Ai-Da
Interesting presentation.
One of the things humans are very bad at is in being set in our ways, holding out-dated views, etc. Off the top of my head, Daylight Saving is a good example. Why is it still a thing? Ok, that is a rhetorical question for the purposes of my post.
One area where AI might excel is in acting as a pre-processor for - for example - government policy. It is not there to be the final aribiter of choice, but to signpost unintended consequences and, in control theory terms, to prevent any self-reinforcing problems which produce a positive feedback loop - thinking here of Putin's thought processes, for example (far-fetched, I know, but the human mind often takes one down a rabbit hole). The output from the AI system would then be used to make an enlightened final decision.
This concept has been around for years. When the (London Undergound) Watford computer pilot was being commissioned the designers ran the track layout through all possible valid signalling moves and discovered one that nobody had thought of. So where do you draw the line between simple data analysis and AI? My guess would be in the production of iterations of data, the results of which would feed back into the datastore. So how do your protect your datastore from going down the same rabbit hole that Putin has conjured? Somehow the brain discards options from decision-making which are perfectly ok, and chooses an option that leads to scorched earth. There might be no way to get an AI system to learn that that is not an option, so it will have to be manually selected by a human, and scored with a heavy negative weight. Once you intervene in this way, is it still AI?
My negative feelings towards AI are unchanged (AI cannot be left alone to make decisions, it must be monitored, and the rationale behind any output must be capable of being unravelled).
Recently I had a problem with a purchase I made on line. I used the on-line chat bot to make a complaint. I had to have a few go's at formulating a question that the bot could understand, so straight away I could tell it was a bot response. Then there were a few symptoms displayed, to which I chose accordingly. The problem with these systems is that they are there to completely automate customer service. If you fall out the bottom without resolution of the issue then the ultimate question is "Would you like a refund?" There was no option to speak to a human being. There are companies out there who can't be arsed to deal with problems, the loss of one sale is but one drop in a massive ocean, so they don't care. This is a fad that everyone seems to want to use because it's sexy.
As regards the presentation, Ai-Da's minder insisted that "she" be given a paint palette and brush to create output. The traditional metaphor for an artist. But that metaphor is already an out-dated concept with (for example) David Hockney producing some very Hockneyesque pictures using a digital camera to produce a photo montage, plus his work with tablet computers.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
