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Artificial intelligence needs to be trained like your pets do

A former animal trainer explains how we might usefully think about the limitations of artificial intelligence systems by comparing them to pets - instead of thinking of them as tech wonders.

<p>Autonomous cars aren’t smarter than this. <a class="source" href="http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=41766&picture=dog-drive-2">X posid</a></p>

Every day countless headlines emerge from myriad sources across the globe, both warning of dire consequences and promising utopian futures – all thanks to artificial intelligence. AI “is transforming the workplace,” writes the Wall Street Journal, while Fortune magazine tells us that we are facing an “AI revolution” that will “change our lives.” But we don’t really understand what interacting with AI will be like – or what it should be like. The Conversation

It turns out, though, that we already have a concept we can use when we think about AI: It’s how we think about animals. As a former animal trainer (albeit briefly) who now studies how people use AI, I know that animals and animal training can teach us quite a lot about how we ought to think about, approach and interact with artificial intelligence, both now and in the future.

Using animal analogies can help regular people understand many of the complex aspects of artificial intelligence. It can also help us think about how best to teach these systems new skills and, perhaps most importantly, how we can properly conceive of their limitations, even as we celebrate AI’s new possibilities.

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