Just for Fun: Meet the very Smart "Mr. AI."
Introduction / Purpose
To Honor Humanity as the Tide of Technology Rises. This is the purpose of this website. The concept and the principles of Artigenuity are meant to be a counterbalance to Artificial Intelligence. When I, Darby Checketts, first learned about AI on our horizon, I had three emotions. (1) I was truly awed by the powerful benefits it could represent for humanity. (2) I was somewhat threatened by the potential it would have to intrude in our lives and exert influences that we may not welcome. It could lead to a world of fakery. (3) I was put off by the idea that the arrival of Artificial Intelligence might suggest too much about human fallibility. AI could cause humans to become creatively lazy. We wouldn’t need to think so much. In truth, humans are far more awesome than the smartest robots! We invented the robots. Read my final essay on the last page of this site. It applauds the "I AM" of being human!
Please know that I value Computer Science. We must all value the myriad of immensely helpful high-tech tools that augment human intelligence to help us manage and enhance our existence on a crowded planet in a complex world society.
About Mr. AI: He Can Be Anybody, Be Anywhere, and Find, Create, or Fix Anything.
I love Google Chrome and Microsoft Bing. You can find anything in this world with these powerful research tools. These are an author's dream tools. I would hate to be without them. Seriously. Thanks to the Google and Bing teams of geniuses for augmenting my intelligence.
Then, at the next level, there's Artificial Intelligence with so many amazing benefits to humankind. However, Mr. AI can make stuff up, pretend things are true and real, imitate anybody, and be inside everything. He probably knows stuff about you that you don't recognize about you. He may know how often you change your socks. Mr. AI can make doing your income tax even easier. He can also book you into a poker game in Vegas, and he might help you win. Will his winnings exceed yours?
Excited or Afraid or Both?
Be both! Certainly, Mr. AI will find cures for the most mysterious and devastating diseases and health problems. AI might help to streamline the contentious formulation of the national budget. Mr. AI can monitor the mood you manifest at the end of a grueling day's work. He will recommend the perfect refreshment, lower the lights, and turn on your favorite news channel at 5:25 p.m. With Mr. AI, life can be more organized, trouble-free, and easy. He can complete the budget you were working on for your boss and email it directly to the Accounting Department. You trust Mr. AI, so you didn't read the final draft. You relax. Then you suddenly sit straight up in your easy chair and wonder if your boss might just contract with Mr. AI to do the budget in the future. You'd be out of a job.
Cautions: After a long journey, we are comforted by the thought of home-sweet-home. We also seek a home-safe-home. As modern users of computers and electronic devices, we have two homes: (a) an actual dwelling with a street address that puts a protective roof over our heads and (b) a virtual abode with an IP address--a home computer network--where we go to immerse our heads in a vast world of information. Here are the concerns: Just as we are careful about who we invite into our home sanctuaries, we must carefully consider the virtual guests we invite into our electronic abodes. Will these visitors prove to be amazing electronic partners who help us to manage our family businesses and enrich our personal lives? Might some guests roam too freely within our computer networks to become disruptive, intimidate youngsters, or wake themselves to peruse our files as thieves in the night?
I think Mr. AI is a potentially helpful friend. However, I detect that he may have a malevolent cousin who could exploit the treasures stored inside my electronic world and misuse the information "out-there" in the world to mislead me. There is a new AI world emerging. Artificial Intelligence is here to stay with many potential benefits for humankind, but remember: Mr. AI has a mind of his own. We must carefully “vet” all Mr. AI candidates and resources and expect their creators to provide full disclosure along with the safeguards that might be needed.