Benevolence vs. Malevolence: Artificial Intelligence… is There Anyway to Prepare?
Yes, A.I. or Artificial Intelligence is coming and… Yes, as a human, you can prepare. It seems that people are split on what Artificial Intelligence means to them and the human race. Let me explain why that is the case. Humans are profoundly proficient at categorizing new data but there is a catch, we generally use very few categories and we are often wrong. Evolution has genetically ensured that you, using your senses can quickly tell the difference between healthy and dangerous. Unfortunately, that very primal need to very quickly categorize new threat-data comes at the cost of categorizing everything in mostly binary ways. You know this as stereotyping.
We learn this binary categorization scheme very early (psychologically); mom and dad, boy and girl, family and not family, home and not home… see the pattern emerging? We repeat these categorizations throughout our upbringing and education dividing, subdividing and expanding our knowledge of what we perceive. Eventually as we mature into our 20’s we see order in things, people, places and events and Chaos in other things, people, places and events… and we use our evolutionary category system to ascribe (mostly) male to order and female to Chaos… because we learned this first.
It is an unconscious or subconscious conclusion to place things in one or the other category. Most religions, philosophies and human enlightenment revolve around the concept that safe is Order, and danger is Chaos. Both eastern and western manners of thought do this and they point out that a life cannot be lived with just Order or just Chaos… living a life means both exist. Keeping them in balance with one another is the real trick you must learn.
Artificial Intelligence is still very much science fiction. A.I. is an unknown. As such, we subconsciously categorize it; safe or dangerous, healthy or sickening, good or evil, it will bring Order or it will bring Chaos. We do this according to our own knowledge, lives and experiences, beliefs and concerns, hopes and terrors and our perception of what the future holds for ourselves. Hence, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk you see a pattern emerge. Oh, and Hollywood has certainly added to our perceptions of A.I., both positively and negatively, reinforcing our own beliefs, whichever way they lean.
Thankfully, in human history, we are not there yet. Major, really major, technological hurdles exist to truly create an artificial mind that can think like a human mind; let alone out-think a human mind. Many in the field of artificial intelligence think that true A.I. is many decades away. Unfortunately, the era of machine learning has begun. That is what is of concern in the 2020’s and 2030’s to my friends, colleagues, and children and to me!
A machine-learning system of hardware and software can learn almost any repetitive task faster and better than human… but it cannot be a ‘mostly’ repetitive task… it needs to be really repetitive task with no deviations. Machine learning creates narrow-scope artificial intelligent-like systems but not true A.I. This is where the confusion creates big headlines. What is in your world is not A.I., not yet… but “Machine Learns to Cook and Flip Burgers Perfectly, Every Time!” is not as catchy an article title as, “Artificial Intelligence Spells Doom for All Fast Food Jobs!”
You live and often interact with these impressive hardware and software creations. The internet is full of very sophisticated narrow-scope artificial intelligent-like systems to aid your searches for information… even if they are paid for and kept up by advertising and marketing efforts to place items and services you may or may not want in front of your eyeballs. (That drives me crazy, too.) Your smart device ‘learns’ shortcuts and preferences that you utilize often, maybe your car can drive itself on the highways and maybe your job is interfacing with narrow-scope artificial intelligent-like systems or agents to make you more productive and perhaps your kids use interactive learning modules online that remember your child’s preferences, common mistakes and uses those to teach your child more quickly. That is happening with math all over the nation!
It might feel as if we are the frogs in the technology-water and it is slowing heating up… soon we will have boiled to death. Humans are not frogs. If the water gets hot we humans get the hell out! When we learned that Facebook’s narrow-scope artificial intelligent-like system of data management had been used to manipulate the information we see… well, humans began jumping out of the water, in droves. There will be more unsettling observations and discoveries as we slowly wade into smarter and smarter narrow-scope artificial intelligent-like systems… and there will be monumental disappointments as well as what will seem like magical abilities and creations. The smart-phone is only ten years old! Systems are just now coming online that gather information in real-time from sensors: facial recognition cameras, machine-listening for gunshots, broken glass, vibration and presence indicators… etc. This is all happening very quickly.
Okay humans, how do you get prepared? This might not be the time in history to decide you want to be a factory worker, a driver or even an airline pilot or any other job where you do the same thing over and over exactly the same way. If you see your current job slowly relegated to machines and artificial intelligent-like systems make a plan to jump out of the pot! Learn something more to add to your value.
Friends ask what their children should go into… well, I respond, what do they like? Every sector of the economy has jobs that are in danger of being replaced by automation and machine learning EXCEPT those that have to do with human-to-human interactions… the softer-side of life and experience and interaction. Even Anesthesiology (my field) has many parts, some of which are incredibly perfectly repetitive and my colleagues see changes coming that will increase the anesthesiologist’s level of vigilance to keep anesthetized patients safe when some of the repetitive tasks are automated. However, no machine or A.I. will replace seeing the patient awake, before surgery and looking into their eyes with reassurance and confidence that they are going to be okay… that is a human skill alone.
What we all need to learn is to communicate effectively to one another. Social media expanding one form of information exchange but it retarded much of the message in doing so. Communications, in person and with enough time and attention to really listen and understand is what humans often need and want in life when faced with challenges and problems. Learn to do that and you’ll find yourself more valuable to your employer and positioned to move within an organization if automation eliminates your old job. Your kids learning these skills give them immense opportunity to replace those in the workforce who just choose not to expand their capabilities.
No matter how advanced our machines and systems become there will always be problems and at some point you will type in or speak up or maybe even just ‘think’… “May I please, please, just talk to a human?” There are the jobs of the future for all of us; service, problem solving, communications, therapy and the lists go on and on. There are the other endeavors of the human mind: art, creation, fantasy, research, leaps of logic, epiphanies that will not be taken over so easily by machine learning and perhaps will never really be succeeded by artificial intelligence in our lifetimes.
So what do I see in our human future?
Far more good than evil, more Order than Chaos; I see a great Renaissance ahead much like when the farm machines first reduced the number of humans required to farm an acre. All those people not spending all day, all year, making food gave the largest boost in human capability, ingenuity and exploration ever experienced by our race. The next Renaissance will begin again as monotonous jobs are done by machine-learning systems that free more people than ever to educate themselves and pursue other creativities, passions, ideas and understanding. The key is and always will be to never stop learning.
