The Problem With AI

This article first appeared in IEEE IT Professional magazine. IEEE IT Professional offers solid, peer-reviewed information about today's strategic technology issues. To meet the challenges of running reliable, flexible enterprises, IT managers and technical leads rely on IT Pro for state-of-the-art solutions. Science is actually pretty messy. When I was a chemistry undergraduate, I loved the theory behind biochemistry-the endless complexity allowed by simple rules; how massive, complex cellular machines could arise from a few building blocks. In lab, however, I struggled to make the simplest reactions work. Starting with pure crystalline compounds and expensive laboratory equipment, when the result was also expected to be crystalline, I ended up with piles of brown goo-with my instructor concluding, "Well, it could be in there" in reference to the experiment's objective.