On January 28, 2015, Bill Gates held an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit, where he expressed concerns over artificial intelligence (AI). This event heralded Gates’s admittance to the club of brilliant minds who have drawn attention to the potential dangers of AI. Stephen Hawking has theorized how highly advanced AI could “spell the end of the human race,” and Tesla founder Elon Musk has compared the development of AI to “summoning the devil.” While films like “I, Robot” and “The Terminator” bring to mind images of intelligent machines taking over the world, real-world AI is represented more benevolently by accident-avoidant cars and robots that can perform life-saving surgeries. All of these conflicting representations ultimately beg the question: What exactly is artificial intelligence?
The term artificial intelligence was first coined in 1955 by computer scientist John McCarthy to describe “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” These machines are built to imitate human intelligence, based on the claim that human intelligence “can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.” The first AI projects developed computer programs that could play checkers, solve algebra, and even prove mathematical theorems. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, the use of AI grew exponentially and has become an important part of today’s society.
An example of modern AI technology is self-parking cars. Although current self-parking cars are not completely autonomous – they require the driver to shift gears and control the speed of the vehicle – they do make it easier for drivers to parallel park. The AI computer installed inside the car controls the wheel and can the driver when to stop and shift the car into drive or reverse. Attached to these cars are transmitters that generate airwaves which bounce off objects surrounding the car and reflect back. The system calculates the time it takes for those signals to return and can determine both the distance and location of the objects. Using that information, the computer steers the car into place.
AI has also affected other industries such as speech recognition software, the stock market, and property management. Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, had this to say: “A lot of cutting-edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it’s not labeled AI anymore.” A great example of this is Apple’s personal assistant application for its iOS system, Siri. This widely-used technology utilizes voice recognition to help users with things like checking movie times, finding restaurants, and scheduling appointments.
To have a better understanding of the power behind AI, look at Watson, IBM’s new super intelligent machine. Watson is unique in that it utilizes a question answering (QA) system. IBM executive Craig Rhinehart explains on his blog: “The key difference between QA technology and document search is that document search takes a keyword query and returns a list of documents, ranked in order of relevance to the query (often based on popularity and page ranking), while QA technology takes a question expressed in natural language, seeks to understand it in much greater detail, and returns a precise answer to the question.” In a demonstration of the answering system Watson easily defeated two previous Jeopardy champions in a game show exhibition match. Watson is also used in healthcare as a clinical decision support system. It aids doctors by analyzing a patient’s medical and hereditary history, examining data sources such as clinical studies or journal articles, and then eventually coming up with hypotheses that provide a list of individualized, confidencescored recommendations for treatment.
Watson’s computing ability has stunned the world, but it has also led to bigger questions about the consequences of giving machines independent minds. Computational creativity, also known as artificial creativity, is by definition “a multidisciplinary endeavor that combines artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, philosophy, and the arts.” Its essential goal is to create a program that is capable of human-level creativity. Creativity is defined as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relations” and “create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, and interpretations.” But creativity is far more complex than its definition. Experts have debated for decades whether creativity is a state of mind, a talent, an ability, or even a process. Even more confusing, AI programmers are having trouble determining how exactly to evaluate creativity. For systems that are attributed as “creative,” the question then becomes whether the creativity is the result of the system itself or that of the system’s designer. In a 2007 article written by John McCarthy, he described exactly how close AI was to reaching human-level intelligence. “A few people think that human-level intelligence can be achieved by writing large numbers of programs,” he said. “However, most AI researchers believe that new fundamental ideas are required, and therefore it cannot be predicted when human-level intelligence will be achieved.”
There have been past demonstrations of computers that are approaching human-level intelligence. In 1997, IBM chess computer Deep Blue successfully defeated reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game chess match. After his defeat, Kasparov admitted that he “saw deep intelligence and creativity” and believed he played against a machine that “could experience human intuition.” Critics of the machine state that while Deep Blue’s winning moves may have seemed creative to humans, its approach was nothing but blindingly obvious as their systems are essentially built on logic. The possibility of adding creativity to computer programs still remains an elusive topic. McCarthy has argued that AI might eventually be able to “bootstrap itself to higher and higher level intelligence,” but such technology is not yet ready to begin that process.
Even if the technology is not there yet, computer developers have not been dissuaded from trying to create human-level intelligence. Recently, the original inventors of Apple’s Siri announced they are close to finishing a new program called Viv – a “radical new AI that does anything you ask.” Siri is limited in that it only performs tasks it is programmed to do. Viv, however, breaks those constraints by teaching itself. Through a series of sophisticated algorithms, Viv will follow three principles: “It will be taught by the world, it will know more than it is taught, and it will learn something every day.” As more people use Viv and it gains more knowledge, Viv will then be able to, as American journalist Stephen Levy writes, “sift through that vast trove of data and find new ways to connect and manipulate the information.”
While AI and all of its devices and programs seem promising, Martin Ford, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, argues that AI poses a threat to the job market and has potential to completely disrupt the entire economic system by rendering human workers unnecessary. Ken Jennings, one of the contestants defeated by Watson in Jeopardy wrote an article after the exhibition saying, “Just as factory jobs were eliminated in the 20th century by new assembly-line robots, Brad and I were the first knowledge industry workers put out of work by the new generation of ‘thinking’ machines.” He further said that while “‘Quiz show contestant’ may be the first job made redundant by Watson… I’m sure it won’t be the last.” Although some experts say there is no real concern because technology always creates new jobs while eliminating old ones, AI has already begun to replace paralegals, assembly-line workers, and financial analysts. As self-driving technology improves, we could even see human truck drivers being put out of work. While these jobs won’t completely disappear, AI technology will certainly reduce the need for them.
AI has become such an integral part of human lives. It excites us because it makes daily life easier by turning science fiction into reality. At the same time, AI is changing the way human intelligence is viewed and may eventually revolutionize the job market and economic system. AI has grown exponentially and will continue to dramatically affect our daily lives, so it is important to start questioning the future impact of machines now. Who knows? We could be just a few short decades away from the self-driving cars and friendly computer sidekicks seen in science fiction films. The only question is whether or not there will really be a hero to protect us if things go wrong.
By Nathan Li/Photo Credit: Business Insider