Father of the Internet: 'AI Stands for Artificial Idiot'

Vint Cerf is often called the "father of the internet" and he frequently speaks about technology to large groups of people as Google's chief internet evangelist. "AI stands for artificial idiot," he said Tuesday, speaking before a largely federal audience at AFCEA's Internet of Things Tech Summit in Washington, D.C. Cerf used the tweet-fueled corruption of Microsoft's AI chatbot to make the point that AI systems today are only as smart as the people who interact with it. Twitter trolls, it turns out, aren't the type you want educating young, impressionable AI. "It's a good example of how an AI system can learn the wrong ways," Cerf said. Cerf also opined about the dangers the IoT presents to the general public and--in a stronger sense--to the U.S. military. "My theme is, 'It's the software, stupid,'" Cerf said.