The sad thing is that Ben Schneiderman could be right, and AI was but a "tool" all along. However, the fact that we believe that AGI is possible, or the fact that current AI approximates AGI well enough, is enough to disprove his neat separation of the "human" and the "machine." To pass a Turing test, a machine only needs to convince the one using it that it is human, or that it has "consciousness," whatever that means. One could say that current AI hype (and fearmongering) about how it's going to take over, etc. etc, is doing enough damage on its own without AI being anything better than a tool. AI is already replacing jobs because managers believe it will be better, even if it is not better, than humans at their job.
top of page
bottom of page