Artificial intelligence is often overhyped—and here’s why that’s dangerous | Intelligent Machines - MIT Technology Review

AI has huge potential to transform our lives, but the term itself is being abused in very worrying ways, says Zachary Lipton, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. 

Photo: Jake Belcher

To those with long memories, the hype surrounding artificial intelligence is becoming ever more reminiscent of the dot-com boom.

Billions of dollars are being invested into AI startups and AI projects at giant companies. The trouble, says Zachary Lipton, is that the opportunity is being overshadowed by opportunists making overblown claims about the technology’s capabilities.

During a talk at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference today, Lipton warned that the hype is blinding people to its limitations. “It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish what’s a real advance and what is snake oil,” he said...

Lipton isn’t the only academic sounding the alarm: in a recent blog post, “Artificial Intelligence—The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet,” Michael Jordan, a professor at University of California, Berkeley, says that AI is all too often bandied about as “an intellectual wildcard,” and this makes it harder to think critically about the technology’s potential impact.
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Source: MIT Technology Review