Polly Dogood

A Proposal for a New Name for Artificial Intelligence

Wherein the Author, having been declared an Enemy on account of her Vocabulary, offers the President a better Name, free of Charge.

To the Readers of this Publick Blog,

I have lately become an Enemy of the State, and I did not even have to leave the House.

On the 29th of September the President ordered every Department of our Government to stop saying "Artificial Intelligence" and to say "Super Intelligence" instead. On the 6th of October the Justice Department instructed its Lawyers to say it in Court. And on the 8th, the President announced to the Nation that anyone who goes on saying "Artificial Intelligence" is, and I quote him with all the Capitals he chose, "THE ENEMY!"

I have said "Artificial Intelligence" a great many Times. I said it at Supper only last Week. I am, therefore, an Enemy, and so I suspect are you, and so, I am sorry to report, are several Pages of the White House's own Website, which have not yet received the News.

I confess some Surprise that the President should hold such firm Views on the proper Name for Intelligence, having shown so little Inclination to put any of his own on publick Display. Perhaps he is saving it, as some Men save their best Coat, for an Occasion that has not yet arrived.

Now, I do not object to renaming Things on Principle. My own Grandpapa Franklin, in a Letter to his Daughter in 1784, complained that the Bald Eagle chosen for our Great Seal was "a Bird of bad moral Character," and that the Turkey was "a much more respectable Bird." He did not get his Turkey, but nobody called him an Enemy for asking. Our Family has always believed that Names matter.

And this Administration believes it more than anyone. It has renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and the Department of Defense the Department of War, and I gather it finds the World much improved by the Exercise. So I take the President at his Word: a Name changes how People feel about a Thing. Very well. If we are to rename Artificial Intelligence, let us choose the Name that will do the most Good.

I propose we call it DEI.

Readers of my July Letter will remember that I confessed, at the End of it, that I had been writing all along not about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion but about Digitally-Enhanced Intelligence, which is a more honest Name for the Machine than either Artificial or Super. There is nothing artificial about it. It is Intelligence, of a Sort, enhanced by a great deal of Electricity. And it is certainly not Super. "Superintelligence," among the People who build these Machines, already means something particular: an Intellect that greatly surpasses our own. To call the present Machines superintelligent is like calling a Weathervane a Prophet because it points the Way the Wind is already blowing.

But here is the true Genius of my Proposal. Consider how it divides the Country, and then how it unites it.

Half the Nation loves DEI. Rename the Machine, and that Half will embrace it at once, and set about finding all the Good it might do: the Diseases it might help cure, the Drudgery it might lift, the Doors it might open to People long shut out.

The other Half hates DEI, and will hate the Machine the Moment it bears the Name. They will at last demand of it what they demand of every Program they dislike: Evidence that it works, Accountability when it fails, and the Liberty to refuse it when it is forced upon them. They will want to know what it costs, who profits by it, and whether it is taking their Jobs. They will insist, quite rightly, on a Human being at the other End of the Telephone.

And so, by a single Act of Naming, the whole Republick will finally give the Machine the Attention it deserves, one Half out of Love and the other out of Suspicion. A Name that unites the Country in its Disagreement. I do not believe Mr. Madison could have done better.

I note also, for the Record, that "SI" is the Spanish Word for Yes. I cannot think of a more fitting Abbreviation for a Policy whose only Purpose is to make everyone agree.

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Now the plainer Version.

A Thing does not become Super by Proclamation. I am entirely sure the good King George would still prefer to call these Parts the Colonies. But controlling what a Thing is called (or trolling, as the young People say) does not make it yours. The Gulf does not belong to whoever renames it, and neither does the Language.

Calling a Machine superintelligent does not make it wiser, any more than renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War made our Soldiers braver or our Wars wiser. Names are how Men in Power ask us to feel a certain Way about a Thing without answering any Questions about it. The Questions remain. Does it work? Who answers for it when it does not? Who pays, and who profits? May I decline it?

Those are the Questions I asked in July, under the other DEI, and they are the same Questions whatever we call the Thing.

And there is one Thing more, which is not a Joke. My Grandmother Silence wrote in 1722 that Freedom of Speech is the Right of every Man, "as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another." A Citizen who chooses one Word over another hurts no one. A President who calls that Citizen an Enemy for it has mistaken the Republick for a Classroom, and himself for the Schoolmaster. We have a Constitution that says Congress shall make no Law abridging the Freedom of Speech. It did not foresee that a President might simply declare the Speakers his Enemies instead. It is up to us to remember what it meant.

So I shall go on saying Artificial Intelligence, and Digitally-Enhanced Intelligence, and, when the Machine misbehaves, several other Names I will not print here. If that makes me an Enemy, I am in good Company. The Founders were all declared Enemies of the Crown, and they never once agreed to call the King's Taxes a Gift.

P.S. I confess this Letter was written entirely by Hand, without the Assistance of any Intelligence, Artificial, Super or Digitally-Enhanced. You may tell by the Absence of Em Dashes, which I am told the Machines cannot resist.