The first time I listened to Jaron Lanier talk about the illusions that both virtual reality and artificial intelligence thrive off of, I wanted to punch him. His style comes off as smug in a way that triggers the latent bully in me but only for about a half hour. Over the past few years I’ve found his approach to human interactions with contemporary technology very useful for understanding what is actually going on in contrast to the illusions being generated around these topics. This link is a fairly good starter on his positions:
http://www.jaronlanier.com/aichapter.html
Semi-alarmist, but not wrong, his Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now has a lot to offer on something that has impacted all of our lives. My recommendation is to consider the points rather than suggesting anyone adopt this positions uncritically.
(The picture is of an automaton called a “Chess Turk.” Learn a bit about this illusion in this video.)
Setemheb 