Artificial intelligence and machine learning has become a hot button topic in Technology. Apple brought us Siri, Amazon brought us Alexa, and Google brought us Google Assistant. But AI capability and purpose goes far beyond your common answer to “what’s the weather like?” and “set a reminder when I arrive at home”. AI is ready to help businesses trace food from farm to store, give a guided tour through New York City, research the cure to cancer, and to secure our networks. However, AI is something many of us fear. Voices throughout the technology community have expressed their warnings of further research on AI. Stephen Hawking said Artificial Intelligence will be the end of man”. Elon Musk stated, “We are rapidly headed towards digital super intelligence that far exceeds any human”. Should we mind these warnings?
Here’s some history.
In 2011, IBM’s Watson won the game of Jeopardy against 2 top human challengers.
Not only did Watson beat top challenger’s in Jeopardy, Watson brought deep questions about our limitations as humans and the capabilities of machines.
In 2017 Facebook created two AI chatbots, which were trained to have certain likes and pretend to express some sort of grief when they lost what they wanted. In an experiment, the AI’s were challenged to speak to one another and negotiate a trade of balls and books. The results of the conversation are seen below (One AI was called Bob, the other Alice):
Bob: i can i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to
Bob: you i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Alice: balls have a ball to me to me to me to me to me to me to me
Bob: i i can i i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Alice: balls have a ball to me to me to me to me to me to me to me
Bob: i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to
Bob: you i i i i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Alice: balls have 0 to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to
Bob: you i i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to
What may seem like a useless conversation was actually the two bots communicating in their own language. The creators shut down the bots as they had no use to humans.
So AI is pretty smart right? But can modern AI beat the Turing test? The Turing test was a test developed by computer scientist Alan Turing (known for breaking the enigma encryption algorithm during World War II) used to distinguish whether a computer is artificially intelligent, it requires that a human being should be unable to distinguish the machine from another human being by using the replies to questions put to both.
Can you distinguish the Google Duplex AI from a human caller?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1mEm2Fy08
OK, Maybe this is all a little creepy.
So maybe we cease to use technology altogether until every programmer vows to never create AI again; their creepy computer voices won’t be able to laugh at us in binary as we post silly human memes across their domain. Do we smash every smartphone? Every smart speaker? Every Internet connected device? Do we stop progress? Was Elon Musk right? Those are all questions for a philosophy course. For now, there are many benefits we can gain from utilizing AI.
Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft Cortana serve as assistant AI’s to help keep you organized, and keep your technology working for you in very personal ways. Read more about them in my Tech Talk on smart things and privacy
Barracuda’s Sentinel AI was build to detect phishing scams so we don’t have to figure it out. It learns the patterns to the emails we send and receive and is able to determine whether a message is a spoof message to or from you.
There are many ways phishing scams can come through. And utilizing AI to assist with detecting it is the best way to avoid falling victim to it.
In conclusion, Modern AI is smart, and keeps getting smarter. The best way to stay ahead of the machines is to utilize them to your benefit.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540
https://gizmodo.com/nvidia-taught-an-ai-to-flawlessly-erase-watermarks-from-1827474196
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/07/10/the-economics-of-artificial-intelligence-how-cheaper-predictions-will-change-the-world/#50fdd7655a0d
https://www.ibm.com/blockchain?lnk=ushpv18c10&lnk2=learn
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-artificial-intelligence-ai-chatbot-new-language-research-openai-google-a7869706.html
https://ai.google/research/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2018/04/06/elon-musks-nightmarish-warning-ai-could-become-an-immortal-dictator-from-which-we-would-never-escape/?utm_term=.1a8fc6b6310d
