I do not see Artificial intelligence here

(Paywall-free popularization like this is what I do for a living. To support me, see the end of this post)

Those are not the movie shots I was looking for.

Six months ago, the Economist said that An understanding of AI’s limitations is starting to sink in.

Me, I already knew that, but today I got another proof. For reasons not relevant here, I wanted to find a picture with the famous quote “That’s the press, baby” from the 1952 movie Deadline, starring Humphrey Bogart.

So I typed “That’s the press baby” in Google, with quotes, and this is what I got:

I do not see Artificial intelligence here /img/that-s-the-press-baby-all.jpg 
<u><em><strong>CAPTION:</strong> 
<a href="/img/that-s-the-press-baby-all.large.jpg" target="_blank">Click for larger version.</a>

</em></u>

Great. That movie is almost seventy years old, but Google perfectly understood my question. Then, I decided I wanted something that I could surely reuse, so I clicked on Tools-> Usage Rights -> Creative Commons Licenses. This was the result:

I do not see Artificial intelligence here /img/that-s-the-press-baby-cc.jpg 
<u><em><strong>CAPTION:</strong> 
<a href="/img/that-s-the-press-baby-cc.large.jpg" target="_blank">Click for larger version.</a>

</em></u>

Total failure

Rows of images of baby photograps, only baby photographs, with no results at all about that quote? Huh?

Now it is perfectly possible, quite likely actually, that no legally usable version of that shot and quote exist.

I mean, OK, sure, everybody who deserved compensation for any creative contribution to that movie is surely long dead by now. But why on Earth should such an insignificant detail hurt the stranglehold Hollywood, and all monopolistic publishers and media, have on culture?

Let’s go back to search engines and artificial intelligence. If there is no freely licensable image with Humphrey Bogart and that quote, no problem. But then Google should have really returned an empty page, something like this:

I do not see Artificial intelligence here /img/no-justification-for-copyright.png 
What? No justification? NONE?

</em></u>

Next time someone you read some uncritical panegyric of the wonders of image recognition, machine learning and so on, take it with a grain of salt. A big one.

Who writes this, why, and how to help

I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.

To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.

The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!

« Forget Amazon Prime. Demand Singapore shipping, instead Check out this batteries kickstarter! »