AI is not just ifs

A common joke in the corporate world is that "AI is just a bunch of if statements." It's funny on a few levels which is why I'd like to make it unfunny. I'm taking the burden because people are stretching this joke and starting to believe it is true.

Corporate world

To me, the main punchline is the highlight how corporate world works. Enterprise "goods and services" need to sell, and what is being sold is often a promise or an idea rather than the product. There's a whole department (marketing) which need to figure out what people want and then place the product in such a frame. We live in times when technology is the king. Both consumers and stakeholders want to have the highest of high tech; consumers want to feel like the sci-fi of 30 years ago is here, and stakeholders want to see products scaling for cheap. To pander to masses marketing will take if $loss > $income then 'echo problem' and will call it "Your personal financial AI." Funny, right?

Influencers and newbies

Another punchline (layer?) of the joke is the observation how "newcomers" or "accidental influencers" will showcase their skills. They'll find something ingenious created by someone else, slap simplistic if somewhere and call it their "new AI solution". Example would be to use image description generator with sentiment analysis component to describe if the picture describes a happy or sad scene. In essence, there isn't anything bad here; actually, it's great to come up with new approaches for existing tools. However, be careful what you claim. You might impress those how don't know but that's going to cost cringe among those who do know. I'm guilty of doing this in the past and, now that I know, I'm cringing thinking how boastful I was.

Seriously though

One might claim that doing the complex "AI" algorithms is also just a collection of if statements. Maybe but that's a significant stretch. AI algorithms are a collection of if statements, the same as transistor is a collection of ON/OFF switches, or a physical object is a collection of atoms, or a house is just some bricks and timber. Technically correct but it undermines the full picture. Combining, collecting, connecting all those ifs isn't an easy task. We've come a long way from making computers add numbers to having them interact with people in human-like voice or taking for granted that a page can be translated to majority of common languages. These are not simple ifs; there's a lot that's going on in terms of maths, algorithms, and computation. For one, I read a bit about how this work and I wouldn't be able to easily reproduce it. Likewise, I'm working on a few "machine learning" projects and, although there's a bunch of ifs sprinkled all around, most of my work isn't bunch of ifs.

Having written all of that, I'm a living victim of the punchline. Working for big corporations meant that some of my if statements were labelled AI. Oh, well. Jokes on them as that means I'm an AI engineer and the Silcon Valley is going to pay top dollars for me to write the biggest if statement there is!

Post scriptum

Relevant video

On a note related to the first paragraph, here's a funny video that just came out. Given the timing and relevance I just had to include it: The digital afterlife isn’t quite what you expected | Chris & Jack.

AI didn't help

Having access to LLMs it's a crime not to use them. I use them. I use them to make sure there aren't many glaring stylistic and grammatic mistakes.

To be clear, I have access to LLMs but I'm not using it for writing. They help with identifying glaring issues but they aren't great for "me writing". For example, they helped me identify that the blog post ends abruptly. True. But no "if statement" will tell me how to write! Here, let's laught together at their recommendation:

Conlusion: More Than Just Ifs

So, while the joke about AI being "just a bunch of if statements" might get a laugh, it really misses the mark. AI is way more complex than that. Think about it: just like our brains are made up of neurons firing in response to stimuli, AI algorithms are all about layers of interconnected nodes processing information in smart ways.

Sure, there are if statements involved, but they’re just part of a much bigger picture. The real magic happens when these algorithms learn from data and adapt over time. So next time someone throws out that joke, remind them that AI is about innovation and complexity—not just simple conditions.

Let’s keep the conversation going and help demystify what AI really is. After all, understanding its true nature can lead to better applications and a brighter future for all of us in tech.