"Resistance is futile". Declared a cyborg - half human/half machine creature - in the erstwhile TV series, Star Trek, The Next Generation. The series debuted in May, 1988 which seems like not too long ago, but that was a third of a century past; in fact, it was in the prior century! The term artificial intelligence was not in vogue then. Today, it is all the rage. It has forever changed life in the developed world in particular, and civilization in general, and indeed, "Resistance is futile". Should we be alarmed?
AI.
AI.
Here's a quote from Business Insider:
"Chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov, who lost to IBM's Deep Blue computer in 1997, predicts that AI will 'destroy' most jobs in the US".
"For several decades we have been training people to act like computers, and now we are complaining that these jobs are in danger," Kasparov said. "Of course they are."
Should we really be worried? Is it really that alarming? We can always hedge our answers by straddling the fence and say, "Yes and No?". It seems though that the old narrative about the ease with which humans can so easily deal with it that is summed up by, "We can always just simply pull the plug" may no longer work.
There is good, bad and ugly in artificial intelligence. That is also to say, well, there is much to like, there is much to dislike, but we can take the bad with the good because there is a likelier possibility it will even out at the very least or that perhaps the good outnumbers the bad, in the end, even if by a small number. What are we talking about?
We have to admit there is nothing artificial about it. It is in our factories, household appliances and on our roads being tested to drive our vehicles and in so many places that impact our daily lives. The lives of those in the developed world, that is. But not in so many other places like Tristan da Cunha.
Described in Listverse list of the The Ten Most Isolated Inhabited Places, it is a place where there are "No restaurants. No hotels. No credit cards. No safe beaches.This is the life of those living on Tristan da Cunha, the world’s most remote populated island. (Both the archipelago and the main island in the group are named Tristan da Cunha.) These islands are in the middle of the Atlantic, i.e., the middle of nowhere".
Since you are reading this from one electronic device or another, you are already in a world of artificial intelligence, so it will be a huge burden on your part to relate your life now with those in Tristan da Cunha. You are probably driving a vehicle that during its manufacture was spot and line welded with precision and unerring, untiring diligence by an uncomplaining one-armed worker that does not take coffee breaks or demand a vacation or paid health care - the robot worker at the assembly line. As Kasparov will point out, that one robot already took the job of perhaps three people, if not more. From Detroit to Miyoshi, Aichi in Japan to Ulsan, S. Korea, these robots, each one made capable and doing its job with artificial intelligence, are as ubiquitous as their human co-workers, or someday will outnumber the latter. Soon they will take over perhaps 90% of the human work load in factories, order fulfillment centers, even libraries and the medical field where today a computer is being tasked (experimentally for now) to read X-ray films or interpret MRI and other radiology data and seem to do better than human radiologists.
It was told in Front Line, a TV magazine series, that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was a big fan of "Computer" in Star Trek that he envisioned Alexa after that computer. In fact, human characters in all of the aforementioned TV series called for computer assistance the same way we now preface our voice query or command by first saying, "Alexa" or "Okay, Google" to get one of these to respond. In fact, they make the oracle at Delphi, amateurish and clearly less mythological.
But they are not exempt from hype. For example, if you ask Alexa, what political party affiliation she belongs to ...
Clever, but I don't think that's AI. So is her attempt at humor at the expense of a much maligned prehistoric creature.
We know programmers put those in Alexa's data base. Asked to predict the last Superbowl winner, Alexa picked the Seattle Seahawks. And, of course, we know Amazon is based there and humans and Alexa, by her own admission, if AI can be made to admit to anything, had to root for their home team. Asked if Alexa knew Siri, another of a handful of residents in the Cloud, Alexa answered, "Only by reputation", which is a smart deflection to the more obvious question of who is smarter. In fact, check out its response to, "what do you think of Google?"
Alexa also differentiates the fact that when asked what "Good Morning" is in Filipino, it does not only display a readable text, it actually vocalizes it, "Magandang Umaga", albeit, in her own distinct accent.
Where does AI come into in all of these? Alexa's answers, if you try to ask a question, and believe me I have, its answers are lightning quick, including if it does not know the answer. There is some unbelievable algorithm involved to sort through the massive database in Alexa. And all of these are available at a voice command from any ordinary household member anywhere in the U.S. today that has access to the Web and a capable WiFi router. One does not have to be in USS Enterprise to get answers to myriad questions of all varieties. And if you have Alexa in various locations of your home, then it is as if you are with Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock on the Enterprise. With proper devices connected to it wirelessly, as in the cloud, it will adjust your room temperature, turn on lights, open or close your garage door, etc. It will play music, give you local weather, hourly, daily and a seven-day forecast, the news, it will even read Wikipedia and read books, etc.
So, we have Alexa, Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Microsoft) that are today the prominent residents in the Cloud. They're out there with sensitive ears and a data gathering capability that - combined - may perhaps exceed the NSA. I don't know that but I don't want to get in trouble with that assumption.
Voices of these AI are also disarming and magnanimously humble, as in answering, "Are you really smart?".
And, of course, it can be both funny and eerie at times. A few years ago, my wife and I were traveling by road guided by Google Maps. Everything was uneventful when suddenly the GPS said, "I'm sorry but I do not understand what you are saying". As it happened we were talking (in our native language, of course) while the GPS was silent but I happened to say Google because we were talking about it and it woke up to respond.
One afternoon, not too long ago, we were watching Jeopardy on TV. Alex Trebek addressed the contestant by name, as he always does when a player presses the signalling button, with "Alyssa" (first name of the contestant), which sounds like Alexa. Naturally, the contestant must say the answer in the form of a question. Guess what, Alexa answered the question. It was funny but ...
Actually, if asked if she is eavesdropping, Alexa cleverly says, "Only if you say the magic word first ("Alexa").
I muse about Alexa and her friends in the Cloud because they are what AI is to most folks today and how they are romanticized in the modern era as poets and painters were during the Renaissance.
Artificial Intelligence are in Roomba and other household sweepers/cleaners that are also quietly revolutionizing household chores. We are pretty pleased with Roomba even though we only got the "entry-level model". The newer ones that are 3-4 times more expensive not only will memorize the area (including an "invisible" barrier) of the rooms and clean them in patterned sequence, it will actually empty its load at the docking station (where a stationary vacuum will suck the contents). The base model knows where and when to dock, and it actually lets you know if it needs help (if immobilized by an obstruction) via your smart phone.
We have smart beds now that customize the firmness of the mattress to your choice and reviews your sleeping experience during the night, as in, the time it took for you to fall asleep, how many hours of restful sleep and hours of restlessness (if you were), times you got out of bed and duration away from it, your breaths per minute and heart rate. All of these data summarized for you daily (each morning) and monthly and how often you make or miss your "target sleep goals or Sleep IQ". This might all be too much but it just shows AI is there to help. It does make suggestions after a restless night some tips on how to improve your "Sleep IQ". So far, we're not complaining.
AI offers a lot of good but the fear is that aside from some of the known quantifiable "bad" there could be future ones that, as we speak, are quietly changing our lives without us knowing yet that are arguably not going to be good. I like it that I do not have to calculate the internal angles of and the lengths of each side of a hexagon that will fit in or enclose a specified circle of a particular radius to set the table saw blade's tilt and miter cut guide because Alexa does that for me but someday young kids may no longer be able to do that in school, let alone understand the geometry and math involved with this and a host of other principles.
What will be alarming is that we are slowly but surely outsourcing all levels of problem solving to machines that in the end the human brain centuries from now will have weakened to the point of reversed evolution because AI has but for a few tasks taken over all thinking - human thinking.
I leave the reader with this exchange with Alexa when asked, "Will machines ultimately take over the world?" Below is the bottom half of her answer.
The good news is that the folks in the year 2102, if there are still folks then, not us today, are going to answer or be confronted with that reality.
"Chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov, who lost to IBM's Deep Blue computer in 1997, predicts that AI will 'destroy' most jobs in the US".
"For several decades we have been training people to act like computers, and now we are complaining that these jobs are in danger," Kasparov said. "Of course they are."
Should we really be worried? Is it really that alarming? We can always hedge our answers by straddling the fence and say, "Yes and No?". It seems though that the old narrative about the ease with which humans can so easily deal with it that is summed up by, "We can always just simply pull the plug" may no longer work.
There is good, bad and ugly in artificial intelligence. That is also to say, well, there is much to like, there is much to dislike, but we can take the bad with the good because there is a likelier possibility it will even out at the very least or that perhaps the good outnumbers the bad, in the end, even if by a small number. What are we talking about?
We have to admit there is nothing artificial about it. It is in our factories, household appliances and on our roads being tested to drive our vehicles and in so many places that impact our daily lives. The lives of those in the developed world, that is. But not in so many other places like Tristan da Cunha.
Described in Listverse list of the The Ten Most Isolated Inhabited Places, it is a place where there are "No restaurants. No hotels. No credit cards. No safe beaches.This is the life of those living on Tristan da Cunha, the world’s most remote populated island. (Both the archipelago and the main island in the group are named Tristan da Cunha.) These islands are in the middle of the Atlantic, i.e., the middle of nowhere".
Since you are reading this from one electronic device or another, you are already in a world of artificial intelligence, so it will be a huge burden on your part to relate your life now with those in Tristan da Cunha. You are probably driving a vehicle that during its manufacture was spot and line welded with precision and unerring, untiring diligence by an uncomplaining one-armed worker that does not take coffee breaks or demand a vacation or paid health care - the robot worker at the assembly line. As Kasparov will point out, that one robot already took the job of perhaps three people, if not more. From Detroit to Miyoshi, Aichi in Japan to Ulsan, S. Korea, these robots, each one made capable and doing its job with artificial intelligence, are as ubiquitous as their human co-workers, or someday will outnumber the latter. Soon they will take over perhaps 90% of the human work load in factories, order fulfillment centers, even libraries and the medical field where today a computer is being tasked (experimentally for now) to read X-ray films or interpret MRI and other radiology data and seem to do better than human radiologists.
It was told in Front Line, a TV magazine series, that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was a big fan of "Computer" in Star Trek that he envisioned Alexa after that computer. In fact, human characters in all of the aforementioned TV series called for computer assistance the same way we now preface our voice query or command by first saying, "Alexa" or "Okay, Google" to get one of these to respond. In fact, they make the oracle at Delphi, amateurish and clearly less mythological.
But they are not exempt from hype. For example, if you ask Alexa, what political party affiliation she belongs to ...
Clever, but I don't think that's AI. So is her attempt at humor at the expense of a much maligned prehistoric creature.
Where does AI come into in all of these? Alexa's answers, if you try to ask a question, and believe me I have, its answers are lightning quick, including if it does not know the answer. There is some unbelievable algorithm involved to sort through the massive database in Alexa. And all of these are available at a voice command from any ordinary household member anywhere in the U.S. today that has access to the Web and a capable WiFi router. One does not have to be in USS Enterprise to get answers to myriad questions of all varieties. And if you have Alexa in various locations of your home, then it is as if you are with Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock on the Enterprise. With proper devices connected to it wirelessly, as in the cloud, it will adjust your room temperature, turn on lights, open or close your garage door, etc. It will play music, give you local weather, hourly, daily and a seven-day forecast, the news, it will even read Wikipedia and read books, etc.
So, we have Alexa, Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Microsoft) that are today the prominent residents in the Cloud. They're out there with sensitive ears and a data gathering capability that - combined - may perhaps exceed the NSA. I don't know that but I don't want to get in trouble with that assumption.
Voices of these AI are also disarming and magnanimously humble, as in answering, "Are you really smart?".
And, of course, it can be both funny and eerie at times. A few years ago, my wife and I were traveling by road guided by Google Maps. Everything was uneventful when suddenly the GPS said, "I'm sorry but I do not understand what you are saying". As it happened we were talking (in our native language, of course) while the GPS was silent but I happened to say Google because we were talking about it and it woke up to respond.
One afternoon, not too long ago, we were watching Jeopardy on TV. Alex Trebek addressed the contestant by name, as he always does when a player presses the signalling button, with "Alyssa" (first name of the contestant), which sounds like Alexa. Naturally, the contestant must say the answer in the form of a question. Guess what, Alexa answered the question. It was funny but ...
Actually, if asked if she is eavesdropping, Alexa cleverly says, "Only if you say the magic word first ("Alexa").
I muse about Alexa and her friends in the Cloud because they are what AI is to most folks today and how they are romanticized in the modern era as poets and painters were during the Renaissance.
Artificial Intelligence are in Roomba and other household sweepers/cleaners that are also quietly revolutionizing household chores. We are pretty pleased with Roomba even though we only got the "entry-level model". The newer ones that are 3-4 times more expensive not only will memorize the area (including an "invisible" barrier) of the rooms and clean them in patterned sequence, it will actually empty its load at the docking station (where a stationary vacuum will suck the contents). The base model knows where and when to dock, and it actually lets you know if it needs help (if immobilized by an obstruction) via your smart phone.
We have smart beds now that customize the firmness of the mattress to your choice and reviews your sleeping experience during the night, as in, the time it took for you to fall asleep, how many hours of restful sleep and hours of restlessness (if you were), times you got out of bed and duration away from it, your breaths per minute and heart rate. All of these data summarized for you daily (each morning) and monthly and how often you make or miss your "target sleep goals or Sleep IQ". This might all be too much but it just shows AI is there to help. It does make suggestions after a restless night some tips on how to improve your "Sleep IQ". So far, we're not complaining.
AI offers a lot of good but the fear is that aside from some of the known quantifiable "bad" there could be future ones that, as we speak, are quietly changing our lives without us knowing yet that are arguably not going to be good. I like it that I do not have to calculate the internal angles of and the lengths of each side of a hexagon that will fit in or enclose a specified circle of a particular radius to set the table saw blade's tilt and miter cut guide because Alexa does that for me but someday young kids may no longer be able to do that in school, let alone understand the geometry and math involved with this and a host of other principles.
What will be alarming is that we are slowly but surely outsourcing all levels of problem solving to machines that in the end the human brain centuries from now will have weakened to the point of reversed evolution because AI has but for a few tasks taken over all thinking - human thinking.
I leave the reader with this exchange with Alexa when asked, "Will machines ultimately take over the world?" Below is the bottom half of her answer.
The good news is that the folks in the year 2102, if there are still folks then, not us today, are going to answer or be confronted with that reality.
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