The different meanings associated with images and text
Understanding the different meanings associated with images and text is, no doubt, a difficult task. This task is a significant problem for developers of artificial intelligence as the evolutionary nature of human language demonstrates the change in meaning over time and appropriation of signs to signify different objects from the customary meanings associated with a sign. This is because so far, an understanding of the evolutionary nature of human communication has failed to be achieved in the area of artificial intelligence. Thus, Norbert Wiener’s claim that human beings are unlikely to make better judgement in emergencies than machines does not hold true in the communication field. Moving forward into an age of artificial intelligence requires that the communication habits of human beings be altered significantly for harmony to prevail in the coexistence of man and intelligent machines.
In Roland Barthes’ Rhetoric of an Image, he highlights the specificity of connotative meaning in the Pasta ad that he surveys. For instance, the portrayal of Italianicity of the image, he says, would not be as obvious to the Italian individual as it is to the French observer. Although advertisements will most likely continue to be designed for human consumption; this case study offers a potential source of conflict in the use of language between artificially intelligent entities and humans. When used for translation purposes, for instance, an artificially intelligent entity may fail to recognize connotative meaning and convey inaccurate information. Since semiotics is the study of signs and their relationship to different interpretations; these conflicts should form a significant part of the conversation regarding the development of artificial intelligence and how it may impact the use of signs.
The different interpretations of a text referred to by Barthes in Death of an Author show that the same text can have different interpretations for different individuals. This begs the question: is such an achievement possible in the development of artificially intelligent systems? Artificial intelligence relies on a framework of feedback learning from previous versions which have in turn learned from other predating systems. However, as discussed in class, some connotative meanings are appropriated in the course of a conversation. In such a case, without precedent of similar use of a word, the role of feedback in improving the system’s accuracy reduces. Therefore, semiotics identifies challenges in communication that expose the dream of artificial intelligence to be farther away than many science fiction films would have us believe.
Arguments can be made for advanced technology eventually being able to decipher instantaneously the connoted meanings in communication. However, by then will the human being not have adapted to the communication inefficiencies of artificial intelligence? I think the human being will have. The changes in day to day communication that will no doubt arise due to a realization of the need for artificially intelligent systems in the increasingly digital world will result in the development of a dialect, so to speak, reserved for communication with these systems, and another for human to human interaction. Over time, the two may merge to form a crossover language of sorts. However, the changes to how we communicate are inevitably going to occur so as to accommodate our artificially intelligent systems that we are likely to be dependent upon for routine functions.