Artificial Intelligence
Executive Summary
With the recent rapid development in artificial intelligence, future implications and ethical concerns are being raised and definite guidelines have to be drawn to prevent such technology from moving out of our control.
This paper firstly documents the dawn of artificial intelligence and shows how far it has developed till today. It next examines the current situation and level of artificial intelligence as well as their impact on the world now. Finally, it focuses on the more important future considerations and their enormous influence on the future especially if these serious implications and dangers are not addressed early.
Introduction
Artificial intelligence is a wide field with
different definitions but all of which involve the science of creating machines
with intelligent behaviour. The general basis of artificial intelligence is the
assumption that the human brain’s thoughts and activity can be explained and
replicated in mechanical terms and reasoning. A normal human brain is estimated
to have around 100 billion nerve cells. However it is the neural connections
between these cells known as synapses which enable our brain to think and
function, and they number over several hundreds of trillions. (Fry, 2011) As such, this places the power of the human brain
far beyond the reach of any supercomputer in existence today, with the limits
of the human memory still unchartered. Mankind has crossed numerous new frontiers
in endless fields, creating wonderful feats of technology and engineering, as
well as exploring the boundaries of outer space. However, we ourselves still
have not managed to fully understand something much closer to us, the human
brain. As we will see, mankind has been attempting to explain and replicate the
human brain function mechanically throughout the ages. While it can be say that
while we are still ultimately unsuccessful, the development of artificial
intelligence has brought about positive changes to our lives in terms of
convenience, efficiency, minimising safety risks and errors as well as endless
other benefits..
This paper seeks to document the rise of
artificial intelligence firstly before moving on to the current situation and
future considerations. Through detailed examining of the current state of
artificial intelligence, clues and signs can be gathered about the direction of
where artificial intelligence would be heading towards. It is evident from the
current situations, some of the potential hazards and implications we could be facing
in the future. The numerous concerns about where we could be in the future with
regards to artificial intelligence are clearly not unfounded and will be
analysed to seek out potential solutions to solve them.
With regards to limitations, the
key factor would be the lack of any real world examples to substantiate the
future complications as the possibility of those scenarios or implications
happening would be decades away in the future at least. Another issue would be
the need for endless assumptions and specialized expertise in artificial
intelligence to draw up precise and exact solutions to answer the problems
faced in future considerations. As such, the author’s thoughts and analysis
will be made from studying of the current situation as well as from the
theories of other researchers in this field.
We will never know for sure where the idea of artificial intelligence originated from. Stories of intelligent robots are abound in historical myths of different cultures, ranging from the golden robots of Hephaestus in Ancient Greece, to Yan Zi’s automaton in Ancient China. (Grachev,Trans, 2006) But what we do know for sure is that in the 1950s, several milestone events which led to the birth of artificial intelligence as we know it today occurred. Alan Turing’s published paper on the possibilities of machines as intelligent as us, together with artificial intelligence research being accepted as an academic discipline led to the Dartmouth Conference in 1956. Many leading researchers in various fields were gathered and set the guidelines and foundation for the development of artificial intelligence for many decades to come. (Stewart, n.d.) This also sparked government interest over the next two decades which led to extensive funding in artificial intelligence research. As such, artificial intelligence developed at a rapid pace with many programs and algorithms developed to solve problems as well as replicate isolated areas of human thinking.
However in the 1970s, government reports were showing that the results of artificial research were not living up to the great expectations promised and as such, led to a heavy cut in government funding. This led to a period of time known as the “AI winter”. It also exposed the lack of genuine understanding and underestimation in how artificial intelligence works. (Smith, McGuire, Huang, Yang, 2006) Overall, progress in artificial intelligence was heavily affected and did not recover until the 1990s.
Fast forward to today, it is impossible for one to ignore the huge leaps in technological advancement with regards to artificial intelligence. While we are still nowhere near creating anything that can fully replicate a human brain, robots have been created that have some form of autonomous function. We are also rapidly entering a new frontier littered with many potential problems and concerns which will be examined in this paper.
Current
Situation
The level of artificial intelligence
today is a far cry from that of in the 1960s-70s. No longer are machines
limited to mathematical functions and the like. Artificial intelligence has now
become more widely common in our everyday lives and have become increasingly
autonomous functions. Various machines and robots have also been created to
exceed the level of the human brain in limited areas.
An example of such machines would be in
the game of chess. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the idea of a computer beating
one of the world’s best chess players was seemingly unthinkable. That all
changed when IBM destroyed that notion in May 1997, with an improved version of
its original Deep Blue, beating arguably the greatest player in the history of
chess, Gary Kasparov in a 6 game match. (“Deep Blue”,n.d.) Today’s chess
programs have evolved from the complex hardware Deep Blue had, which required
it to evaluate every single move possible at each point in time, into chess
software, resulting in much more efficient processing and thinking. The
strongest chess engine in existence today, Houdini has an inbuilt ‘instinct’
which allows it to select only potentially good moves for further examining,
while merely glancing over weaker moves, making it much more efficient and
faster than previous programs. (Chessbase, 2012) Such an ability has been only
previously been capable of by human players, and for a computer program to
possess such a skill represents a huge step up for the level of artificial
intelligence. This also opens more possibilities as to how artificial intelligence
could grow from here with evidence that instinct can be programmed in as well. It
may soon become a question not of how, but when would robots become human-like
in thought.
Today’s increasingly autonomous
artificial intelligence can be seen in the example of Google’s driverless cars.
Extensive testing has shown the driverless car to be accident free at over 500
000km. (Guizzo, 2011) One may argue
that such technology is not new as aeroplanes currently have an autopilot
feature where the plane can be flown automatically with minimal interference
from the pilot. However the autopilot in aeroplanes todayis merely to help the
pilot perform his tasks, rather than take over his responsibility. It is also
incapable of more complex tasks like taking off and landing. What makes the
driverless car amazing is the environment of which the autonomous machine is
operating in. The different sensors of the car working seamlessly together
without any human interference to drive the car along crowded streets and highways,
successfully avoiding walking pedestrians and moving cars is definitely a major
engineering feat. Such a car is still far from being commercially available,
with many liability and legal issues still being unanswered. To the author,
such a level of autonomy in artificial intelligence today demonstrates that
complex machines and mechanisms can be programmed to be autonomous despite
being in a challenging and ever changing environment. Once again, such an event
further shows the magnitude of possibilities for artificial intelligence in the
future.
Artificial intelligence also plays an increasingly
important role today as seen in the military. Armies around the world are
constantly seeking new ways to reduce the risk of soldiers being killed in
battle and have turned to artificial intelligence for alternative ways of
warfare. An example would be the Samsung machine gun robot developed in South
Korea. Developed for use along the Demilitarized Zone between North and South
Korea, the robot is capable of performing sentry duties, with its sensors being
able to detect human movements and challenge intruders through audio or video
communications. Though the robot would still be under the control of a human,
it does have an automatic mode where it can make the decision to fire at an
intruder when he is unable to provide an access code. (Global Security.org,
2011) Today, the possibilities of Lethal Autonomous Robots are being
extensively researched into, with ideas of a robot having full decision of who
to kill without any human interference being developed. The technology for such
a machine does exist currently, as seen in the increasingly autonomous drones
being manufactured. Although there is an element of human control for all
autonomous robots currently, with the current situation, the possibility of a
fully autonomous killing robot being developed in the near future is highly
likely. (Pilkington, 2013) Such technological advancements not only have the
potential to change the mode and tactics of warfare forever, but it also has
the ability to limit the loss of human lives by reducing the need for actual
human soldiers. The author notes that while the benefits of such robots are
enormous, the potential risks like such autonomous robots operating out of our
control cannot be ignored, and will be discussed later under future
considerations.
Artificial intelligence has also been
developed to a point where it can replicate human emotions and feelings to a
limited degree. In the past, films like Blade Runner could only portray our
speculations about the possibilities of robots with human-like emotions.
However, in 2010, the first robot that could develop emotions and form bonds
with humans was unveiled, being modelled on the attachment process that
chimpanzee infants and human babies have. (BBC, 2010) Another important
milestone would be the development of robots that could evolve and learn the
ability to lie in controlled experiments. (Christensen, 2009) With an increased
understanding of artificial intelligence, humans have begun to make progress in
replicating basic human emotions and feelings as well as moving on to more
complex ones. Though the range of emotions and feelings portrayed are still
very limited as compared to those of a human, such progress is definitely
fascinating as it leaves us to wonder if robots in the future can one day be
‘human-like’. The possibilities are endless but so are the future implications
and dangers, which will be discussed next.
Future
Considerations
With artificial intelligence developing at a rapid
pace, we are moving into a new age faced with many ethical concerns and
dangers. Disastrous scenarios have been portrayed in many movies like The
Terminator series as well as I, Robot. Many scientists and researchers have
also warned about the potential implications and dangers of a developed
artificial intelligence.
The first issue of which would be the danger of a
technological singularity, a scenario when artificial intelligence would have
evolved past the point of human intelligence to dominate human civilization and
human nature itself. Numerous artificial intelligence researchers have argued
that there is no motivation as well as being mathematically impossible for a
highly developed artificial intelligence to maintain any ‘friendliness’ with
the human race, which as such, places them as a potential threat to mankind.
(Keiper, A., A.N. Schulman, 2011) While the possibility of such advanced robots
dominating the human race seems ages away, the seeds of such technology have
already been planted as shown in the earlier examples of increasingly
autonomous robots in the military. Different proposals to prevent such a
disaster from occurring exist. One side of the argument emphasises the need to
base all future artificial intelligence developmental goals on a friendly
relationship with humans, so as to ensure that the machines will never turn on
us. However the level of engineering and coding to install such a behavioural
pattern is beyond the limits of technology today and even anywhere in the near
future, which makes it an unviable option at the moment. Less pessimistic
proposals include the extreme view which concludes that the level of artificial
intelligence today is sufficient, and trying to improve it will lead us on an
inevitable road to a technological singularity. (Goertzel,
2011) With such proposals looking seemingly unfeasible at the moment, it
would be best to take a more neutral approach, with development to continue as
it is now, and having us humans keeping a close watch on progress to reduce the
chances of such a singularity occurring. A good example would be the United
Nations calling for a halt on further research and development of lethal
autonomous robots until an international guidelines on their use can be decided
upon. (Bloomfield, 2013)
Another key issue would be with regards to the
liability of the robot. Artificial intelligence has been developed to such a
stage today where robots are increasingly responsible for doing the jobs of
humans as seen in the commercial sectors, leading the question of who is to be
responsible for any breaches of the law committed by them. With such increasing
responsibility, it is highly likely that a robot would be placed in charge of a
life and death situation in the future. For such difficult questions, once
again, a wide variety of opinions do exist. While there are calls for detailed
logs for autonomous system to explain the robot’s reasoning, such features will
no doubt place a limit on the level of the decision making systems. (The Economist,
2012) Applying ethical systems to such artificial intelligence seems to be the best
way forward, but with the sheer difficulty of transferring such guidelines into
programming systems, it stands to say that such programming would not exist
anytime soon. Overall, such technological developments are definitely without
question, for the better of mankind, but it would be necessary to answer such
critical questions and set strict rules and guidelines in place before
embarking on more ambitious projects, to spare us the mind boggling problems in
the future.
One path of artificial intelligence progress that is
being currently explored is the goal of not only creating a highly intelligent
machine through replicating the human thought process but also, to develop a
robot with a consciousness that would be virtually indistinguishable from that
of a human. With such a robot in existence, we would be inclined to treat it as
a fellow human being, bringing in questions of the rights they should be
accorded, that of a human or of a machine that we can shut down at any time.
Currently when individuals are being arrested for damages to machines or
robots, it’s the rights of people that are being protected, not the machines.
With the existence of such human-like robots in the future, the lines between
man and machine will be blurred. With the case of civil rights, if they are
accorded to such robots in the future, it stands to mean that they would be
held responsible for any errors or laws broken committed by them, opening
another huge can of worms with endless issues like those of the differences
between software and hardware. (Freitas, R.A., Jr., 1985)
To the author, these major issues have to be
answered before technology spirals out of our control. The issue of artificial
intelligence is similar to that of a fire, in that in can help us keep warm and
on the other hand, consume our houses in an instant if we are not careful. As
such, the author ultimately feels that the element of human control should
always be present in artificial intelligence as a safety feature, hence keeping
machines and robots always under our command. This not only enforces the point
of which artificial intelligence was created in the first place, which was to
help and serve our needs, but shuts down the possibilities of a technological
singularity where machines ultimately dominate us. The element of human control
as a safety switch also closes the door on questions of whether robots should
deserve equal civil rights. With the case of autonomous robots, it is the
author’s view that they should be kept to the commercial sectors rather than in
high risk situations involving life and death, given the extreme difficulty of
installing ethical systems in robots at the moment.
Conclusion
We indeed have come a long way from ancient history
till today. What used to be myths and stories that people dreamed about have
begun to set foot in reality. The dawn of a new age started in the 1950s with
extensive collaboration between many researches of various fields on the
theories and guidelines of artificial intelligence, and was propelled by
extensive government funding. Although the development of artificial
intelligence hit a major tumbling block in the 1970s, it managed to pick up
momentum once again in the 1990s at a rapid pace. Machines with capabilities
once thought of as impossible were being unveiled and mankind’s ambition sought
to ensure even greater feats of engineering would occur. Such events would
definitely announce the start of a revolutionary new age and greatly shape our
ways of life.
However, the current situation poses enough clues
about the potential implications of what could happen if we do not have a tight
rein over our technological progress. While the future considerations raised
earlier may not happen in the near future, it is indeed a possibility in the
decades to come. The main concerns stem from the idea of robots one day
operating beyond our control as well as having an equal or even high
intelligence than the creators, humans ourselves. While proposals for ethical
systems and guidelines to be built into artificial programming codes seem like
the best solution, such engineering and technology simple does not exist
currently. As such, the idea of always having a human in overall control as a
failsafe seems the most practical to the author. Such a system does have its
cons as it limits the setting up of an artificial neural network as well as the
prevention of example-based learning systems which are far more advanced than
current programming systems for the robots. However the elephant in the room
cannot be ignored, and hence it is the author’s view that such measures have to
be implemented until technological advancements have found a way to program
such ethical guidelines into programming code.
Overall, artificial intelligence in the future does
have the endless potential to change our lives dramatically for the better.
While there may be many concerns and potential problems to face, it is the
author’s view that as long as we address them early and adequately, we would be
able to harness the full benefits without creating unnecessary problems for
ourselves.
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