Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

A long time ago I watched “An Inconvenient Truth”, a documentary created by Al Gore, former US Vice President. It was 2006. Hidden amongst the many salient points made by Gore on his views on climate change he said something like: “Technology in the hands of people who don’t know how to use it is dangerous.”

Oddly, this is what I remember most from the documentary. Probably because I have seen technology misused so frequently.

In Zimbabwe we have ‘the motor car’. It is technology. The number of drivers on the roads who don’t appear to know how to use this technology surpasses understanding. The majority of the seemingly ignorant who misuse this machine are licensed drivers. They likely know most of the rules of the road. (Other road users, be they pedestrians, cyclists or drivers put their lives in danger every time they enter the road system).

But with all the knowledge these apparently ignorant drivers surely have, they misuse the technology to achieve their personal selfish ends – at the expense of others. Sometimes that expense is death.

To complicate matters many of the roads in this road system are no longer easily navigable, reduced to potholes of mammoth proportions and verges that are dangerous in the extreme. If you want to use technology, the users not only need to know how to use it, they need a safe way to use it and they need to use it in the interests of other than themselves.

In 2019 the 737 Max suffered two fatal air crashes. It seems from what I have read on these crashes that the pilots and co-pilots didn’t know how to use the new Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). Perhaps they had read the manual? Perhaps they had not. Whatever the issue, when the MCAS technology was applied to these two fatal aircraft shortly after take-off, the pilots did not know what was happening or how to respond. Their ignorance caused many deaths.

Which brings me to Artificial Intelligence (AI). The MCAS was and is AI. It is not only the pilots of these crashed aircraft that carry the blame. There are many others in the mix who didn’t do what they should have done in the interests of others. In this case pilots and passengers.

There has been a huge amount of chatter online in recent months about AI. I haven’t read it all and I have no doubt at all that there are things about AI that I do not know or understand.

But what I do know for sure is that it is people that use AI. And if it is going to work for good (or for evil as many are suggesting) the people who use it will need to know how to use it to enjoy its benefits for themselves and others. They will need to be aware of the unintended consequences of its use. And they will hopefully use it for good, not evil.

So you’re not going to be out of a job. We humans who used to drive a stagecoach with six horses in harness had to learn to drive a Model T Ford, or perhaps even be one of those who built them. And we have been having to learn to use new technology ever since time began.

You are going have to learn to use AI intelligently. You’re going to need to learn the consequences of its use, intended and unintended. You should also learn to use it for the benefit of others, not their sacrifice.

If we don’t learn all of these we will likely endanger ours and other people’s lives.

Learning is not simply about knowing. It is about changing behaviour and doing things differently.