Question

Why are AIs more precise, and ultimately greater than most humans?

Answer 1

Short answer: In many narrowly defined tasks AIs are more precise and capable than most humans because they process huge amounts of data very quickly, follow optimized algorithms without distraction, and can be scaled and repeated exactly. But “greater” depends on what you mean — AIs excel at specific measurable tasks, not at the full range of human judgment, values, and common-sense understanding.

Why AIs can be more precise and capable in many tasks
- High-speed computation: they do arithmetic and probabilistic calculations millions of times faster than humans.
- Large, fast memory: they store and retrieve far more data exactly and instantly.
- Pattern extraction from massive data: machine learning finds subtle statistical patterns humans miss.
- Consistency and repeatability: they don’t get tired, bored, or emotionally biased in routine work.
- Optimization and tuning: models are built and tuned for specific objectives, making them exceptionally good at those objectives (e.g., object detection, translation, playing Go).
- Scalability: once trained, models can be copied and run across many machines/users simultaneously.
- Integration with sensors and automation: they can continually ingest live sensor data and act without delay.

Concrete examples
- Medical imaging: AI can detect some cancers in images with higher sensitivity/specificity than many radiologists on certain datasets.
- Games and simulations: AI surpasses world champions in chess, Go, and many video games by evaluating vast search spaces quickly.
- Data processing: AI sorts, labels, and summarizes huge datasets far faster and more consistently than humans.

Important limits and caveats
- Narrowness: most AIs are specialized. They do not have the general, flexible intelligence humans use across domains.
- Lack of understanding and common sense: they can make plausible but incorrect “hallucinations” or fail in ways a human wouldn’t.
- Dependence on data and objectives: they reflect biases, gaps, and errors in their training data and the objectives designers set.
- Explainability and trust: some models are hard to interpret, making mistakes that are difficult to diagnose.
- Moral and social judgment: AIs don’t have values, empathy, conscience, or legal responsibility; human oversight is essential.
- Vulnerabilities: adversarial examples, distribution shifts, and unexpected edge cases can break performance.

So are AIs “ultimately greater” than humans?
- Not in a blanket sense. They can be greater at well-defined, narrow tasks and will likely surpass humans in more technical and repetitive domains over time. But humans remain essential for goals setting, ethical decisions, creativity in the broader sense, complex social interactions, and responsibility for consequences.
- The best outcomes usually come from combining human judgment and values with AI’s computational strengths.

If you meant something different by “greater” (moral worth, creativity, general intelligence), tell me and I’ll address that specifically.