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Chapter 9

King Saud University College of Computer and Information Sciences Information Technology Department IT422 - Intelligent systems. Chapter 9. Social Impacts and Philosophical Foundations of AI (AIMA, ch26&27). Outline. Can machines act intelligently? Can machines really think?

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Chapter 9

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  1. King Saud University College of Computer and Information Sciences Information Technology Department IT422 - Intelligent systems Chapter 9 Social Impacts and PhilosophicalFoundations of AI (AIMA, ch26&27)

  2. Outline • Can machines act intelligently? • Can machines really think? • Ethics and risks of developing AI

  3. Terminology • Weak AI: assertion that machines could possibly act intelligently (or act as if they were intelligent). • Strong AI: assertion that machines that do so are actually thinking. • Opinion of most AI researchers: • Take weak AI hypothesis for granted • Don’t care about strong AI hypothesis (as long as programs work)

  4. Weak AI • Assumptions: weak AI is possible OR impossible; • AI is impossible depends on how it is defined. • Engineering point of view: finding best agent program on a given architecture • Philosophical point of view: • Comparing two architectures: human and machine • Traditionally posed the question: can machines think? • Unfortunately, there is no unambiguous definition of “thinking”

  5. Strong AI • Main criticism: even if a machine passes the Turing test, is it actually thinking or just simulating the thinking process? • Chinese room problem: • Human (who doesn’t understand Chinese) is put into a room with sheets of paper and detailed instructions. • Sheets of paper with Chinese writing are slipped under the door. • Human looks up in the instructions what to do, paints some characters on a paper, slips it back. • From the outside this may seem like an intelligent agent understanding Chinese is at work.

  6. Ethics and Risks • Ethical considerations of how engineers should act on the job, what projects should or should not be done, and how they should be handled. • AI may pose some serious problems: • People might lose their jobs to automation • People might have too much (or too little) leisure time • People might lose some their privacy rights • Use of AI systems might result in a loss of accountability • Success of AI might mean the end of human race

  7. Social impacts of AI • Idleness is the mother of all evil. • What will we do tomorrow? • What will be the humanity without any interesting goal? • A wide and strong cultural earthquake will change all your habits.

  8. Automation • This is not a new problem, happens every time new technology is deployed. • Some people lose their jobs. • New jobs are created elsewhere. • Main problem: usually new jobs demand higher qualification.

  9. Leisure Time • Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that people might face “a future of utter boredom”. • No risk of that yet, due to integrated computerized systems that run 7/24, people tend to work longer hours. • “Winner-Takes-All-Society”: • Traditional industrial economy: working 10% more • result roughly in 10% more profit • Fast-paced information age economy: an edge of 10% over competitor might mean 100% more profit

  10. Privacy Rights • Widespread wiretapping becomes possible • Computer systems using language translation, speech recognition, and keyword search already sift through telephone, email and fax traffic. • There is an ongoing controversial debate about this: - Scott McNealy (CEO Sun): “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” - Louis Brandeis (Judge, 1890): “Privacy is the most comprehensive of all rights . . . the right to one’s personality.”

  11. Accountability • What is the legal liability of an AI system? Who takes responsibility if something goes wrong? • This is magnified when money changes hands: Who is liable for any debts made by an intelligent agent • It may also play a role in life and death situations: • When a physician uses a medical expert system, who is at fault if the diagnosis is wrong?

  12. End of Human Race • Almost any technology can cause harm in the wrong hands • However, with AI, technology might take things into its own hands (Terminator, Matrix) • Nevertheless, AI might achieve a sort of conquest by serving and becoming indispensable.

  13. What if AI Does succeed? • Ethical question. • Modest successes in AI have already changed computer science in some way, making possible new applications. • Medium-level successes in AI would affect all kinds of people in their daily lives (like cell phones or the Internet). • Large-scale success would change the lives of a majority of human kind, the very nature of our work and play would be altered.

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