Automated usefullness

It actually surprises me when people describe AI as having IQ. For example,  the “tests” which found that Bing AI (GPT4) has an IQ of 114 – haha!!

Not sure whether that’s just marketing, or a joke, or what, but I think it’s the wrong frame. Generative has an AI has an IQ of ‘null’ or ‘not applicable’, if anything. Same for EQ.

A child with an IQ of 50 (relative to an adult) can’t defeat Google’s 70 million dollar chess AI, AlphaZero, but they can do something much more intelligent: decide whether or not the game is to be played in the first place.

A better frame for AI-based automation is maybe UQ, usefulness quotient.

The first “UQ technology” I experienced was the automatic door opener at the Safeway grocery store. It had zero IQ but it was massively useful millions of times a day.

Over time, though, it receded into the background of shopper consciousness, taken for granted. This is nice because if users notice something too much, it actually becomes a little bit less useful.

I want the same thing for software built using AI, automatic usefulness that users hardly notice after a few experiences with it.