Whither "Artificial Intelligence"...?

[Eddy]

For the longest of times it seems, we had the world's experts -- Elon Musk and Bill Gates to name but a few -- all publicly wringing their hands and warning the world aloud about the pending arrival of "Artificial Intelligence" and the dangers and threats that it posed to humankind...and then all of a sudden, just a few short weeks ago, A.I. is everywhere -- our schools, our politics, our advertising, our news, ad nauseam.

What exactly happened...? How did A.I. manage to make such an under-the-radar unheralded appearance, and so very quickly, too...? And why is the media apparently just casually accepting its coming as having been a "given", or, little more than "yesterday's news"...?!

Frankly, it all simply escapes me. But in reading current reports, I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing especially "intelligent" about A.I., at all -- it's merely a clever extension of old "cut-and-paste" techniques, or PhotoShop...and nothing more. It's still driven by whatever personal agenda that the proverbial "man behind the curtain" might harbor, and little else. Be his motives good, or otherwise. A.I. is but one step ahead of its human master because it's a tad smarter -- and that's it. PERIOD.

It appears to be just that simple -- to me, anyway...