Recently, the Rowsons accidentally invented a new game that anyone can play at home. I have yet to come up with a world-beating name for it, so for now let’s just call it “How bloody stupid is AI?” The playing of the game will change from player to player, depending on their circumstances – but essentially the rules remain the same. Ask AI a simple question about yourself, and see just how wrong it gets it.
In my case, all you need know is that while I, through the nature of my job, have a fairly large online presence, my partner (we married in 1987) has assiduously avoided having one at all. Which means that if you Google “Martin Rowson wife” in images, you may get a picture of me next to our then 14-year-old daughter or me with my friend and fellow cartoonist Steven Appleby, who happens to be trans but has kept her given first name.
It’s probably incredibly reckless of me to say so, but I find this very funny. As a satirist, I have always been a fool for anything that points up the even greater folly of our leaders, the tools of their techbro masters or the true capabilities of our new robot overlords. Anyway, I was explaining all this to our soon-to-be daughter-in-law over Christmas when our children (in their 30s, and therefore much tech-savvier than me) explained that it was much more fun than that, and that I should ask: “Who is Martin Rowson’s wife?”
Imagine my delight when the first answer from Google search’s AI overview was “Jeanette Winterson”. (To be clear, I swear on the lives of the entire population of Silicon Valley that the famous lesbian author categorically is not my wife.) But it got better – and here comes the sublime beauty of the mesmeric imbecility of the Tool That Will Transform The World. Each time we repeated the question, the answer changed, then changed again. This seemed dependent on how the question was phrased or punctuated, but who knows? Here is the list of my alleged wives I compiled before I finally got bored:
Textile designer Fiona Scott-Wilson.
Poet Bridget Rose.
Actor Fiona Marr, she of Bridgerton.
Economist Ann Pettifor.
Julia Mills (though it’s unclear whether this is the fantasy author, the illustrator, the late powerlifter or another Julia Mills altogether).
Writer and journalist Emily Rees.
Lawyer and academic Siva Thambisetty, who is married to chess grandmaster Jonathan Rowson. AI also claims Jonathan and I are brothers. We’re not.
Writer and journalist Carrie McLaren.
Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman.
CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward.
Journalist and broadcaster Rachel Johnson.
My own daughter.
Then it got really weird. La femme Rowson, AI said, is actually “journalist and author Kate Clements Rowson”. Googled that name: none the wiser.
Then it suggested I’m married to “writer/illustrator Helen Grant”. Apparently our son, Leo, is a jazz musician. Again, who is she? Nothing on Google. And Leo, who he? Does he really play jazz? Does he exist?
There was “former Guardian political editor & current CEO of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Liz Kerr”. Que? There is no Guardian political editor, past or present, of that name. Liz Kerr nowhere appears on the list of the great and good at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Once again, all wrong. Playwright Lee Hall got a mention. He’s male, so couldn’t be my wife anyway.
As for “historian and writer Jeanette Winterbottom”. We apparently worked together on “The Guardian Book of Satire” and “The Dog’s Diary”, it says here. Maybe AI confused her with Jeanette Winterson, but then she and I didn’t collaborate on those projects, there is no Guardian Book of Satire, and I have never published a Dog’s Diary (though if someone wants to send me royalties for that, I’d take them).
Another search, another skipful of gibberish. “He’s been married to writer and journalist Ann Widdecombe (his ex-wife), Cathy Caldwell, and his long-term partner/wife, journalist and author, Polly Toynbee is a frequent figure alongside him in media, suggesting they are a prominent couple in UK literary/journalistic circles.”
For the record, I have met Rachel Johnson and my own daughter, but am married to neither of them. Again and again the bot failed to identify my real wife, to everyone’s relief, although latterly it’s begun saying: “Her name is not publicly named in the provided search results.”
I suppose this suggests a capacity for learning, but maybe not. I asked “who is my wife?” once more for the purposes of this article, and Google’s AI said I’m married to “Debora Rowson (nee Ffrench)”, a retired civil servant, and ascribed to our wholly fictitious union is my extra daughter, Clementine, yet another writer/journalist. Apparently, I write about our amusing domestic upsets in my imaginary Guardian column.
While my mythical marriage to Boris Johnson’s sister is obvious comedy gold (imagine that family Christmas!), for this nonsense to be the fruit of a garlanded, universal research tool used by billions – and for it to be repeatedly, serially wrong – is more than slightly disturbing.
We should all by now have worked out that AI is about as sentient as an abacus, and only truly mirrors the human mind in its capacity to lie to humans, telling them what it “thinks” they want to hear. It is also a universal truth that the world’s most dangerous people are idiots who think they are really, really clever (just look around and you’ll get the point). Add those two facts together and what on earth do you imagine we will end up with?
I wouldn’t ask AI that, it would probably say “banana bread”, then change its mind to, “Exterminate them all!”
