(p. F2) Steve Jobs once described personal computing as a “bicycle for the mind.”
His idea that computers can be used as “intelligence amplifiers” that offer an important boost for human creativity is now being given an immediate test in the face of the coronavirus.
In March [2020], a group of artificial intelligence research groups and the National Library of Medicine announced that they had organized the world’s scientific research papers about the virus so the documents, more than 44,000 articles, could be explored in new ways using a machine-learning program designed to help scientists see patterns and find relationships to aid research.
. . .
Jerry Kaplan, an artificial-intelligence researcher who was involved with two of Silicon Valley’s first A.I. companies, Symantec and Teknowledge during the 1980s, pointed out that the new language modeling software was actually just a new type of database retrieval technology, rather than an advance toward any kind of “thinking machine.”
“Creativity is still entirely on the human side,” he said. “All this particular tool is doing is making it possible to get insights that would otherwise take years of study.”
For the full commentary, see:
John Markoff. “You Need A.I. to Spell Creative.” The New York Times (Thursday, April 9, 2020): F2.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 8, 2020, and has the title “You Can’t Spell Creative Without A.I.”)