Artificial Intelligence is the hot topic in tech right now. Companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft are all talking about it, mixing real capabilities with a lot of hype.
They’ve rolled out large language models (LLMs) and are adding generative AI to their products.
Amid all this buzz, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has a different take. He believes calling these systems "artificial intelligence" is misleading. Instead, he suggests we should think of them as "different intelligence."
In a recent Bloomberg TV interview, Nadella said we should see AI as a tool, not as something comparable to human intelligence, because it’s nowhere near that level.
“I don’t like anthropomorphizing AI,” he said, criticizing the way people attribute human traits to AI. “It has got intelligence, if you want to call it that, but it’s not the same intelligence that I have.”
Nadella’s comments came just after OpenAI, a Microsoft partner, introduced a new personal assistant capable of showing emotions and mimicking voices.
This assistant’s human-like traits sparked debates about AI’s boundaries and its similarity to human behavior.
At an event, OpenAI showed off GPT-4o, a voice assistant that understands and expresses emotions. Social media lit up with comparisons to the movie "Her," especially since the assistant’s voice sounded like Scarlett Johansson’s.
Johansson, upset by this, is now reportedly in a legal dispute with OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.
With all these advanced features, people often compare AI to human intelligence. Elon Musk, for example, predicted that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could surpass human intelligence by 2026.
“AI will probably be smarter than any single human next year. By 2029, AI will probably be smarter than all humans combined,” Musk posted on X (formerly Twitter).
This comparison happens because companies use terms like "learning" and "understanding" for how AI works. However, Nadella advises caution.
“It has got intelligence, if you want to call it that, but it’s not the same intelligence that I have,” he reiterated.
Nadella thinks the term “artificial intelligence,” coined in the 1950s, is unfortunate. “I think one of the most unfortunate names is ‘artificial intelligence’.
I wish we had called it ‘different intelligence,’” he told Bloomberg. “Because I have my intelligence. I don’t need any artificial intelligence.”