here’s what ai can’t do

Trashman #1, 1969, back cover, illustration by Spain Rodriguez, from Pierre Ponant’s private collection

essay

by BEAU FRIEDLANDER

 

Writer and publisher Beau Friedlander is the founder of Context Books. He is a regular contributor to “The Huffington Post” and co-hosts, with Adam Levin, the cybercrime podcast “What the Hack.”

 

AI doesn’t have subjective experience. It can simulate emotions but doesn’t “understand” anything. It has no point of view, either, but rather coughs up biases scraped from great shoals of information with a sort of math vibe.

AI doesn’t see, hear, or feel, either, much less flinch.
It processes input as data, not experience. Even when embedded in a robot or physical system, it doesn’t respond reflexively. It would suck in a fistfight and is useless in the real-time complexities of love or war.

AI told me all this when I asked it what it…