2022.Nov.14

REPORTS

Report on the 10th B’AI Book Club
Erik J. Larson, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (2021)

On April 26, 2022, B’AI Book Club, a book review session by the members of the B’AI Global Forum, held its tenth meeting online. The B’AI Book Club aims to introduce and discuss the literature that critically examines the relationship between AI technology and society, such as issues of gender equality in the age of AI. At the tenth meeting, Professor Yuko Itatsu of the B’AI Global Forum introduced The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (Harvard University Press, 2021) by Erik J. Larson.

According to Prof. Itatsu, this book argues that it is a myth that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence/strong AI) can be realized and that the very principles of current AI development are misguided, so there is no hope for AGI realization. The argument of this book is that the methods of AI research and the goals that AI research aims to achieve do not match. For example, it is a misconception to think that big data processing can extract rules that humans have not been able to discover so far, he said.

The author also explains the harmful effects of the myth that AGI can be achieved. In other words, the myth of AI restricts human potential by spreading the “rumor” that AI has become superior to humans and that humans have become inferior. The book argues that since methods for programming human-like intuitive logic and common sense thinking have not yet been developed, what is needed now is creative theory building, and that only humans can perform tasks that require this ingenuity and sensitivity.

After the introduction by Prof. Itatsu, there was a lively discussion on questions from a linguistics perspective regarding the discrepancy between the methods and objectives of AI research indicated in this book, as well as much discussion on the importance of evaluating AI research from a bird’s eye view.