A few days ago, several of my friends shared a meme on Facebook that showed how artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI/ML) had tagged a perfectly innocent picture with a caption that was, shall we say, not suitable for polite company. The caption was
technically accurate, but the algorithm that produced it was completely unaware it could be read another way. ML is not yet able to cope with unintended double-entendres.
While it caused a few seconds amusement, the example did get me thinking. Is machine learning ready for prime time? On the surface it would seem so. At a recent online industry conference I attended nearly every speaker mentioned AI in some form or other. Conversations with customers are peppered with discussions around how they can use machine learning to meet the exponential growth in demand for applying metadata to their content.