I Tried to Get an AI to Write This Story

What a time for artificial intelligence! Google announced a new AI-powered set of products and services at its I/O conference for developers, including one called Duplex that makes phone calls for you and sounds just like a real person, which freaked everyone right out. The Trump administration held some sort of AI summit with representatives from Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia, and buttermaker Land O’Lakes, presumably because the White House has so much churn. Add to this the public reveal that the musician Grimes and Elon Musk are dating, after the two shared a joke about AI.

And yet when people ask what the software company I run is doing with machine learning, I say, calmly, “Nothing.” Because at some level there’s just nothing to do.