More empathy for AI

Have you also noticed? Lately, it seems that artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm. Social media timelines are full of DALL-E creations, an AI bot that translates text instructions into photo-realistic images in seconds. Newspapers outdo each other with the most spectacular headline. Het Laatste Nieuws wonders whether 'AI, avatars and robots replace real love and relationships' and De Standaard states that 'Google's AI is a person with a soul'.

Meanwhile, we collectively wonder when AI will make our profession obsolete. Already passed in review: drivers, writers, designers and lawyers. Even deceased composers are not safe from the algorithms: AI finished Beethoven's 10th Symphony last year on the basis of a few loose notes.

Meanwhile, futurists are discussing the timing of Artificial General Intelligence, the moment when machines will be able to solve problems they are not yet trained for. Distopists fear that robots will colonize humanity at that time, while utopians dream of AI that saves the climate and eliminates cancer.

As an AI entrepreneur, it gives me mixed feelings. Because yes, the potential of AI is enormous. Our was able to detect covid on lung scans early after the initial outbreak of the pandemic. At the same time, the limitations are very real. In Belgium, there is not yet an AI solution that detects cancer cells in a biopsy. The difference between the two? Mainly the changing context.

Deep learning

This changing context also hinders self-driving cars. Last Monday, Tesla's share fell 8 percent against the market, partly because the e-automaker still can't say when its cars will be able to drive independently. That context also explains why robots are so clumsy in football. If you haven't seen it yet, search YouTube for 'robot soccer'. Spoiler alert: Messi doesn't have to worry right away.

In order to evolve from artificial to real intelligence, we must first ask ourselves how smart AI actually is. The most advanced form of AI available today is Deep Learning. It is that generation of AI systems that is defeating GO world champions and is able to detect covid on lung scans. This form of AI 'learns' to understand data like our brains: via neural networks. Deep learning can make connections with warp speed on an unprecedented scale on the basis of statistical data.

In essence, AI today is a calculator. The results are impressive, but limited. That's why I don't believe we can make the current generation of AI tools much smarter. Faster? Yes. More accurate? Of course.

Rain Man

Our current AI is a bit like 'Rain Man', the movie starring Dustin Hoffman. Rain Man cannot handle change and is incapable of natural conversation. But when a waitress drops toothpicks, Rain Man instantly sees there are 496 of them on the floor. In a game of poker, he remembers all the cards dealt and doesn't even have to think about the statistical odds of his opponents.

Few would call Rain Man smart. In French, such a person is called an idiot savant. Learned idiots, a nice description of our AI systems at the moment. The difference between Rain Man and most of his fellows? A lack of empathy.

Let it be just empathy that makes us humans evolve cognitively and emotionally from infancy. This way, toddlers can already comfort each other. That is intelligent and requires empathy. Empathy is what makes people smarter than a calculator. Empathy is what AI doesn't have.

It is precisely because of this lack of empathy that AI is intellectually in its infancy. Recently, the new AI chatbot from Meta, the company behind Facebook, painfully illustrated this. When a reporter asked the bot what he thought of Mark Zuckerberg, he replied, “His company exploits people for money and he doesn't care. It must stop!' It will come as no surprise to you that the virtual employee is no longer on Meta's payroll.

It means there is still a lot of work to do. For empathetic people. As an AI entrepreneur, that makes me happy.

Jonathan Berte,

founder and chairman of the board at Robovision, an AI company.

(This column was originally published in Dutch in De Tijd, a Belgian newspaper that mainly focuses on business and economics.)