The Ubiquitous Nature of AI

The definition of a Turing Test, as developed by Alan Turing, is an interaction in which “a human evaluator judges natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses.”(1) The human evaluator would see if they could distinguish which voice was human and which was machine. Google just revealed their new Duplex AI systems. You can see a video here. Listen in on the conversation between human and machine and see if you could tell which was which if you were not “in on the charade.”

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is rapidly becoming more and more prevalent. Take for example, the little ads at the bottom of an Amazon.ca or .com page. When I look at my page, it has a section entitled, “Inspired by your shopping trends.” In there I see a selection of books it is suggesting I might like to buy. I don’t just use Amazon for books, but apparently that is what I have mostly done in recent weeks. As I look through the suggestions, Amazon has done a good job of selecting books for me. I don’t own any of those books and many of them are ones I would like to read. Those were all selected by an AI. AI is presently capable of keeping inventory of what is in my refrigerator and keeping the shelves stocked by placing the orders. I don’t presently have a fridge hooked up to the internet, but there is a good chance that the next one I buy will come equipped with wifi capability whether I plan to use it or not.

Don Pittis at CBC News makes the point that it is only a matter of time before AI will simply suggest that we should purchase something, and we will comply. Amazon is already looking at having certain items delivered to our homes before we order them just in case we want them. They rely upon our heightened interest in the product and can afford to have us turn it down and send it back.

All of the biggest tech companies in the world are investing the majority of their money and energy into developing AI. Much of this will be a great help to humanity, but, we all know that AI has a dark side. There is a potential for AI to take us places we should not go and as some writers and thinkers have warned, has the potential to make us its slave (either figuratively or literally). If you want to see more on what some are predicting, check out here “Robotic Laws”, here “Ex Machina”, here “Her”, here “Elon Musk”, here "Sam Harris", or here “The Matrix”.

How do you feel about the ever-expanding presence of AI? What sorts of boundaries would you like to see put in place?


(1) See Wikipedia, Turing test, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test 

Pedestrian Fatality and Autonomous Cars

(Click on thumbnails for larger image)

A recent pedestrian fatality involving an autonomous car is simply the first such tragedy. Science News reported that a woman died crossing the street when a self-driving car, deployed by Uber, hit her.[1] Writers, engineers, and computer science experts had predicted this for some time. What will this mean specifically for the autonomous car industry and artificial intelligence in general? What algorithms, if any, need to be rewritten? What logic did the self-driving car’s onboard computers use in choosing to enter the area when a human being was also in the street?

I have previously discussed this possibility and its implications in other posts.[2] A number of questions now come to mind. Did the car make a decisive choice to hit the pedestrian to avoid harm to those in the car? Could the onboard AI have made a different choice? How could the outcome have been changed? Investigators will need to ask these and several more questions to get to a place of assigning responsibility for this accident. What will the law have to say? Who could be fined? What sort of lawsuit could be filed? We await the outcome to see how manufacturers of autonomous cars might learn from this incident and the ramifications for all car makers.

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[1] http://bit.ly/2FOICfm

[2] http://bit.ly/28VmLE1 and http://bit.ly/2AsuDZI

Autonomous Cars

Self-driving cars, without humans in the driver’s seat, are being tested on the streets of some cities. I used to joke with my nieces that once they were driving I would be turning in my driver’s license. Now, I am not sure whether I should be filled with awe at this amazing autonomous technology or fearing for my life. There are still many questions about how robots will make critical choices (see Robotic Laws). The tech companies readily admit that putting autonomous cars on the streets is a form of beta-testing and that there will be accidents involving cars without human drivers. However, the rationale for putting autonomous vehicles on the streets is that, ultimately, robot cars will lead to fewer accidents and fewer traffic fatalities on our roads. This is the argument in an article in Science News: “When it comes to self-driving cars, what’s safe enough?” by Maria Temming, November 21, 2017.

What kind of backlash against these autonomous cars can we expect when an autonomous car collides with a car piloted by a private citizen or professional driver? Temming gives us a possible scenario and asks, “What happens when a 4-year-old in the back of a car that’s operated by her mother gets killed by an autonomous car?” This is a real possibility. Will the public be quick to blame the robot or the human? How much will driving conditions factor into the investigation? How will Canadian winters affect autonomous cars? The title of the article is indeed the pertinent question, “What’s safe enough?”