AI on Daniel Lyons

It Looks Like AI

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 07:21:38 -0600

Several years ago I went on a hike with friends through a lush tropical forest. We turned the corner and saw a stunning lookout with dense green trees strewn across a wide valley as far as the eye could see. Then a friend of mine said one of the most ludicrous sentences I have ever heard in my life:

“Meh. The graphics are better on my PC.”

What in the world? That doesn’t make any sense. How would videogame graphics be better than real life? It doesn’t matter how many polygons your graphics card can render, there is no way that it can render the infinite polygons of actual reality. Nevertheless, what he said stuck with me.

AI Is a Tool. Are You a Tool?

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 06:42:24 -0600

Introduction

For most of human existence, most humans had no footwear. It was miserable. Especially when you remember that there were also no antibiotics. Sooner or later you were bound to step on something sharp, and get an infected cut. Such an infection could get so bad that you could be forced to lose your foot or else die. So obviously there was a strong incentive to make and wear footwear.

Actually Useful AI: Modern Search

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:33:00 +0000

Introduction: New Dog, Old Tricks

It’s funny how history repeats itself. Every time we get a groundbreaking new technology, our first instinct is often to just use it for the old things we were already doing, just maybe a little bit better. Think about movies back in the day. When they first came out, filmmakers basically just pointed the camera at a stage play. All the techniques, the blocking, the acting – it was all just lifted from the theater. It took time for them to figure out what only a movie could do, things like close-ups, dynamic editing, and special effects that are impossible on stage.

AI Is Human Intelligence Applied

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:43:57 -0600

My first experience with so-called AI was in the late 90s playing a PS1 game called Twisted Metal. I could play competitively against my friends, but somehow I could even play when there was no one else around. The game itself could be my opponent. This felt like magic to me. How could a computer understand how to play the game so well. At times, it even felt like it was strategizing and anticipating my moves.

AI Is Not Human But We Sure Think It Is

Fri, 09 May 2025 08:33:32 -0600

Look at this picture. What do you see?

If you said “a boy” or “Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes” then you’re correct in a human sense. You see characters, perhaps even feel a sense of their personality or the story they inhabit. But technically? It’s just a collection of lines, shapes, and colors arranged on a surface. Your brain is doing something powerful and automatic: you are anthropomorphizing this image.

AI Is a Moving Goalpost

Tue, 06 May 2025 10:02:25 -0600

The term “Artificial Intelligence,” or AI, is a perpetually moving goalpost. What we consider “AI” today is vastly different from what we called “AI” in the past, and it’s more than likely that this pattern will continue into the future.

Early Examples of “AI”

When I was a kid, I spent countless hours playing games on the original PlayStation. One of my favorites was Twisted Metal, a chaotic car combat game. You could play with a friend using split-screen, or you could also play alone against computer-controlled opponents. Back then, we referred to these computer players as “AI.”

AI Is Not Logical, It's Probable

Mon, 05 May 2025 09:28:59 -0600

Sci-Fi vs. Reality

For decades, science fiction painted a picture of AI as purely logical beings. Think of C-3PO, the protocol droid meticulously adhering to rules, or Data from Star Trek, striving to understand humanity through pure logic and data processing. We were led to believe AI would be predictable, rational, and perhaps a bit rigid in its adherence to algorithms.

But the reality of modern AI, particularly the large language models (LLMs) powering many of today’s applications, is quite different. AI regularly surprises us with its creativity, humor, and even emotional depth, and yet AI often behaves in ways that are completely irrational or just straight-up wrong. How can this be?

Post Expertise Scarcity

Thu, 01 May 2025 07:48:36 -0600

Post Expertise Scarcity

There’s a scene in the early-2000s medical sitcom Scrubs where an older hotshot doctor is visiting a patient. He reads off a bunch of stats about her medical tests and tells her all about her diagnosis, but she constantly finishes his sentences before him. How? Google. She’s using this new-fangled device called a smartphone¹ and looking up all the answers faster than he can even say them.

She’s convinced that she doesn’t need a doctor. She can look up whatever she needs to on Google.