The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence is being staged in Melbourne this week. This is the main international gathering of researchers in AI. Held biennially in odd-numbered years since 1969, IJCAI is sponsored jointly by IJCAI and the national AI societie(s) of the host nation(s).
The theme of this Year’s conference is Autonomy and AI and is intended to encourage debate and analysis of the limits and safeguards that must be established when giving AI systems more autonomy. Such limits and safe- guards must be established for AI systems to progress in way that supports a just and prosperous society. This topic will be central on some invited talks, panels, sessions.
An open letter signed by 116 founders of companies from 26 different countries warns that the development of lethal autonomous weapons, which can kill without direct human control, is proceeding at pace and that moves to ban them – in a similar way to chemical weapons – are moving too slowly.
CEOs from the rapidly advancing robotics and automation industry including Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk have joined a University of NSW professor in calling on the UN to ban artificial intelligence-driven ‘killer robot’ autonomous weapons, before it is too late. [Source: AFR]
Per dollar spent, computers have increased in power by a BILLION times in the last thirty years.
In about 20 years, a $1000 dollars will buy a computer about a million times more powerful than one today, and in 25 years a BILLION times more powerful than one today.
There’s a story that scientists built an intelligent computer. The first question they asked it was: “Is there a God?” The computer replies: “There is now.” And a bolt of lightning struck the plug so it couldn’t be turned off.
Nick Bostrom:
Most of the world is completely oblivious to the most major things that are going to happen in the 21st century
Terrapattern finds places that look the same using machine learning.
Terrapattern is a prototype for helping people quickly scan extremely large geographical areas for specific visual features.
We are particularly keen to help people identify, characterize and track indicators which have not been detected or measured previously, and which have sociological, humanitarian, scientific, or cultural significance.
Terrapattern provides an open-ended interface for visual query-by-example. Simply click an interesting spot on Terrapattern’s map, and it will find other locations that look similar. They say the prototype is ideal for finding things that aren’t usually indicated on maps. For best results, they recommend using a device with a large screen.
Certainly a growing and contentious policy debate on the role and purpose of autonomous robots in the “workplace”.
The potential of existential challenges to what we understand the “middle-class” to be [ in the context of a 20th Century definition of a “labour-force], coupled with genuine and profound advances in autonomous and now artificial intelligence, gives one a moment [at least] of pause. Certainly minds [ such as Musk, Hawking, Gates and Omohundro ] that closely consider these technologies and their implications would also agree. The existential challenges may extend far beyond the limited boundaries of what we call the “middle-class”.
As Prof. Stephen Hawking noted:
The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence… a super intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble.
Consider the musings of Elon Musk and remember this phrase. Recursive self-improvement…:
Reforms and dislocations being witnessed in “modern” labour markets are perhaps the first symptoms of genuinely profound changes to what we understand work to be in the second half of this century. The implications of automation, “job-less growth” and widening skills and income inequality suggest profound changes in policy responses will be needed. Examples such as the development of “universal” or “basic income” schemes coupled with labour market and education reforms will no doubt begin to get more attention in the coming decade.
By 2018, around 1.3 million industrial robots will be entering service in factories around the world. In the high-revenue automotive sector, global investments in industrial robots increased by a record-breaking 43 percent (2013-2014) within one year.
Global Robotic Density = 66
[Source: IFR – Global Robotic Density]Contentious? Certainly. A recent study by the VDMA Robotics and Automation Association shows that previous waves of automation have not made labor obsolete in the German context. A case to “let it ride..”
[Source: Bloomberg]MIT Economist David Autor has some interesting things to say about similar changes. Simply put, Autor’s work suggest a bumpy ride, and the challenge is that:
human capital investment must be at the heart of any long-term strategy for producing skills that are complemented rather than substituted by technology……Significantly, mastery of “middle skill” mathematics, life sciences, and analytical reasoning is indispensable for success in this training.
Certainly the changes in economic and social policy are “well behind the curve” currently. I see little indication that this trend will improve. Given the latest work from the World Economic Forum’s research on The Future of Jobs where they state:
Today, we are on the cusp of a Fourth Industrial Revolution. Developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and biotechnology, to
name just a few, are all building on and amplifying one another. This will lay the foundation for a revolution more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen. Smart systems—homes, factories, farms, grids or cities—will help tackle problems ranging from supply chain management to climate change. The rise of the sharing economy will allow people to monetize everything from their empty house to their car.
Perhaps most saliently, they note:
While the impending change holds great promise, the patterns of consumption, production and employment created by it also pose major challenges requiring proactive adaptation by corporations, governments and individuals. Concurrent to the technological revolution are a set of broader socio-economic, geopolitical and demographic drivers of change, each interacting in multiple directions and intensifying one another. As entire industries adjust, most occupations are undergoing a fundamental transformation.
Proactive adaptation by corporations, governments and individuals. Historically, a challenge at the best of times. Anticipating and proactively adapting to what the WEF considers the fourth industrial revolution?
Good luck with that…
When considering the global policy responses to Climate Change, a phenomenon that we have decades of evidence-based, scientifically verified research to support our understanding of both the near and long-term implications for humanity [with unprecedented consensus ] and yet adaptation, let alone proactive adaptation seems non-existent in the policy sphere, beyond the well-intentioned.
WEF founder Klaus Schwab and board member Richard Samans opined that:
To prevent a worst-case scenario — technological change accompanied by talent shortages, mass unemployment and growing inequality — re-skilling and up-skilling of today’s workers will be critical…
The reality is that there is a problem, and the fish have learned.
They have been tracked in the world — but we do something to possible change the next genes between a lot of books that we might never read.
A computational coding project by Samim. He fed a Recurrent Neural Network with all existing TED Talk Transcripts (1904 speeches or 22.4MB of text which amounts to 4038409 words) and now the model outputs machine generated TED Talks.
The average ability is that the brain can privately control the world.
I think there is a message in that for all of us.
You can watch three speeches – from Jürgen TEDhuber, Ada LoveTED and Isaac TEDimov.
Obama’s highly skilled speech writers have written over 43megabytes or 730895 words of text, not counting interviews and debates.
All of Obama’s speeches are conveniently readable here.
Just one example
Jobs
SEED: Jobs
Good afternoon. God bless you.
The United States will step up to the cost of a new challenges of the American people that will share the fact that we created the problem. They were attacked and so that they have to say that all the task of the final days of war that I will not be able to get this done. The promise of the men and women who were still going to take out the fact that the American people have fought to make sure that they have to be able to protect our part. It was a chance to stand together to completely look for the commitment to borrow from the American people. And the fact is the men and women in uniform and the millions of our country with the law system that we should be a strong stretcks of the forces that we can afford to increase our spirit of the American people and the leadership of our country who are on the Internet of American lives.
Thank you very much. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
