We've talked about A.I., Artificial Intelligence, and discussed its true definition and limited usefulness while at the same time A.I. has entered the public conversation and is being treated like an ominous and potentially lethal thing.
But what about the opposite extreme, A.S., Artificial Stupidity? We have long had a behavioral ability to intentionally act stupid for some purpose, such as playing dumb to get someone to speak down to you as a sly way of drawing them out and getting a profile of someone who thinks they are smarter than you. And we might get into a position where being stupid becomes a responsibility, for example signing up for the military and being commanded to walk around looking for land mines. But that's probably F.S., Fake Stupidity, whereas A.S. would be more of an outboard program that synthesized stupidity on a non-human platform. We're at the early stages of figuring out how to achieve A.S. and seek applications for its employment. Maybe A.S. is a baseline out of which A.I. attempts to rise. I smell money.