6.1 capitol

The Google image search with the query "AI" brought us almost exclusively brains made of circuits. After scrolling down a bit, we also got some shining white humanoid robots, often in a very pensive state. The color blue is dominant. Based on this, the impression would be that AI is about tinkering with wires and circuits, trying to build an electronic brain in some modern Frankenstein spirit. Not much color, not much fun.

We don't think that this is an accurate representation of AI at all! AI is about solving practical, human problems, in our everyday life: better music, more interesting and important news, making new friends. Even the research side of AI, which is not what most of the Google hits are about, almost never involves working with hardware such as circuits and wires. It is mostly simply about applying sound scientific principles to understand how we can push the limits of our AI methods. It often takes a lot of talking to other researchers, writing on scrap paper, and programming. Not really much different from any other research.