A friend of mine who is a computer scientist describes artificial intelligence as a Rorschach test. Invented by the psychologist Hermann Rorschach in the early 20th century, the famous test involves showing subjects a series of ink blots and asking them to describe what they see. The test is a psychoanalytic technique to help determine a psychological profile of the patient.

When my friend calls AI a Rorschach test, he means that what we see in AI says more about us than it does about the AI. I have seen this phenomenon firsthand. I recently participated in a workshop aimed at developing ethical guidelines for research using AI. The workshop participants came from a wide variety of backgrounds: higher ed, K-12 education, data science, mathematics, public policy, and industry. Everyone had some familiarity with AI, but it covered the entire spectrum from people who never use it to people who build and design it.

Surprisingly, the people who had the most familiarity with AI differed wildly in their judgments of its capabilities. Some of them were optimistic—they claimed........

© Psychology Today