Why would you choose something artificial over something natural?
I don't know how others would answer this question so I have to guess. When I think about artificial ingredients, the primary reason for choosing them over the real thing is probably cost, followed by (in no particular order) availability, handling convinience and side-effects.
"Side-effects" here hides a lot but one example is artificial sweeteners. An artificial sweetener might be selected over a natural sweetener like sugar to reduce the amount of calories in a food. Another would be artificial ingredient like Olestra which replace natural fats.
I've been very frustrated with the use of the term "Artificial Intelligence" by the AI Industry because what they are selling has nothing in common with natural intelligence (or simply "intellegence" as you don't need to qualify a word when you're talking about the real thing). But for whatever reason I was focusing on the "intelligence" part and not the "artificial" part.
When considered in the context of how the word "artificial" is used elsewhere, the phrase "artificial intelligence" really does describe the products of the AI Industry. Like an artificial sweetener, it can trick a person into thinking they are tasting real sugar when what they are really consuming acesulfame potassium. Like Olestra, a person using AI feels like they are consuming the thing it replaces, but the result in both cases is something less desirable.
But I think the more important question is "why". A person choosing to consume a product with an artificial ingredient because that artificial ingredient is better for them than the real thing is an act of choice and personal agency, but when people are coerced into consuming artificial ingredients, either by obscuring their presence or by making the real thing unavailable, that's another matter. That is no choice at all.
I think in most cases we use and consume artificial things because of choices others have made. The choice to replace something natural with something artificial because it was more profitable to do so. This could be a direct reduction of cost, or a reduction of operational costs (simplified manufacturing, etc.) or a reduction of loss (artificial things tend to stay "fresh" longer) but they are all permutations of increasing profit.
Turning this lens on the AI Industry, I think it's obvious why so many CEOs are jumping on the AI Industry's bandwagon. For them, or perhaps for their bosses and bosses bosses, AI is a way to replace natural intelligence with something cheaper, and they have so little respect for their customers that they don't think it will make a difference. They also have so little respect for their source of natural intelligence that they are excited about replacing them with something artificial, based on (unproven) promises that it will increase profits.
So the term "artificial intelligence" is perfect for what the AI Industry produces: a cheap substitute for the real thing whose primary value is the promise of increased profit and whose output is inferior at best and produces unwanted-to-dangerous side-effects in the people who use and consume it.
There have been many times in the past where a new artificial ingredient was celebrated as a revolutionary achievement, only to fail to achieve what it's creators claimed it would. When you think about what artificial things are and why they exist, this outcome is no surprise. The people incapable of observing this pattern are those who are blinded by their desire for what the makers of artificial things promise.
With this understanding I no longer hesitate and in fact embrace the use of the phrase "artificial intelligence" for the products of the AI Industry. Their claims of it being the same or better than the real thing are just as absurd as they were before, but I now see how this phrase perfectly describes this absurdity, and I hope others will too.
Jason J. Gullickson, 2026