Unpopular opinion: Early rule-based AI had a honesty we've lost

Everyone raves about how smart AI is now, but I think the old systems were more truthful. They worked on simple rules you could follow, like a flowchart. I remember helping folks with a basic chat bot that never made up facts, just stuck to its script. Today's models sound human, but they invent answers when they don't know. For example, a new assistant once told a user to restart a router by unplugging it for a week, which is silly. We got fancy talk, but we let go of knowing why the AI says what it does. Sometimes I feel that shift wasn't all good.

2 comments

2 Comments

henry_campbell1514h ago

You're onto something there. The old bots might have been limited, but at least you understood their limits. Now you get these fluent answers that sound right but can be completely made up. That trade for mystery over clarity feels like a loss sometimes.

patsingh14h ago

Reminds me of my dad's old car manual. It had clear steps for everything, unlike today's vague online forums where anyone can post wrong advice.