All too often, when we see a new technology we don’t understand, our natural inclination is to condemn it. Artificial intelligence is no exception.

Original Article: "Can We Understand AI? A Response to Jordan Peterson’s Podcast"

Like snobby teenagers claim of themselves, many say that “nobody understands artificial intelligence (AI).” For example, in a recent interview between Jordan Peterson and Brian Roemmele about ChatGPT, Jordan Peterson claimed that “The system is too complex to model” and each AI system is not only incomprehensible but unique. He further claims that “some of these AI systems, they’ve [AI experts] managed to reduce what they do learn to something approximating an algorithm. . . . [but] Generally the system can’t be and isn’t simplified.”
Brian Roemmele concurred: “nobody really understands precisely what it’s doing and what is called the hidden layer. It is so many interconnections of neurons that it essentially is a black box. . . .”
The criticism isn’t confined to these two. The