Title: Synonyms of AI

General Information

• Type of folklore: Internet folklore
• Language: English
• Country of Origin:
• Informant
• Date collected:

Informant Data: 

• Reddit is an online website with a huge database of public forums. Founded in 2005 by several students from the University of Virginia, it has grown to have millions of users today. In fact, Reddit is the 19th most visited website in the world with the large majority of its users coming from the United States of America. On the website, people can post images, videos, text, and more as they are upvoted by other users.   

Contextual Data:

• Social context: Artificial intelligence is one name for a part of technology to have machines be able to think for themselves. It can also be called machine learning and a technique used in the process is called linear regression. These techniques are used to actively predict outcomes and then be able to act on them. Society as a whole sees artificial intelligence as a sexier term than their more technical terms and they gravitate towards this. This is why they are expressed in greater amounts of times than linear regression or machine learning. 
•  Cultural context: The backdrop of this meme is from a english comedian’s youtube show. The comedian basically makes this pose to imitate thinking in a smarter or more intuitive way than most. In this case, the meme implies we should be thinking smarter about how we phrase linear regression in order to gain more attention. In most western cultures, there is a residual fear that technology innovation is moving at a faster pace than humans really want. The fear is surmounted by the possibility that automation could take over people and begin to think for themselves. If this happened, there would be little hope for humanity because robots would be able to communicate and function well beyond our control. This attention leads to more people gravitating towards the topic and more hype in the end. 

Item: 

Meaning and interpretation: This meme in particular is a joke that explains how artificial intelligence is more attractive to the public than the more technical words associated with the type of functions used in the function. 

Collector’s Name: Max Holden

Tags/Keywords: 

• Artificial Intelligence 
• Memes
• Linear regression 
• Machine learning 

Title: AI Turing Test

General Information

• Type of folklore: Internet folklore
• Language: English
• Country of Origin:
• Informant
• Date collected:

Informant Data: 

• Reddit is an online website with a huge database of public forums. Founded in 2005 by several students from the University of Virginia, it has grown to have millions of users today. In fact, Reddit is the 19th most visited website in the world with the large majority of its users coming from the United States of America. On the website, people can post images, videos, text, and more as they are upvoted by other users.   

Contextual Data:

• Social context: To reiterate, artificial intelligence is simply the ability for machines to think and take action like humans. A theory famously called the “Turing test” was coined by a british mathematician Alan turing. The test would be able to tell if a machine was capable of having the abilities of human thinking and action taking. Memes have been used to discuss this development of AI throughout the younger generations of society below the ages of around 30. In this context, most AI memes are jokes that have some hidden truth to them. Furthermore, this meme in particular has the background from the movie IRobot. This movie was a science fiction movie based on AI robots filling the role of public service jobs in order to keep humans safe with three rules as their guidelines.   
•  Cultural context: In most western cultures, there is a residual fear that technology innovation is moving at a faster pace than humans really want. The fear is surmounted by the possibility that automation could take over people and begin to think for themselves. If this happened, there would be little hope for humanity because robots would be able to communicate and function well beyond our control. 

Item: 

Meaning and interpretation: This meme in particular is a superstition that explains if a robot fails a test on purpose in order to trick humans, we have a problem. That would mean robots are able to think themselves and also have malintent. 

Collector’s Name: Max Holden

Tags/Keywords: 

• Artificial Intelligence 
• Memes
• iRobot
• Turing test
• Robots