The barriers to AI engineering are crumbling fast

I’m instantly suspicious when anyone uses the term “AI”.

in 2024 thats as crazy as being suspicious of anyone that uses the term “internet”

No, it's not crazy at all. Back in the early noughts everyone was associating themselves with Internet and WorldWideWeb (yes, they used to spell that out). Same thing happening today with AI. It is irritating ...

You would be surprised how many people have no idea what "machine learning" means (not even technical definition but just as in the field). I'm working on a PhD in an adjacent field and basically have to tell people I work in AI for them to have any semblance of what I do.

I guess your perception depends on how many tech hype cycles you’ve lived through. I’ve lived through three for “AI” alone.

Who cares what it is called? I care about the capabilities.

In my experience when people say things like this what they're just projecting insecurity

I don't think telling people that have no idea what machine learning is that you work with 'AI' is giving them any semblance of understanding what you do.

I used to be in the same camp, but have since abandoned this position. The world has changed. Very serious people use the term "AI" nowadays. I don't find that it's a high-precision signal for identifying charlatans anymore (though it is high-recall).

No, it's not. But at least they have some relative, albeit flawed, context. It's the difference of having heard of something vs not.