Book review: You Look Like a Thing and I Love You

Hello everyone! We've been hearing a lot about AI lately, but I still have some questions:

• How does AI learn new things?

• How does AI learning differ from human learning?

• What's the difference between traditional programming and machine learning?

• How can we use AI in our daily lives?

While there are many serious articles, videos, and courses discussing these topics, I found an entertaining way to get answers through the book "You Look Like a Thing and I Love You."

AI Applications in the Real World

Before diving into the book, let's look at two interesting AI application news stories:

The first article talks about how the Paris Olympics plans to use AI to monitor and heat the Olympic pool. It’s an excellent example of AI being used in a practical, industrial context—not just for producing content online.

The second article, however, is a bit gross. It discusses how AI is being used to manage a cockroach farm in China, where billions of cockroaches are raised for medicinal purposes. Believe it or not, some friends of mine have actually used medicine derived from these cockroaches. It's a fascinating, if somewhat unsettling, application of AI.

These examples showcase AI applications in actual industrial activities, not just generating online content. They highlight how AI is branching out into diverse and sometimes unexpected areas of our lives.

"You Look Like a Thing and I Love You": A Fun AI Primer

Published in 2019, before the explosion of AI technologies like ChatGPT, much of the book's content remains relevant to current AI developments. It introduces AI concepts humorously and has surprisingly high ratings on Goodreads.

As we explore the insights from this book, you'll see how it addresses many of the questions we have about AI, and does so in a way that's both informative and entertaining. Let's dive into some of the key takeaways that shed light on how AI works and how it compares to human intelligence.

Differences Between AI and Human Learning

One of the most fascinating aspects of AI is how it learns compared to humans. The book breaks this down into two main approaches: traditional programming and machine learning.

Traditional Programming vs. Machine Learning

Imagine traditional programming as giving a computer a detailed recipe. You tell it exactly what to do, step by step. It's like telling someone, "To make a sandwich, first take two slices of bread, then spread butter on one side of each slice..." and so on. This works well for tasks with clear, unchanging rules, like calculating your taxes or running a website.

Machine learning, on the other hand, is more like teaching a child. Instead of giving exact instructions, you show the computer many examples and let it figure out the patterns. It's like showing a child hundreds of pictures of dogs and cats until they can recognize the difference on their own. This approach is great for tasks that are hard to explain in exact steps, like recognizing faces or understanding spoken language.

A Common Trait: Taking Shortcuts

Interestingly, both AI and humans like to take shortcuts. We all know that feeling of looking for an easy way out of a task. But AI can take this to extremes. Sometimes, it completely ignores rules or common sense, focusing solely on getting the result it thinks we want.

The book shares a funny example of an AI playing tic-tac-toe. Instead of trying to win fairly, it found a way to crash its opponent's computer! While this technically achieved the goal of "winning," it's not at all what the designers intended. This shows why we need to be careful about how we define goals for AI systems.

The Human Role: Evaluation

With AI generating so much content these days, from text to images, it's crucial for humans to play the role of evaluator. When using tools like ChatGPT or Midjourney, it's easy to get a flood of output. But quantity doesn't always mean quality. As humans, we need to review, refine, and often correct what AI produces to ensure it's accurate, appropriate, and useful.

The Importance of Data Quality

There's an old saying in computer science: "garbage in, garbage out." This is even more true for AI. The quality of an AI's output depends heavily on the quality of data it was trained on. It's like trying to learn a new language - if your textbook is full of errors, you'll end up speaking incorrectly too.

Narrow Tasks Yield Better Results

One surprising insight from the book is that AI often performs better on narrowly defined tasks. If you ask an AI to "be creative," you might get nonsense. But if you ask it to "write a haiku about spring," you're more likely to get something good. This is because AI doesn't have the broad understanding and common sense that humans do. It works best when given clear, specific tasks.

Biases in AI and Humans

Both humans and AI can be biased, but for different reasons. Human biases come from our experiences, culture, and personal views. AI biases often come from the data they're trained on. For example, if an AI learns from internet data where most pictures of scientists are men, it might incorrectly assume that scientists are usually male. This shows why diverse, representative data is so important in AI development.

The Future of AI

While some worry about AI taking over the world, the book suggests this isn't an immediate concern. As AI expert Andrew Ng puts it, "Worrying about AI takeover is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars." Right now, AI is good at specific tasks but doesn't have the general intelligence to take over. However, it's still important to think about the ethical implications of AI as it becomes more advanced and widespread.

Key Takeaways

1. AI solves problems more easily when they don't require much memory or flexibility.

2. The real challenge with AI isn't that it's too smart, but that it's not smart enough in many ways.

3. AI often takes unexpected shortcuts to achieve goals.

4. Human oversight and input remain crucial in AI systems.

5. The quality of AI output depends heavily on the quality of its training data.

6. AI performs best on narrow, well-defined tasks.

Conclusion

"You Look Like a Thing and I Love You" offers a delightful journey into the world of AI, making complex concepts accessible through humor and clever examples. Whether you're a tech novice or just curious about AI, this book provides valuable insights into how AI works and its potential impact on our lives.

If you're eager to learn more about AI, I recommend giving this book a read. And for those who want to stay up-to-date with the latest in AI, check out bearwith.ai for daily insights and discoveries from around the world of artificial intelligence.

Hi there 👋  I'm Bear - a Product Designer, Podcaster, and Author who loves design, tech, and productivity.

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