Musk, Zuckerberg push to rebrand AI as 'super intelligence' on earnings calls | Hacker News Reader

Musk, Zuckerberg push to rebrand AI as 'super intelligence' on earnings calls

cnbc.com

14 pointspseudolus12 comments

And so the rebranding continues... "artificial intelligence" in the 1950s was used to differentiate itself from "cybernetics". Then once it became unmarketable due to the AI winters, we saw "machine learning", and all kinds of "<term> recognition". Now that we have "AI" as a term for any classifier, people who meant the more ambitious version moved to "AGI". Seems like "super intelligence" just moves the treadmill up another step. Curious what we would call it next.

It's because "artificial" sounds scary. If you think about it, nobody would use "artificial" for branding in any other context.

Who is scared by the word "artificial"? In context, it just means man made. Your car is artificial, it is not natural, does that scare you too?

And it's not like this is a new term, it's been used for 70 years now.

That may be the literal meaning but over 70 years. The term has gotten the connotation of man-made, but in a fake bad way. Your car may be artificial, but no car company advertises anything to do with the car as artificial. Mercedes doesn’t have artificial leather in the car.

To be clear, I think most marketing is dumb. But avoiding the word artificial isn’t completely random.

> But avoiding the word artificial isn’t completely random.

Maybe not completely random, but it is pretty stupid. It's not a scary word, not unless you're afraid of nearly everything around you in modern society. Every bit of technology and construction around you is artificial.

People have artificial valves put in their hearts. Artificial retinas are a developing technology. Artificial joints have been a thing for decades. Homes have artificial stone and wood, for facades and flooring and other things. Rings have artificial diamonds. So scary.

I almost read Musk Zuckerberg. Got confused for a second.

Suck-ups

People are giving Trump too little credit for the one thing he's good at, and the one thing he's outsmarted the tech smarties at: he made them bend the knee, and once they did that with the ballroom donations, a proper bully will make them lick his shoes.

Seriously, that compulsive need to rebrand everything is contagious and is spreading amongst the US "elites".

Like lobbying, but spineless.

They probably are needy of some sort of government subsidy or trying to avoid being charged with something. Massaging balls usually has a reason...

... I mean, if I were Zuckerberg, I'd be waiting to see what happens on Tuesday.

Musk, granted, is probably beyond the point of no return in association with the Trump cult, but if there's a wave election one assumes that Big Tech will be scrambling to distance themselves from Trump.

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