How to be human in the age of the machine
David Whiting
HSE Culture Specialist: Helping Businesses Identify, Connect & Engage with Safety Leadership and Culture
Because the future doesn’t just happen: We create IT – Don't We?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world around us. From automated factories that build everything without human intervention, to computer systems capable of beating world masters at some of the most complex games, AI is powering our society into the future – but what happens when this artificial intelligence becomes greater than ours?
There is massive investments in AI research, several hundred billion pounds over the next decade, suggest further rapid advances are not far away. Predictions that superhuman AI is totally impossible are unwise and lack any technical foundation.
Neural networks – deep-learning algorithms that can crunch through oceans of data to spot patterns invisible to the human eye – provided no end of breakthroughs in 2018. These number-crunching machines embarrassed chess and Go champions, bettered doctors at patient diagnosis and learned to drive. But I think, 2019, we might see how all the requests listened to by the likes of Siri and Alexa have taught their neural networks to speak like us.
Machines making decisions on behalf of multiple humans face a problem that is closely related to one of the basic problems of moral philosophy: how should a moral person (or a moral government) act? These are not identical situations, because the machine making the decision has no preferences of its own, but the problems remain very similar.
Can we solve the problem?
The first is misuse – How can we be sure that malevolent human actors won’t deploy powerful and dangerous forms of AI for their own ends? We have not had much success in containing malware so far, and this would be far worse.
The second major problem is overuse – how do we avoid the gradual enfeeblement of humanity as machines take over more and more of the running of our civilisation? Well-designed machines should insist that humans retain control and responsibility for their own wellbeing, but short-sighted humans may disagree.
We need to make a list of the questions we need answers to and start doing the hard work of getting those answers so we have them by the time we need them.
“We need to transform the debate from dysfunctional and polarised to constructive and productive”.
We are just starting to live in a New World Order, where invisible pieces of code that forms the gears and cogs of the modern machine age, algorithms have given the world everything, social media, global satellite monitoring, search engines to dating sites. And we don't give them a moment thought when we listen the talking map in the car, or you do a goggle search it knows more about your likes and dislikes than you are even aware of.
They have leaned our likes and dislikes’ they tell us what we want to hear, what to read and who to date and all of the while, they have hidden power to slowly and subtly change the rules about what it is to be human.
Cambridge Analytical might have made the headlines recently, but these algorithms are everywhere. In our hospitals, our courtrooms, our police stations and our supermarkets. what kind of world we want to live in.
Algorithm: A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem.
Understanding the Basics
1. Prioritization: making an ordered list - Have you ever wondered how all your favorites topics always appear first, it’s used in the other three steps to calculate what your preference may be
2. Classification: picking a category - Those little cookies can automatically classify and direct you to potential material that meets traits it’s picked up from your previous history
3. Association: finding links - It’s all about finding and marking relationship’s between things and connecting you with past custom and practice
4. Filtering: isolating what’s important: Algorithms focus on your most frequent interests and your personilsed ranking that is important and relate s directly to you
a. Rule based algorithms: are those programed in by a Real Human.
b. Machine based algorithms; Artificial Intelligence – Self Taught.
We all have had occasions where we have experienced trust issues to some degree when looking at the media, or a politician talking (No comment). But when a computer generates a piece of information we just trust that the answer is correct.
Do you double check when your gut instinct is telling you something else?
There is no such thing as a Free Lunch: Stop and ask yourself before you click that Cookie (Algorithm) what is the hidden agenda what is happening inside my computer right now – Can any of you with certainty say I know exactly what little bots are floating around under the keys and how many of them are joined up And working together to mine my information – TRUST?
My Conclusion
An algorithm is more consistent and less prone to error of judgement, if we trust the people behind the scenes and the ultimate reason of the backer and why they are asking, can you look them in the eye before making up your own mind.
Welcome to the age of the algorithm, the story of a not-too-distant future where machines rule supreme, making important decisions – in healthcare, transport, finance, security, what we watch, where we go even whom we send to prison.
What kind of future do we want?
I believe at this time if used for good the algorithm if correctly used and with good intent can out perform faster a human, but when intentions and competing incentives are hidden from view or over-stated and the risks are obscured by the small print that follows (that none of read). We have to ask ourselves do I believe what I am being told and who stands to profit from my believing it?
Another question I am asking myself and you is: how can we organise our society so that people can feel a sense of purpose, even if they have no job? It’s really interesting to think about what sort of society we’re trying to create, where we can flourish with high tech, rather than flounder.
Call to Action
- How good is good Enough (because if the algorithm is flawed and out there its already to late) (Do you know how to do an inventory on your PC) ?
- Do you secretly have little idea what algorithms and data actually are?
- Working together, human and AI-machine can be the perfect team (but how).
- Do we have a need for algorithmic regulation”, and wants the public to understand the compromises we are making.
- Because, as Fry says, “the future doesn’t just happen. We create it.”
This article is based around Dr Hannah Fry new book Hello World (I recommend that it is a bases to work from) Published by Penguin
Dr Hannah Fry is an Associate Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL. She works alongside a unique mix of physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, architects and geographers to study the patterns in human behaviour - particularly in an urban setting. Her research applies to a wide range of social problems and questions, from shopping and transport to urban crime, riots and terrorism (https://www.hannahfry.co.uk/)