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AI Quote by Jaron Lanier

“But the Turing test cuts both ways. You can't tell if a machine has gotten smarter or if you've just lowered your own standards of intelligence to such a degree that the machine seems smart. If you can have a conversation with a simulated person presented by an AI program, can you tell how far…” quote by Jaron Lanier
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““But the Turing test cuts both ways. You can't tell if a machine has gotten smarter or if you've just lowered your own standards of intelligence to such a degree that the machine seems smart. If you can have a conversation with a simulated person presented by an AI program, can you tell how far you've let your sense of personhood degrade in order to make the illusion work for you? People degrade themselves in order to make machines seem smart all the time. Before the crash, bankers believed in supposedly intelligent algorithms that could calculate credit risks before making bad loans. We ask teachers to teach to standardized tests so a student will look good to an algorithm. We have repeatedly demonstrated our species' bottomless ability to lower our standards to make information technology look good. Every instance of intelligence in a machine is ambiguous. The same ambiguity that motivated dubious academic AI projects in the past has been repackaged as mass culture today. Did that search engine really know what you want, or are you playing along, lowering your standards to make it seem clever? While it's to be expected that the human perspective will be changed by encounters with profound new technologies, the exercise of treating machine intelligence as real requires people to reduce their mooring to reality.””

Jaron Lanier

About This Quote

Source Speech: Talk at the Future of AI, Jaron Lanier, 2023

The Turing test blurs lines between machine intelligence and lowered human standards, leading us to accept less rigorous criteria for intelligence.

In simple terms: We lower our standards, making machines seem smarter.

Key Takeaway

Maintain rigorous standards when evaluating AI.

Themes

technology ethics humanity

Mood

cautious thoughtful

Type

philosophical critical

When to use this quote

  • education
  • business decisions
  • media consumption
  • policy making

Key Concepts

AI assessment cognitive bias

Questions to Reflect On

  • How do we ensure AI complements rather than replaces judgment?
  • What safeguards prevent standards from slipping?
A Different Perspective

Over‑reliance on AI can erode critical thinking.

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