Ask HN: What Is AI? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What Is AI?

1 point30004 comments

hey,

It took Google and the usual suspects years and years, and lots and lots of smart people, and lots and lots of money, to build AI.

So when I for example see here on HN, someone post "I built xyzAI or abcAI" I wonder.... did ya'll suddenly grow a sam altman second brain, or do you mean you use an AI API, or are you perhaps.... just using IF statements like the rest of us and there's not much more intelligence about it than usual.

I'm curious to hear people define AI, because at the moment my prediction is that the acronym will join the likes of blockchain, web3, VR, NFT and so on. All hype and either no one uses it, or it just ends up being for scams.

Buzzword with many meanings. Currently it mostly means LLM hype.

thanks, i agree with this.

<ClaudeResponse>

There probably is some nitpicking going on here. The original poster seems particularly bothered by semantics when the meaning is usually clear from context. When someone says "I built AI" in a typical business or development context, most people understand they mean they implemented or integrated AI capabilities into their project, not that they created a foundational AI model from scratch.

It's similar to how when someone says "I built an app," everyone understands they used existing frameworks, libraries and tools - they didn't create their own programming language or operating system. The focus is on what was created or achieved, not the granular technical details of how every component was sourced.

So while technical precision has its place, getting hung up on the exact phrasing of "built" versus "integrated" or "implemented" probably isn't productive for most discussions.

</ClaudeResponse>

What is intelligence?

Probably something that is able to cut to the heart of the matter.

I appreciate your reply. I'm probably, indeed, nitpicking .I am grumpy by nature.

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