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A Multidisciplinary Lens on Artificial Intelligence
Mistakes of Mainstream Management [MMM Series]: Chapter 11
Laksh Raghavan
February 16, 2025
Today’s post continues the Mistakes of Mainstream Management (MMM) series and explores how lack of understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can lead Tech. executives and entrepreneurs to waste money and resources on misguided projects and investments.
A simple shift in perspective can many times lead to profound insights. Turing’s test is a test given to an “intelligent" machine to check if its intelligence is indistinguishable from that of a human. Let me being today’s post with a pertinent quote by Heinz Von Foerster:
The way I see it, the potential intelligence of a machine is not being tested. In actual fact, the scholars are testing themselves (when they give the Turing test). Yes, they are testing themselves to determine whether or not they can tell a human being from a machine. And if they don’t manage to do this, they will have failed. The way I see it, the examiners are examining themselves, not the entity that is meekly sitting behind the curtain and providing answers for their questions. As I said, “Tests test tests.”
Table of Contents
Knowledge without Understanding
Knowledge without understanding is a misguided missile.
At some point all of these abstractions about knowledge and understanding might break down, but the point I’m trying to make can be explained with humanity’s battles with scurvy.
Scurvy, a devastating disease has plagued sailors and those with limited access to fresh food. For centuries, various cultures stumbled upon effective remedies for scurvy, ranging from evergreen bark to citrus fruits, and leafy greens. Sailors and explorers observed that these foods could prevent or even reverse the gruesome symptoms of the disease. However, this knowledge remained largely empirical and was not underpinned by a good explanation. This meant that while cures existed, their application was inconsistent, often doubted, and easily undermined by flawed theories about the nature of the illness.
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