In
this column last week, we looked at how artificial intelligence (AI) grew as
a discipline, and how it is slowly filling the gap between technological
realities and tall expectations from AI enthusiasts. In this article, we examine
some of the more recent progresses in artificial intelligence, and dare to peek into
the future.
Science
fiction creators have, of course, let imaginations run wild. Science prehistoric
times, human like artifacts have aroused interest and fantasy – overwhelmingly
destructive in nature, as epitomized by Frankestein. And sometimes positive, like
Isaac
Asimov’s helpful robots. So, the typical scenario is machines turning into
monsters with minds of their own. There is usually not much room for
regret, sharing, altruism, and other such consciousness–based faculties of men. These belong more to the realm
of emotional intelligence than machine intelligence. But this may change.
For
instance, few artificial intelligence systems so far dealt with “regret”
explicitly. But recently Yishay Mansour, from
Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik School of Computer Science, is introducing
“hindsight” (and the regret it generates) into thinking machines to anticipate
the future more accurately and realistically, especially in highly
unpredictable environments. Well, the computer may not “feel” the regret of
past decisions, but at least it can measure the difference between the actual
outcome and the would-have-been outcome and use this wisdom to adapt future
behavior. Virtual regret is not just science catching up with science fiction,
but has practical applications as well. For instance, Google wants to know how
programs that manage unpredictable internet traffic can regret, learn and
improve – on their own. Or internet businesses (like online auctions) can use
some hindsight to improve decision making and maybe avoid buyer’s remorse!
With huge strides in unraveling the magic in our
brains, we may be getting closer to first understand, and then replicate human
traits. A very recent neuro-robotics study by Swiss Olaf Blanke elucidates one
of the most fundamental subjective human feelings: self-consciousness. In
particular, how our brain gets the feeling of being at a particular position in
space and for perceiving the world from there. Or robotics researcher Dario
Floreano,working with biologist Laurent Keller, to find where in our DNA is our
altruism encoded – they used artificial entities with programmed altruistic
potential to prove their point!
Strong and weak AI
Capabilities such as
virtual regret may fail to impress many, because we are still far from the real
and comprehensive intelligence as displayed by humans (referred to as “strong
AI”). Optimism on attainment of
human-level intelligence gradually gave way to an understanding of the immense
complexity of intelligence. There has been remarkable breakthroughs in understanding and
thereby building very useful artifacts around human senses and faculties, such
as memory, search, vision, planning, reasoning, decision-making, hearing,
learning, language-understanding (referred to “weak AI”). These machines can
see and hear, respond to questions, learn, draw inferences and solve problems – and also show signs of emoting, regretting and feeling (even if the capabilities are not
all packaged in one unit, and do not necessarily replicate the human
faithfully).
The future of AI
For many, we are just at the beginning of a new and exciting era, and even
close to a turning point for humanity. For example, in a famous essay in 1993,
computer scientist Vernor Vinge envisions a “singularity point” in history
where ultra-smart machines, that will be both self-aware and superhuman in
intelligence, will be capable of designing better computers and robots faster
than humans. In his 2005 book “The Singularity Is Near: When
Humans Transcend Biology”, Raymond Kurzweil uses Moore’s Law (that has
correctly predicted the doubling of computing power every one and half years) to foresee
the arrival of post-human evolution in 2045. Accordingly to Kurzweil, rapidly
increasing computing power along with Cyborgs (beings with both biological and
artificial parts), would lead to a point when machine intelligence would
surpass human intelligence and take over the process of technological
invention, with unpredictable consequences.
Let's hope that one day we get to see ultra-smart AI capable of
virtual regret, without real regret.
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