Ed Vasicek: Not all of us are on board with robots taking over the world – Kokomo Tribune

When I was a kid, artificial intelligence meant a person had graduated college but was still a dunce. In our times, however, Artificial Intelligence means something else. If computers and cell phones were the technological legacy of the latter 20th century, Artificial Intelligence might be the technological legacy of the 21st century.

Most of us run across Artificial Intelligence regularly. When you call to make an appointment or inquire about ordering supplies on the phone, you might be talking to a computer with voice recognition technology.

Sometimes when you answer your phone and hear the friendly voice of the telemarketer who responds to your responses, it may take you a while to realize you are talking to a computer, not a real human being.

Have you ever searched for a product on the internet or at Amazon, only to see the product advertised on your Facebook page? How did they know? Artificial Intelligence. Computers follow recipes called algorithms that direct the computer to note what you have searched for and then to match that search with advertisers and put the appropriate ad on your Facebook page.

Computer algorithms are just an example of Artificial Intelligence at work.

According to academicinfluence.com, Artificial Intelligence abbreviated AI refers to computing which aims to mimic human cognitive functions like learning, problem solving, and adaptation to environmental conditions. ... Artificial Intelligence is actually an umbrella term for various areas of computing including robotics, machine learning, and Artificial neural networking (mimicking the human mind in some way)

But AI programs can make blunders; Artificial Intelligence is not always so intelligent. Take this recent account from the BBC: Facebook users who watched a newspaper video featuring black men were asked if they wanted to keep seeing videos about primates by an Artificial-Intelligence recommendation system.

Facebook told BBC News it was clearly an unacceptable error, disabled the system and launched an investigation.

"We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations."

Some futurists talk about singularity, a time when computers will be self-sustaining, self-improving and no longer need human help. Wikipedia defines singularity further: ... a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization ... (with( runaway reaction of self-improvement cycles rapidly causing an explosion in Intelligence (that) far surpasses all human intelligence.

Many people are afraid that computers and robots will eventually take over the world, and humans will become servants to these more intelligent pieces of technology. Not everyone is on board with such a doomsday picture.

Gotquestions.org makes some good points about AI: If a person defines Intelligence in a way that eliminates concepts such as morality, emotion, empathy, humor, relationship, and so forth, then the phrase Artificial Intelligence is not so meaningful. This is a particularly important point to keep in mind when discussing strategy games ... in which computers often defeat even the greatest human masters ... the program that bests a human in a strategy game is designed specifically for playing that game. It might win, but the human can then leave the room and do ... things that the machine cannot do. The software that allows the machine to succeed in a trivia game cant tell you how to tie your shoes. Or make a sandwich. Or draw a flower. Or write a limerick. Nor can it comfort a sick child, pretend to be a character in a play, or watch a movie and later explain the plot to someone else. The truth is that those purpose-built AI computers are markedly less intelligent than the humans whom they defeated in narrow contests.

So where will this go? Let me illustrate. Many children today cannot print neatly; others cannot solve basic math problems apart from a calculator. Fortunately, many can do both of the above.

This divide will continue to deep as AI continues to mushroom. Some of us will make the effort to develop and nurture all aspects of our humanity, while others will allow our own humanity to atrophy and take the path of resistance, always relying on AI. The robots will not take over, but some of us will surrender portions of our humanity to them.

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Ed Vasicek: Not all of us are on board with robots taking over the world - Kokomo Tribune