Elusive Taxonomies –
As always, I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s zoom meeting. I was introduced to the term ‘Elusive Taxonomies’. This isn’t a term that I was familiar with, but it has provided much food for thought. Our breakout group felt that the language was very formal. We discussed how the word taxonomy suggested the pigeonholing or categorisation of things. We found the word elusive in this context somewhat harder to define. We wondered if this may have been a word used by Darwin. Jonathan gave us some interesting pointers and interesting reading material. I screenshot some of the main points for future reference including some of the recommended literature from the session that I would like to read.
Elusive Taxonomies a Discussion
Task for Week 6
This week we have been asked to explore some reading material and present back to our peers. Early indications from my ‘Tag Cloud’ is clearly showing that I have an interest in Ai and it’s relationship with art. For this reason I decided to choose the book ‘Ai Super – Powers – China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order’ by Kai-Fu Lee.
Key Discoveries from the Book
Below are some of my key findings from the book:
- The author Dr. Kai-Fu Lee was the president of Google China and also held executive positions at Microsoft, SGI and Apple. Therefore, he has a unique insight into the industry.
- AlphaGo an Ai computer beat a man called Ke Jie at a Chinese game called ‘Go’. If AlphaGo could beat Ke Jie then the author noted that Ai is coming for at least 40-60% of our jobs. Ke Jie was the best ‘Go’ player in the world and he was devastated to be beaten. He cried but the author noted that ‘AlphaGo may have been the winner but Ke became the people’s champion. In that connection – human beings giving and receiving love – I have caught a glimpse of how humans will find work and meaning in the age of artificial intelligence.’
- Ai began to fork into two distinct camps namely the ‘rule based’ approach and the ‘neural network’ approach. The ‘rule’ based approach teaches computers to learn by saying that if X then Y. This is fine for simple and well defined games but falls apart when choices or moves are expanded. The ‘neural network’ approach is completely different as the computer scientists tried to reconstruct the human brain itself. They fed the networks lots of different phenomena like pictures, chess, games, sound etc. and let the networks identify patterns within the data.
- The Chinese began to copy Silicone Valley Apps. A gentleman called Wang Xing (The cloner) made an ‘exact copy of Mark Zuckerberg’s site. Wang meticulously recreated the home page, profiles, tools, bars and colour schemes of the Palo Alto startup. Chinese Media reported that the earliest version of Xiaonei even went so far as to put Facebook’s own tagline “A Mark Zuckerberg Production,” at the bottom of each page.’
- The Chinese not only copied these Silicone Valley apps, but they vastly improved them for their own audience. This gave them the raw data they needed to feed the ‘neural network’ approach to Ai development. This approach when it had the data it needed was a better approach to machine learning.
- The Chinese quickly embedded the Internet into smartphones and this too gave them access to more raw data to feed the Ai ‘neural networks’.
- Responding to ‘Silicone Valley’ the Chinese set up their own ‘Avenue of Entrepreneurs’.
- ’By immersing themselves in the messy details of food delivery, car repairs, shared bikes and purchases at the corner store, these companies are turning China into the Saudi Arabia of data’. China is already surpassing the US on this front with the gap widening daily.
- Data is the driving force.
- The type of data China is collecting differed from what Silicone valley collects and is more beneficial to the development of Ai. Silicone Valley concentrates on online behaviours such as likes, pictures uploaded and movies watched. The Chinese collect more real world data such as: the ‘what when and where of physical purchases, meals, makeovers and transportation’. This gives it the edge on Silicone Valley.
- Things improved even further for tech companies as the Chinese Government decided to move from a manufacturing led economy to a technology driven economy. They pumped in money to show their support.
- An O2O revolution (online to offline) revolution sprang up. This is about bringing an e-commerce experience to things like services and goods that can’t be shipped.
- WeChat becomes one of China’s all encompassing apps that is like a Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Expedia, PayPal, iMessage, Skype and More all rolled into one. This is in stark contrast to the clearly defined singular apps of Silicone Valley.
- Cash disappeared so quickly from Chinese cities that it disrupted crime with burglars finding little or no cash in homes.
- Payments were made mainly through WeChat which meant this company was data rich. Much more data rich than Apple and Apple Pay because their uptake was much less. This gave the Chinese the edge.
- ’Data from mobile payments is currently generating the richest maps of consumer activity the world has ever known’.
- In 1999 China was lagging behind the States but not anymore.
- Hefei students in China were so contentious that they would study under campus street lights when there was an 11.00pm lights out curfew in their dormitories.
- www.arvix.org is an online repository of scientific papers. The site allows researchers to instantly time stamp their work. This ensures they get all of the credit for any discoveries they may make. It plants a stake in the ground to mark the ‘when and what of their algorithmic achievements.
- Ai is being powered by open source collaborations and algorithm sharing and a desire to be at the top of the game and recognised in the industry.
- Around half of all of the top Ai researchers and engineers are already working for Google.
- There are ethical considerations holding up Ai autonomous vehicles. For example should an autonomous vehicle allow you to die in order to say, save three other people in a potential car accident?
- Or should it veer right and have a 100% chance of killing one person as opposed to veering left and having a 55% chance of killing 2 people.
- A quote ‘How should an autonomous vehicle’s algorithm weigh the life of its owner? Should your self driving car sacrifice your own life to save the lives of other people?’
- If the Chinese people think that autonomous cars will generally save lives – they won’t moralise or hold up the development of the technology in the same way that say the US would. The US would consider the ethics first and this will inevitably slow the process.
- A company called ‘IFlyTech’ can make an English person sound Chinese by translating their voice in real-time into Chinese. They demonstrated it with the voice of Donald Trump. The capability is now there to convert your words and voice into any language.
- Simultaneous translation ear pieces now exist.
- There are four waves of Ai that are coming down the track: Internet Ai, Business Ai, Perception Ai and Autonomous Ai.
- Internet Ai and Business Ai will see internet companies use Ai to tighten their grip on our attention. They will use it to keep us engaged and on their platforms for longer. It will also be used for diagnosing illness and trading stocks and shares.
- Perception Ai will be used for recognising faces and understanding our requests. We now have text to image generators that will take words – have a level of understanding of them and then turn them into pictures.
- Ai is learning how to ‘see’ our world through text to image.
- The lines between the physical and digital will become increasingly blurred.
- Autonomous Ai will have the deepest impact – for example self driving cars, drones and intelligent robots.
- Internet Ai – will increasingly serve up cherry picked ads and recommendations. It will look at liked, viewed, clicked and purchased thus training the algorithms to serve up what we want to consume.
- Robert Mercer from Cambridge Analytica coined the phrase “There’s no data like more data”.
- We now have Ai sports reporters and Ai fake news spotters.
- Business Ai mines insurance and medical and banking data to root out fraud and make better diagnosis. It also makes better loan decisions.
- ‘Smart Finance’ is an Ai powered app which assesses suitability for a loan. This app looks at everything, even the type of battery on your phone when making lending decisions. The app considers things that humans would never ever consider.
Is Experian on it’s way out? - The RXThinking medical diagnostic app draws on over 4 million existing medical records, the best algorithms are now on a par with doctors. Medical doctors are now merely there for the human touch.
- IFlyTech is now in the courtroom and helps with sentencing. There is now a pilot scheme in Shanghai running.
- OMO stands for Online Merge of Offline.
- To stop fraudsters using your photo to pay for Face ID purchases there is now an algorithm that can run a ‘liveness’ test.
- Ai will move into education.
- Ai equipped floors will tell you when elderly parents have tripped and fallen.
- Autonomous Ai won’t be seen in the home anytime soon. Simple tasks like cleaning a room or babysitting a child – contrary to popular belief is far beyond its current capabilities. Human like robots won’t be around yet for a while.
- Google and Tesla are leading the race for autonomous cars.
- AGI or Artificial General Intelligence is the Holy Grail of artificial intelligence. This is where the Ai can reach itself and becomes more self aware.
- There are two distinct camps relating the AGI. There is Utopia and Dystopia.
- Ray Kurzweil guru in chief at Google predicts a radical future where humans and machines merge. He predicts comparable computer intelligence with humans by 2029. He predicts something called the Singularity will occur by 2045. The Singularity is where robots can self improve and become more sentient.
- Utopian thinkers believe that AGI will rapidly help,I decide the physical universe and maybe even find solutions to global warming. ‘With super intelligent computers that understand the universe on levels that humans cannot even conceive of, these tools for lightening the burdens of humanity: they approach the omniscience and omnipotence of a God’.
- Dystopian thinkers like Elon Musk has called super intelligence: “The biggest risk we face as a civilisation”. He compares the creation of it to “Summoning the demon”.
- Stephen Hawking was in the dystopian thinking camp when it came to AGI.
- The fear is that a super intelligence looking to solve the global warming crisis might accidentally wipe us off the face of the earth.
- Our current technology does not allow for AGI.
- The author predicts that we are still decades away from AGI. Indeed we may never ever achieve it. AGI remains further away than we first imagined.
- Our present Ai capabilities can’t create a super intelligence that will destroy our civilisation. The author fears that we humans may prove more than up for that task ourselves.
- ‘As more and more people see themselves displaced by machines, they will be forced to answer a far deeper question in an age of intelligent machines. What does it mean to be human?’
- On a risk of replacement graph, artists, graphic designers and columnists will fall foul to the slow creep of Ai.
- Within 10-20 years the author believes we will be capable of automating 40-50% of all jobs in the United States.
- “While Ai can beat the best humans at the ‘Go’ game and diagnose cancer with extreme accuracy, it cannot appreciate a good joke”.
- Ai – “it will will lead to a crushing feeling of futility, a sense of having become obsolete in one’s own skin”.
- ”When Ai can do everything that we can what does it mean to be human?”.
- ”But there is another path, an opportunity to use artificial intelligence to double down on what makes us truly human”.
- “Food for thought what would you like written on your tombstone? This is the synthesis on which I believe we must build our shared future. On Ali’s ability to think but with human beings’ ability to love”.
- ”Only humans at this point can create and share love”.
- UBI – Universal basic income generated by heavy taxes on entrepreneurs could lead to a leisure society, one in which people are liberated from the need to work. They will be free to pursue their own passions in life.
- ”You cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards”. – Steve Jobs.
- Let’s pursue “Gross National Happiness”.
- The Author says that he should have sought to understand the human heart.
- The author says: “Let us choose to let machines be machines and let humans be humans. Let us choose to simply use our machines and more importantly to love one another”.
- The author also says: “But if we draw on the diverse sources of wisdom there is no problem that we can’t tackle together”.