The oncoming storm of Artificial Intelligence as popularized by sci-fi films and to some extent over-inflated expectations of machines that can learn to mimic humans has created an early worry of its impact on jobs, society and us in general.
The announcement of a UK commission to look at ethical, legal and societal impact needs to be unpacked in terms of what the state of current A.I. is today and what is causing this early alarm bell to be taken seriously.
Why are we raging against the machine?
This is perhaps in two areas, the level of sensors and data collection is now rapidly increasing from mobile phones, security cameras to devices in the home like Amazon Echo and Google Home
starting to record huge amounts of data about our behavior and choices. On one level this is a concern for privacy and identity that machine algorithms are in use already that analyze this sea of data and can start to manipulate and influence our outcomes and expectations. This is part of the source of the commission focus.
But the other issue is the nature of A.I. is not just the famous Google/UK Deepmind and IBM Watson showcasing new insights or gaming prowess, but new intelligence methods that are based on computing that can "teach itself", learn without the initial training data set and human inclusion. The rise of self-learning A.I. means that potentially new unforeseen discoveries or new capabilities may be developed as these new programs can evolve. This is not just the issue of replacing humans with smarter number crunchers but the direction that such new A.I. technology could go in. How will decisions to over seen and trusted to be in the interests of human owners or in the general sense of society and the often competing political, competitive and economic needs.
Understanding our Demons in plain sight
The idea of weak A.I. that is limited to simple tasks automation is already here. This will replace manual jobs but also over time replace skills of lawyers and surgeons and drive cars as well. this is one economic impact. But the other idea of strong A.I. evolving to Artificial General Intelligence or automated reasoning towards complete human level awareness is still a long way off.
the level of inputs , data and processing is beyond today's machines. In time this could be possible and the debate of sentience, consciousness will become more relevant than today.
What is relevant today is whether controls can be created if these new machines have processes that self-learn , what guidance and assurances can and do we need to make sure this is ethical and equitable?
The issues are profoundly deep in the long term, huge wonderful leaps in automation and new services to protect people and increase more productive help and meaningful existence for society. But it can also be seen as a possible that not just jobs can be lost, new skills created, but a new kind of legislative reality to balance human and machine impact will be needed.
Who are our Caretakers of A.I.?
Who are our Caretakers of A.I.?
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