The owner of a New Haven-based software company is hoping his holiday creation of an elf with artificial intelligence will lead to wider discussion of pros and cons of the technology.

East Rock Software Founder Stephen Robinson said the elfs brain, which allows it to reply to questions, comes from GPT-3, an algorithm developed by a San Francisco-based company, Open AI. A tiny credit card sized computer processes the questions that are being asked of the elf into text that can be understood by GPT-3, which generates a response.

Robinson said he created the elf as a small way to step people into conversations about AI.

I thought it could be a great way for people to see what the technology is, to see what it can do and what its limitations are, Robinson said. Its important for society to begin dialoguing about this and not just have technologists driving the conversation.

Researchers from the University of Delaware found that a majority of those who participated in a recent survey are wary about how artificial intelligence is used. The survey, which was released in August, found that 70 percent of survey respondents favored some kind of government regulation regarding artificial intelligence.

Common fears that people have regarding the use of artificial intelligence are it might make machines smarter than humans, Robinson said.

But new technology has made people worried from the Luddites on forward, Robinson said.

Luddites were English workers in the 19th century who objected to new technologies, according to history.com. The term has come to be used in reference to individuals who fear changes new technologies will bring.

Robinson said artificial intelligence can be beneficial in helping humans make better use of their time.

Theres tons of time that is really wasted, he said. We are in a world where were drowning in information and a lot of it is badly structured. Thats all stuff a computer should be dealing with.

Robinson was raised in England and got a bachelors degree in engineering and a doctorate in autonomous mobile robotic control from the University of Durham in that country. He came to New Haven in 1997 to do post-doctorate degree work at Yale University.

While at Yale in 2000, Robinson won $60,000 in a business plan competition at the school. Winning the competition led him to rethink what he wanted to do with his life.

I thought there was more that could be done in the start-up space than could be done writing academic scholarly papers for the rest of my career, he said.

Robinson founded East Rock Software in 2012. He said the company provides software development services to help businesses track and analyze data.

Robinson said the companys clients include businesses in the machine learning and data science fields.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com

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Youve heard of Elf on the Shelf; in New Haven theres elf with artificial intelligence - New Haven Register