alt.tech

A search for “intelligent software” renders about 648,000 hits on Google. Compare with the following searches and their respective amount of hits:

“intelligent software” – 648,000 hits
“unintelligent software” – 72 hits
“smart software” – 496,000 hits
“stupid software” – 35,200 hits
“clever software” – 60,200 hits
“dumb software” – 9,640 hits

Ok, lets sort a bit:
“intelligent software” – 648,000 hits
“smart software” – 496,000 hits
“clever software” – 60,200 hits
—
“stupid software” – 35,200 hits
“dumb software” – 9,640 hits
“unintelligent software” – 72 hits

I think you get the point. There is a clear preference of terms like intelligent, smart or clever to describe software. Sounds reasonable, right? I think not. Intelligence to me is about thinking on your own, critically evaluating information, adding complexity. What most people in reality expects from a computer is the opposite. You expect it to do repetitive calculating tasks, handling massive amounts of data without making changes to it on it´s own.

In fact, what most people would define as intelligent is probably what annoys them most if done by a computer. If you knew exactly how your friends react to everything you say or do you would get annoyed and probably thinking they’re either boring, stupid or both. When your computer doesn’t reacts the way you expect, on the other hand, that´s what makes you the most annoyed with it.

Consequently, I would like to propose to all you software makers to enter into the domain of dimwitted software. That´s what we really want from you!