A: Artificial

The term dates back to the 14th century, when “artificial day” referred to the period when the sun was above the horizon. This early use captures the essence of its meaning, often in reference to something human-made, and thus foreign to our biological world.

So often, the term artificial slides towards other, less savoury, interpretations — something factitious or contrived. Or, as Peter Meltzer suggests, in The Thinker’s Thesaurus, a term synonymous with a sham. Artificial, in this light, presents as artifice (a construction or contrivance) which can be useful for a particular end.

This remains a matter of perspective, of course. We could choose to see the artificial as a signifier of human creativity — a term that offers a story, at once, of all the things we’ve built and made possible. An artificial heart, for example, offers a solution (albeit temporary) to a natural process — death — and, for the recipient, a most welcome unnatural intervention.

In our own and present era, artificial so often refers to a form of non-being or non-belonging (something fake or inauthentic) and troubles easy response. The use of the term in “artificial intelligence” focuses our attention on the nature of the word it modifies (an intelligence, not suitably natural) and the psychological frisson that results when we, as mere mortals, seek to bring something unnatural to life.

This may be why our current conversations about AI — existential, dread-filled, animated by fantasy instead of fact — carry mythic residue. Because the artificial has no boundaries it has no shape, to steal a phrase from Harry Frankfurt. After all, our deepest concerns about AI stem from its potential to intervene across known borders, to reshape the contours of life itself.

I prompted DALL-E 3 with the question: Can you generate an image that captures the concept of "artificial"?

The artificial is, to take us back to the start, something created — perhaps superimposed — in a way that remains connected to the world as it is. In this sense, artificial defines mathematics and reason — each, in their own way, modes of reducing the world to discrete elements.

Just maybe, artificial refers to our modest and modern attempts to navigate the natural and the complex. A hedge against the furies of tomorrow.