The Jokes Write Themselves When Kamala Harris Tries to Explain Artificial Intelligence

Vice President Kamala Harris stands a very real chance of becoming America’s next leader. As 80-year-old President Biden bumbles and stumbles around Europe, saying crazy things and skipping important NATO dinners, it’s becoming more and more apparent that it’s unlikely that he would be able to finish out his second term should Americans be insane enough to hand him victory in the 2024 elections.

He’s already lived almost ten years past the life expectancy of males born in 1942, his birth year, and he’s got one of the most stressful and demanding jobs in the world (even if he does always seem to be on vacation).

But Harris would be a disaster if she took the helm. In her speeches and comments, she always speaks as if she’s talking to little children and makes points that would make Captain Obvious shudder. Take this, for example, where she explains to a group of labor and civil rights leaders on Wednesday in Washington, D.C, what the acronym “AI” stands for (as if there’s anybody with a pulse who doesn’t know by now):

Kamala Harris explains AI:

"AI is kind of a fancy thing. First of all, it's two letters. It means 'Artificial Intelligence.'" pic.twitter.com/yurodfTOY9

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 12, 2023

I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing. First of all, it’s two letters.

It means artificial intelligence, but ultimately what it is, is it’s about machine learning.

It’s a fancy thing? AI is complex, potentially scary, amazing, mind-blowing—I could go through my entire thesaurus, but I don’t think I’d ever use the word “fancy” to describe the awe-inspiring power of artificial intelligence. (If you don’t believe me about the mind-blowing part, just head over to ChatGTP and ask it to write 1,000 words on a random subject. It will produce a perfectly acceptable (though boring) essay in seconds. Or check out DALL-E 2 and ask the artificial image generator to come up with almost anything you want—in any style—and you’re likely to get some pretty amazing results.)

But Harris didn’t stop there, of course—she went on to try to explain how AI works. It didn’t go well:

And so, the machine is taught — and part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine that will then determine — and we can predict then, if we think about what information is going in, what then will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that may be made through that process.

So to reduce it down to its most simple point, this is part of the issue that we have here is thinking about what is going into a decision, and then whether that decision is actually legitimate and reflective of the needs and the life experiences of all the people.

Um, what? I need AI to translate that.

The jokes almost write themselves. “Artificial intelligence, well, one word certainly applies to the VP, but she doesn’t seem to have much of the other.” Or, “perhaps she could get AI to write speeches for her because right now they sound like they were written by a kindergartner.” (I’m sure somebody could do better—feel free to add your joke in the comments section.)

This tweet sums up the situation perfectly: