Preparing for the future of Artificial Intelligence
In October 2016, the US National Science and Technology Council published a report on Artificial Intelligence (AI) (United States 2016) that summarised evidence from a wide variety of sources on how they expect AI to develop, what impact it would have and what actions it recommended the US Government to take. It built on several previous US Government reports, e.g. United States (2014, 2016) and consulted widely among AI experts in the USA, e.g. Horvitz and Selman (2009) and five workshops. A companion document has also been published: 'The National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan' which lays out a strategic plan for federally funded research and development in AI. Overall, this is a comprehensive report, which I recommend to anyone wanting a balanced review of the state of the AI art, its potential impact and what ethical, economic and societal issues it presents. It does, of course, duck some of the more difficult issues or rather recommend that someone else considers them in detail. This concern about AI is, of course, triggered by the phenomenal recent successes of mainly statistical machine learning in games (Chess, Go and Jeopardy) self driving cars, automated assistants (Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Now and Microsoft Cortana) The other main driver is the worry that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will exceed human intelligence and supplant us as the dominant species on the Earth the, so called, Singularity. The report wisely ignores concerns about the Singularity, claiming that, if it occurs at all, it's a long way in the future, and that the immediate actions should be the same whether or not it occurs. It points out that the AI successes have been in, what it calls, narrow AI, i.e. often superhuman performance in a very narrow task, e.g. playing Go. I call such systems idiot savants. In contrast, progress in AGI has been disappointing, with no sign that this will improve in the foreseeable future. So the report focuses on the prospects for narrow AI. It claims that it has already brought 'major benefits to the public in fields as diverse as health care, transportation, the environment, criminal justice and economic inclusion' The report then explores its potential in autonomous vehicles, governance, education, cyber security and weapons. This exploration uncovers a number of important issues and concludes with 23 recommendations. These issues and recommendations include the following:
AI SOCIETY