Here's a phrase I love: human-centered artificial intelligence

I am beginning to really dislike the phrase “artificial intelligence.” It’s one of those terms that has been used so much, in so many different ways, to describe so many different things, that it’s kind of useless now. Kind of like “inconceivable” -

But, today I listened to a podcast hosted by one of my favorite journalists, Kara Swisher, who interviewed Dr. Fei-Fei Li, who created the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Now, that’s a modifier I can get behind! I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement with many things Dr. Li said. She’s not concerned about AI creating killer robots but instead worried about AI can dehumanize people and have unanticipated negative effects upon workers and societies. She’s worried about how AI can aid the creation and spread of misinformation and she’s concerned that AI is currently much more the province of companies rather than academia and universities. (Her statement that she doubts any university could train up a large language model was a shocker to me - very concerning!) The podcast is definitely worth a listen.

Two other quick points: First, Dr. Li joins a growing chorus of expert women who are more concerned about how humans will use AI than they are about whether AI will blow up the world, as many male CEOs are squawking about. That’s notable to me. Second point: she didn’t say much about this, but she seemed more optimistic about how AI can “change” or “fix” education than I am. But that’s a Substack for another day…