Kamala Harris called out for awkward description of AI: ‘Kind of a fancy thing’

Vice President Kamala Harris has been left somewhat red-faced after a clip of her attempting to explain artificial intelligence was viewed more than 800,000 times.

Ms Harris describing AI as a “fancy thing” during a roundtable with advocacy representatives has been roundly mocked, with many people comparing the answer to some of the gaffes that President Joe Biden has become known for.

“I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing, first of all, it’s two letters, it means artificial intelligence but ultimately ... it’s about machine learning,” Ms Harris said.

“And so the machine is taught and part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine that will then determine, and we can predict then if we think about what information is going in, what then will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that may be made through that process.”

One Twitter user referred to Ms Harris’ description as being like “the introduction to a 6th-grade essay on AI”, while another suggested the vice president “always speaks as if she is talking to a room of 3rd graders”.

“It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between Kamala Harris speaking about AI and Bart Simpson’s book report on Treasure Island,” another user added.

Ms Harris has previously been mocked for past comments, in particular after she told Today in January 2022 on the topic of the coronavirus pandemic: “It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day. Every day, it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down.”

The vice president currently has an approval rating of 39.2 per cent, according to polling averages from FiveThirtyEight, while President Biden has a slightly higher approval rating of 40.6 per cent.