AI is mankind’s ability to sense electricity—and nothing more.

To repeat, AI cannot read. It definitely cannot read English. But it also cannot read any other language.

Also, AI cannot see the road.

Furthermore, AI cannot think up answers.

To be fair, to describe these and other negative facts about what AI cannot do is easy when compared to accurately describing the relationship between one of us “using” AI and persuading themselves (or being persuaded) that AI is reading, that AI is aware of the road, that AI is “thinking”. It’s not impossible though. In the most important sense, that relationship does not meaningfully differ from when a person feels the handle of a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other hand—and is persuaded that the nail will be driven into the board without a doubt.

No inanimate machine “hears” the sound (or any one of the many sounds) the letter “a” makes when it senses the electrical representation someone has coded for “a”. (It’s not like the electricity buzzes itself into an “ahhh” sound.) Instead AI senses some distinct electrical value which corresponds to what some person had decided should consistently and uniquely (though not exclusively) correspond to the English letter “a”. This is no different from how your hands consistently sense hammers and nails which correspond to what we have come to call hammers and nails when it holds them.

AI as a name is likely here to stay, unfortunately. But this is no more difficult a situation than, say, the QWERTY keyboard sticking around.

But AI is not artificial, it is not intelligent, and it is certainly not artificial intelligence. That is, unless you mean to convey that AI is mankind’s ability to sense electricity—and nothing more.