Namaste Yogis. Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered, mostly correct! Here no question is too mundane. As a bonus, a proverb is also included. Today’s question, was sent by Sahir, from the Caribbean, and he wants to know what’s the difference between weak and strong artificial intelligence?
Sahir, you came to the right place. At your age that’s a brilliant question! Let’s start by explaining weak artificial intelligence (Weak AI). Weak AI is also known as narrow AI. Weak AI refers to AI systems that are designed and trained for a specific task or narrow sets of tasks. Weak AI systems excel in performing predefined tasks but are not remotely capable of true understanding or consciousness. Weak AI is highly specialized and does not possess “human-like” cognitive abilities or general problem-solving capabilities beyond its narrow vision. Think of Weak AI as a horse with blinders capable of only seeing what is directly nearby and in front and nothing else. I’ll offer you examples. Weak AI includes virtual assistants, e.g., Siri or Alexa, recommendation algorithms used by streaming services such as Spotify or YouTube, and chatbots designed for specific customer service tasks, e.g., your financial institution customer help line. Chatbots are mostly annoying and useless, do you agree? Time for Strong AI.
Strong AI, sometimes called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), refers to AI systems with “human-level” intelligence and understanding. Which human, I don’t know and afraid to ask! Lol. Strong AI systems can perform several intellectual tasks. Strong AI systems can adapt to different domains and possess a “primitive” form of “consciousness or self-awareness” based on computations. Strong AI is a long-term goal of AI research and would require the development of AI systems that can reason, learn, understand, and adapt across a wide range of tasks and contexts. Strong AI is currently a theoretical concept, and no AI system comes close to general intelligence. Meaning you can relax–for now! Lol. The best example of Strong AI, or perhaps somewhat Strong AI, is ChatGPT4 by Open AI.
Let’s discuss a central feature of both Weak and Strong AI–prompts. What is a prompt? The term prompt is derived from Latin “promptus”, meaning ready for use. In AI lexicon, a prompt is an instruction to the AI system. A prompt could be simple, ‘Siri play disco music’, for instance, or complex, such as asking ChatGPT4 to explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Holy prompt, Batman! Sahir, can you identify which is the Weak AI and the Strong AI in these examples?
Prompts are critical for two reasons. First, prompts are how we communicate with AI systems. AI systems can’t read our minds! Only through, and thanks to, prompts, can humans interact with Weak and/or Strong AI systems. In other words, prompts are portals into AI systems. Second, the quality of AI interactions depends on precise prompts. Unlike many human interactions, AI systems cannot “know what you mean”. Therefore, AI systems depend on precise prompts. My own experience with ChatGPT4 cements this understanding of AI systems. Try it and give me your conclusion.
We stop here but not before acknowledging two sources for today’s post: Microsoft’s Introduction to AI course and AI: The Future is Now by Nicholas Marty. Today’s proverb is from Haiti, where they wisely say, “A leaking roof fools the sun but cannot fool the rain.
Until Next Time,
Yogi Nelson
Blockchain & AI Forum 