still a whole lot of unknowns," said Thomas Williams.
How do they feel about it?
"I guess, I'm afraid it's going to take away people's jobs," said Arlene Kilkenny.
And how to define it?
"It's a really, really smart computer that does extremely crazy things out of your imagination," said Denise Domingo.
There are plenty of different answers, which is understandable, considering how new the technology is to society. Some people use it every day for work; others use it every day without even realizing they're using it.
"Even the experts need to learn more before they bombard us with it," said Kilkenny.
"I feel like we're definitely in front of the curve in adopting it," said Ethan Ellsworth. "I've seen a lot of benefits from it in making things more efficient."
So, we took that sentiment to some of the experts - two professors at the University of San Francisco: Michele Neitz, the Founding Director for the Center for Law, Tech, and Social Good, and Chris Brooks, a Computer Science Professor with decades of experience in artificial intelligence.
"That is a really great assortment of the way in which people are thinking about AI right now," Neitz said. "There's some truth, perhaps, to a lot of it."
"A lot of the fears, which I think are very real, are about the confluence of AI, technology, and capitalism," Brooks said.
For a simple definition of AI, NASA defines it as, "Artificial Intelligence refers to computer systems that can perform complex tasks normally done by human reasoning, decision making, creating, etc."
However, Neitz explained that simplicity is not the name of the game.
"I would define AI as the umbrella term for many different types of advances in technological development," she said. "Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Neural Networks – these are all types, or I would say – fields of development within AI, within that larger umbrella."
Brooks added, "It's a shifting definition. It seems like every time we solve something, the target moves."
Contrary to what people may think, AI itself is not actually new. It's the applications today that are.
"The very first AI workshop happened in 1956, I believe at Dartmouth," Brooks said. "There's been a lot of advances. Some of the things you might have forgotten happened would be Deep Blue defeating Gary Kasparov in chess in the late 90's."
Brooks explained the advances were slow and limited for a while after that.
"For a long time, we were at this plateau. Then really over the last 10 years we've been on this exponential curve. Over the last three, four, we're really starting to see it in the consumer population where your average person is interacting with these tools a lot more," he said.
From ChatGPT and Claude, to autonomous vehicles, to the music streaming services recommend to users – people are interacting with AI regularly.
Brooks says advances in engineering, hardware, and access to massive datasets – combined with the incredible amount of money in tech, meant AI innovation could take off.
"I've been working this area for 30+ years. It's really exciting to see it kind of finally break through. Stuff that I used to think was impossible is now a product," he said. "Being able to deploy these powerful technologies to solve real human problems is exciting to me."
His hope? It is used to benefit society as a whole.
"Use this to solve problems that really matter for our world today," he said. "That sounds really obvious, but it's super easy to forget and to instead focus on maybe efficiency, profits, or focus on making some business process faster at the expense of human comfort and not addressing human suffering."
