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I asked AI to name my wife. To the hopelessly incorrect people it cited, my deepest apologies

5 39
yesterday

Recently, the Rowsons accidentally invented a new game that anyone can play at home. I have yet to come up with a world-beating name for it, so for now let’s just call it “How bloody stupid is AI?” The playing of the game will change from player to player, depending on their circumstances – but essentially the rules remain the same. Ask AI a simple question about yourself, and see just how wrong it gets it.

In my case, all you need know is that while I, through the nature of my job, have a fairly large online presence, my partner (we married in 1987) has assiduously avoided having one at all. Which means that if you Google “Martin Rowson wife” in images, you may get a picture of me next to our then 14-year-old daughter or me with my friend and fellow cartoonist Steven Appleby, who happens to be trans but has kept her given first name.

It’s probably incredibly reckless of me to say so, but I find this very funny. As a satirist, I have always been a fool for anything that points up the even greater folly of our leaders, the tools of their techbro masters or the true capabilities of our new robot overlords. Anyway, I was explaining all this to our soon-to-be daughter-in-law over Christmas when our children (in their 30s, and therefore much tech-savvier than me) explained that it was much more fun than that, and that I should ask: “Who is Martin Rowson’s wife?”

Imagine my delight when the first answer from Google search’s AI........

© The Guardian