If you have been following my posts and comments for any amount of time, you probably already know that I am not really a fan of AI. It's interesting how sentiment on this popular subject spreads all across the board. Folks like @ericvancewalton are mostly excited for the potential it could bring. @tarazkp on the other hand is understandably concerned about where we are heading as a civilization in the wake of AI. Then there are those like his brother @galenkp who are openly and adamantly against AI.
The funny thing is, I don't think anyone is right or wrong. I've heard arguments on many sides and I am open enough that I can see the validity in all of them. Personally, I'm not really impressed with what I have seen so far. Believe it or not, I think working in tech is probably to blame for that.
I was sitting in a meeting the other day with a number of public school district Technology Directors from my region and at least with them, AI is more of a punchline than something to actually be impressed about. I think a large part of that is due in part to vendors. We probably all know that vendors love their buzz words, and right now AI is the biggest buzz word there is.
They feel that simply saying their product uses AI to do this or that is going to make us beg them to take our money. While that might work with principals and superintendents, the tech guys know what's up. Oddly enough, the guy who was most vocal about his disdain for AI is also the same guy that was ridiculing me with the same enthusiasm several years ago when I was talking about Bitcoin.
That didn't age so well for him now did it?
Now, I'm not suggesting that AI is similar to crypto, but it is interesting how the overly "techy" people seem to be the most skeptical about new technologies like this. At least most of the time. @themarkymark would be one exception I can think of. He is actually running his own ChatGPT instance at home I think.
I'd be lying if I said that I didn't use AI. In fact, most of us would probably be lying if we claimed that. If you do a Google search and you don't read past the first little paragraph that Gemini gives you as a response, I'm sorry to tell you, you are using AI. Sure, it's basically just a glorified search engine, but the fact remains.
I say all of this to tell a funny story about Google AI specifically. Most the time I write my posts around the photos that I take. However, occasionally, I have a topic in mind that I don't have photos for. I then go to either my Google Photos storage or my Amazon Prime Photos storage and I do a search for whatever I need.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post that had to do with horses. I can't quite remember what it was, but just trust me on this.
Horses
So I jumped into my Google photos and I typed "horses" in the search bar. Sure enough, along with some other photos, it handed me back the one I shared above.
This photo was actually taken a couple of Springs ago when my wife and I were down in Nashville, Tennessee. We traveled to The Hermitage which is the estate where Andrew Jackson used to live. This building was out on the outskirts of the property and I think it was either a utility building or one of the slaves quarters.
If you zoom out just enough, you might be able to see why the Google AI thought this was a photo of a horse.
Can you see it?
Now can you see it? The funny thing is, now that Google did that, every time I look at this photo, I always see a horse. Feel free to scroll back and forth between the two. I have a feeling you probably see it now too. As I said, the effect works better when the photo is smaller or you are zoomed out, but I still find it amusing how something so far removed from a horse could be perceived as one.
We've all probably heard plenty of stories about how even earlier AI than where we are now was woefully biased when it came to race and gender, but identifying a building as a horse is a whole new level for me.
Clearly, there is still some work to be done, and despite hesitation and doubts, we know that people are going to push forward no matter what. Hubris knows no bounds.
Anyway, that's all I've got for you today. I hope you at least got a little laugh out of this misstep by Google's flawed intelligence.
My Sports Account - @bozz.sports
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced