What AI can do better - and what not
According to the psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer, artificial intelligence based on the analysis of large amounts of data is not nearly as intelligent as it seems.
Imagine a digital assistant who does everything better than you. No matter what you say or decide, he will correct you. If you come up with a plan for next year, he'll have a more appropriate one. At some point you give up making personal decisions. From now on, the AI will take care of everything perfectly - managing your finances, writing your messages, choosing your life partner and planning when it is best to have children. Packages are delivered to your door with goods you didn't even know you needed. A social worker may contact you because the digital assistant foresaw that your child might develop major depression. And before you rack your brains for a long time about which political candidate suits you more, your assistant already knows that and votes for you. It's only a matter of time before tech companies rule your life and the faithful assistant turns into a super intelligence. Like a flock of sheep, our grandchildren will follow their new master reverently, obediently and obediently.
I have spoken at many popular science events about artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years and have always been amazed at how widespread the unconditional trust in complex algorithms seems to be. Whatever the topic, the tech company representatives assured the audience that a machine could do the task at hand more accurately, faster and cheaper. Even more, by replacing people with software, one can make the world better and more pleasant. For example, we hear that Google knows us better than we know ourselves and that AI can or will soon be able to predict our behavior almost perfectly. Tech companies claim this ability when they offer their services to advertisers, insurance companies or intelligence agencies. We tend to believe them too…
This article is a slightly edited excerpt from Gerd Gigerenzer's new book "Klick: How we stay in control in a digital world and make the right decisions", which has been published by Bertelsmann.
