AI: EVIL OR AVATAR?

AI: EVIL OR AVATAR?

This glimpse of the future was crafted by: Matt Gurr

You
don’t have to be a sci-fi wizard to remember Avatar. The 2009 fantasy
blockbuster was equally entrancing for trekkies and school teachers alike. In
the epic science fiction film, writer and director James Cameron envisioned a
new world inhabited by an alien species known as the Na’vi, who lived in perfect
harmony with their deity, Ewya, on an exoplanetary moon known as Pandora. All
was well ‒ a perfect display of symbiosis between nature and its inhabitants ‒
until the human race had to show up. And once again, it was a case of ‘winner
takes all’, where the collective force of human greed was unleashed to tailspin
perfect order into chaos.

Albeit fantastically far-fetched, there was
something deeply resonating about the movie. What made Avatar rack up two Academy
Awards and USD2 billion was more than just great special effects and Sam
Worthington’s acting. It was the sense that ‘this is us now ‒ and this could be
us later.’ The plot was a familiar one, with humanity as the classic villain,
willing to plunder paradise for temporal gain but to their ultimate demise.

In 1974, biochemist James Lovelock posited a new
paradigm known as the Gaia theory.
Essentially, he said that organisms and their inorganic surroundings have
evolved together into one living, self-regulating complex system over time. The
biota, or web of interdependent organisms, have determined everything from
global temperatures to ocean salinity ‒ anything that would ensure “life
maintains conditions suitable for its own survival”. In short, life has been
making a way for itself over countless centuries.

We might not be able to tap into the whisperings of
Ewya like the Na’vi did on Avatar. But, what if we could tune into the
undertones of the biota? Our technologies are advancing concurrently and
exponentially, synthesising billions of intelligent devices into a single
cloud-based ecosystem known as the Internet of Things (IoT). As our systems
will get smarter, so too will our ability to understand their
interconnectedness. Imagine the transformative power we could unlock if we
could see the cumulative impact of a billion small actions in
motion. Could IoT be the hero to save us from ourselves?

The
laws of consequence

The concept of consequence is nothing new.
Scientists have been studying its behaviour for centuries. Newton reminds us in
his third law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; Clausius
and Kelvin tell us in the first law of thermodynamics that energy cannot be
created or destroyed ‒ only transformed from one form to another. So, when we
extract oil from the earth, transforming its thermal energy into kinetic energy
to turn a turbine to generate electricity for our household use, we have to
know there will be a consequence on the other side of the equation. Look no
further than our melting ice caps for exhibit A.

But, as our devices become all the more embedded
with intelligence, and IoT rolls merrily our way, we have less excuses not to
connect the dots into the future. Machine learning will increasingly make sense
of the vast oceans of data flooding in daily, filtering out helpful insights
and patterns to enable improvements in nearly every sphere of life. Machines
will most probably get very good at pointing out the opportunities and
pitfalls, and we will be left to steward these key insights.

An
apocalyptic alternative

Of course, there are warning lights everywhere. The
ubiquitous concern is that we’re frantically investing in a world order that
could potentially outrun our human capacities and ingenuity, offering no
promise to keep us in it someday. Experts like Nick Bostrom warn us of the grave danger in controlling
AI, including Elon Musk who predicts its powers
to trigger WW3 and eventually wipe out humanity.

But apocalyptic singularity is only one way of
looking at it. Some of the world’s top entrepreneurs are suggesting a more
cooperative, hands-on approach to the issue. Industry leaders such as Eric
Schmidt, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk have invested billions in
the research and promotion of ethical AI to ‘benefit humanity as a whole’.
Called OpenAI, the new non-profit is
aimed at developing artificial intelligence that will serve as a tool to help
solve major challenges, including climate change and food security. They argue
our technologies can become forces for greater good, rather than shovels for
our species’ grave. Says Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer,
“The power of AI technology is it can solve problems that scale to the whole
planet.”

The
maths of morality

If technology is able to zoom in and out, offering
more micro and macro insights into human behaviour and impact, how do we ensure
that insight will translate into ethical action? In other words, how can
we make sure the robots and ‘biota’ and ‘Mama Gaia’ will all want to be
friends? The question is not so easy, when you consider the complexities
of overpopulation, short-term profit gain, and demands for environmental protection,
all running side by side and vying for more on top. If we ever want to tap into
the heartbeat of our own Gaia, we’ll have to invest far more in the algorithm
of ethics.

Says Pedro Domingos, author of the
recent book The Master Algorithm,
“I actually don’t think it’s that hard to encode ethical considerations into
machine learning algorithms.” However, he notes: “The big question is whether
we human beings are able to formalise our ethical beliefs in a halfway coherent
and complete way.” The real issue is, as custodians of a moral
code, are human beings even able to articulate and agree on what’s right
and wrong?

At this relatively early stage of AI advancement,
the onus is on us to intersect and qualify the moral code for sustainability,
planet and population alike. If we can learn to connect our technologies to
understand the rhythms and impacts of symbiotic living, we may not have to
strap those moon boots on and plan our earthly exodus just yet.

Perhaps the notion of Pandora was not as ‘out there’
as it seemed. Our world is extraordinarily interwoven; we may just be building
the tools to interpret and manipulate its complexity for the better. But as
systems sophisticate, the question governing our future will not be so much how
we will steward this responsibility, but rather will we?

Aurecon’s
award-winning blog, Just Imagine
provides a glimpse into the future for curious readers, exploring ideas that
are probable, possible and for the imagination. This post originally appeared
on Aurecon’s Just Imagine blog.
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