Stefan Morcov

The engineering view: AI is amazing, but not human. It's a tool. It's not perfect. It works. This text by Andrew Ng is so good, that I'm copying it here. It summarizes so well what we engineers have been saying for so many years. << The loudest voices stoking fears about AI dangers have made tremendous headway in the past two weeks. AI technology has not taken some unexpected, dangerous turn, but the hype around it — propelled by what appears to be a well orchestrated PR campaign — has drummed up considerable fear. I worry that it represents a setback for our field. I have written frequently that fears of AI are overhyped. AI’s capabilities can be uncannily human-like and unpredictable, and it’s rational to worry when people who are directly involved express concerns. But I see the problems as a sign of the engineering work that ahead, rather than insurmountable barriers or the sky falling. AI technology continues to advance — which is a good thing! — but technical ad...

Human-generated slop has a much longer tradition than AI slop. We've generated huge amounts of bullshit, thousands of years. We published useless research papers, plagiarized essays, recycled books and PhD thesis, unreadable marketing PR, junk movies and music, unintelligible abstract or naive art. And it's ok. This is how society functions. We are random, we copy, change, interpret, redesign, learn, and fail, continuously. You have no right to be scandalized by AI slop. We've lived with slop for ages. Be amazed by AI achievements, and accept the AI slop.  Just like we accept human-generated slop, and use and praise our achievements.

People start to hate AI. It's a very interesting phenomenon. Stronger than anything we witnessed before. This negative emotion is tangible - in social media, in communities, in legislation. 4 years ago, AI was a curiosity. 1 year ago, it was still interesting. Now it is ubiquitous - so people started hating it, en masse. The reason is the SPEED of the change. AI is a storm. It doesn't need 100 years, or 10 years - like fire, automobiles, electricity, or email. It changes everything, now. So, we are all scared. And our reaction becomes irrational. It's more irrational than people burning books, when we were afraid of new ideas. More irrational than Samurais, Zulus, and Amerindians charging with arrows and spears, against rifles, railways, and machine guns. Of course, people post-rationalize this irrational hate. It's a typical process: First we feel emotions, than we post-rationalize. And the post-rationalizations are usually exaggerated; extreme. AI is the Devil - or so...

 My (sarcastic) answer ref. the quality and value of art: I recognize only the authority of the Supreme High Council for the Certification of Art Quality. In other words, the quality of art is not a valid, falsifiable, reproduceable question. There are no authorities, standards, or units of measurement for the quality of art. Until five years ago, the definition of art (and of artistic quality) was a rather inconsequential problem. Art quality was a topic for salons of bored intellectuals, who would debate questions such as: what is the value of a painting made by a monkey, or by a child?  In fact, we had quite a few famous experiments with experts unable to distinguish between kindergarten drawings and abstract paintings valued at millions. And here comes AI.  And we make this astonishing discovery, that it is incredibly easy to make art, but incredibly difficult to do science and engineering.  Any monkey or child can draw or sing something that we can then interpre...

I was just asked why I believe in education. The global natality rate just dropped below replacement rate. From now on, the world population is shrinking. Why this is bad? It's not about absolute numbers. It's about the trend. A shrinking, aging population means decay. 5 billion people is not necessarily worse than 10 billion, but the trend is a disaster. It's like a company shrinking. It's still a big company. But it's overweight, bureaucratic, static, disillusioned, lacks energy and stamina. Why is the human population and natality shrinking? Less children, even in underdeveloped countries. Better birth control. Much higher cost for raising children. Our children start working at 25. Our grand parents were productive at 12. It's difficult to raise 3-4 kids until 25. So here comes the question. Why do we educate our kids? Why do we spend 20+ years as parents / taxi drivers / mentors, between school, football, piano lessons, chess and art classes? In short, I be...

Every year, AI becomes significantly stronger. But we keep raising the bar for AGI - "real" Artificial General Intelligence. << Yes, AI is smart, but cannot solve math problems. So it's not real intelligence.>> <<Yes, it solves simple math problems, but not difficult problems. >> <<Yes, it solves complex math problems, but cannot reason. >> << Cannot write poems. Cannot draw. Cannot compose music >> Well, now it can. One year ago, ChatGPT even passed the Turing test for AI. Still nobody noticed. The Turing test is the single most important test for AI. The imitation game. Designed over 50 years ago. The single simplest measurable test of real intelligence. Never passed - at least until last year. Read more about the Turing test: https://blog.stefanmorcov.com/2022/12/can-ai-pass-turing-test-lets-ask-chatgbt.html OpenAI ChatGPT passed the Turing test in April 2025 But we simply raised the bar even higher. "There is no AGI...