Artificial Intelligence (AI) Versus Virtual Reality (VR)

As a public service I am pleased to present to you a quick primer on the major differences between AI and VR. I do this out of the kindness of my heart and ask for no compensation other than your attention.

Differences:

One is a real actually existing thing (VR), the other is not (AI)

One is responsible for the singularity (AI), the other is responsible for the single people (VR)

One will save and/or destroy the world (AI), the other will destroy your marriage (VR)

One lives in your computer (AI), the other is a computer you live in (VR)

One uses artificial neural networks to mimic the activity of the human brain based on unproven and oversimplified theories of how it works and learns, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that many competing theories that are just as likely to be correct exist (AI), the other uses standard hardware and software to trick the brain into ignoring the fact that it is currently inside the skull of a very foolish looking human who is totally oblivious to what is happening around them (VR).

One pretends be alive (AI), the other makes life pretend (VR)

One has a similarly named competitive technology that almost, but not quite, lives up to the potential of the original (VR — augmented reality/AR). the other has many differently named offspring that almost, but not quite, mask the fact that the original has very little chance of happening in the next 500 years (AI — machine learning, deep learning, deep intelligence, etc.)

One probably cannot happen without a body (AI), the other definitely cannot (VR)

….Interesting question though would an AI have any interest in VR? For instance could a non-embodied AI use VR to “experience” sensations somehow? Would it need to or want to? What about for an embodied AI. Why use VR when you are already a ‘virtual’ being in a sense?

The last period above this sentence is where the story was intended to end. However, because of Vocal’s absurd six hundred word count minimum rule I am forced to append this additional section which you are currently reading. If you are reading this that means that you read my story and thank you for that. Also, thank you for continuing on to this useless addendum. If you want to click away now go for it, no hard feelings, I would not want to continue on either. I mean the story is over right? Why should I keep reading? You probably should not, however, if you do be forewarned that what follows will be mostly nonsense, the only purpose of which is to pad the word count of the above story so that it can exceed the ridiculous six hundred word count minimum rule. Notice how twice now I have typed out the word six hundred rather than writing it with the numerals six zero and zero. This was intentional, six hundred written out in words is two words whereas six hundred written as the numerals six zero and zero only counts as one word. Since my goal here is to quickly pad my word count to meet the six hundred word count minimum it makes a lot of sense to type out six hundred every time and not type it out in numeral form. Do you find it weird that we can represent numbers both as symbols, the number itself (i.e. “1”) but also as a word (i.e. “one”). Shouldn’t a number be a thing that can stand on its own as a thing different from a word and not need a word to describe it, and yet it does. Meanwhile words do not need numbers to describe them, they fully describe themselves. This is why words are superior to numbers and why reading and writing will always be more important and better than math. Although I happen to like math, I also happen to suck at it. I also happen to suck at writing which I guess kind of makes sense, or maybe it doesn’t. Ah whatever….Am I at six hundred words yet? I feel like I am dozing off here. What was I talking about again? Where am I? Who the heck are you and why are you reading my thoughts? Get the fuck out of my head. Get out. Thank you. Stupid fucking minimum word count rule blows.