It is not Artificial, it is Technological Intelligence

Since 2016 I have chosen to call AI, Technological Intelligence or TI. I think that the name Artificial Intelligence is being resisted by a large part of humanity purely because of the use of the word ‘artificial’.

As I wrote in this column, “AI Into the Future Part One” , after the triumph of AlphaGo over Sedol in 2016, I looked up the word ‘Intelligence’ in four different dictionaries. None of them used the word human in the definition. Obviously, whales are intelligent, dolphins are intelligence, people even call their pets intelligence, so we accept that “intelligence” exists outside humans. So why do we call it ‘artificial’?

I think that at some sublinguistic or subliminal level, people are resistant to the name Artificial Intelligence. I have asked audiences from some 50 stages around the world to “raise your hand if you prefer artificial over real and no one has ever raised their hands.

I know I am truly swimming upstream on this subject, but I think that humanity currently embraces technology more than ever before. People tend to think of the competing AI bots as technology, so calling it Technological Intelligence makes it much more acceptable.

Here is what Merriam-Webster says are the synonyms of ‘artificial’:

“unnatural, strained, fake, phony, sham, contrived and spurious” to name just a few of a long list of synonyms for artificial.

Here is what Dictionary.com says are synonyms of “artificial”:

“strongest matches: man-made, synthetic, unnatural

Strong matches: counterfeit, manufactured

Weak matches: faked, false, not genuine, imitation.

Intelligence outside humans exists. Even the Universe is intelligent. So why call what will be a transformative technology anything other that Technological Intelligence.

I am confident that if some smart market research firm asked the question of a sample group which they would prefer, Technological Intelligence or Artificial Intelligence, the overwhelming majority would pick TI.

One of the problems of a technology that launches a new human era is simply the name Artificial. It’s not, it’s real!