Artificial Intelligence
A collection of good reads
As you probably know, We Seek is presented by e180, the company that invented and runs braindates at events — a way to facilitate the sharing of knowledge in new and meaningful ways. This year is the 5th anniversary of Braindate at C2 Montréal and also the launch of the new brand and platform for e180. We thought it would be a good occasion to try something new on the magazine; we normally write about learning but now we want to help you learn by providing the actual content. We are looking at three topics taken in part from the event’s Ecosystems theme, providing you with selections of articles as well as books and videos. We have already looked at Talent & The Future of Work as well as Cities.
And now; AI.
“From automation to new biomedical discoveries, AI is already impacting the global economy. Adoption of this new mindset and technology is rising exponentially, raising many questions around an AI-First world. The AI Forum is an opportunity to explore innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing issues in an AI-First context, and reflect on the kinds of environments tomorrow’s organizations and workforce will inhabit.”
Ok, so this one isn’t one of the C2 themes but rather a forum run in parallel during the conference but we saw it as an opportunity and couldn’t resist assembling this collection of articles around Artificial Intelligence. It’s an extremely important topic, one everyone should keep an eye on and spend time trying to wrap their head around because it’s already influencing a great many of the services we use and will only get more prevalent.
And hat tip to the excellent Simon Hudson who provided a helping hand with some of his research.
The AIs Are Coming
The Myth of a Superhuman AI
Kevin Kelly, 21 min read
A pretty fascinating deconstruction of some AI myths. Kelly starts by identifying five assumptions made by most believers of the “superhuman artificial intelligence” scenario and then explains the mythical view behind each. Also interesting because Kelly is usually the super enthusiast of technology and here he’s taking down some magical thinking.
We will soon arrive at the obvious realization that “smartness” is not a single dimension, and that what we really care about are the many other ways in which intelligence operates — all the other nodes of cognition we have not yet discovered…
the sheer variety and alienness of these minds will steer us to new vocabularies and insights about intelligence and smartness.
Also, an interview with Kelly;
Wired founder Kevin Kelly on letting go of AI anxiety
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The Great A.I. Awakening
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, 62 min read
All of the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) as well as IBM and Microsoft are making huge investments on AI and in some cases becoming machine learning based. Google for one now bills itself as “A.I. first” and this piece from the NYT goes into the thinking behind the proclamation with CEO Sundar Pichai.
All three are stories about artificial intelligence. The seven-decade story is about what we might conceivably expect or want from it. The five-year story is about what it might do in the near future. The nine-month story is about what it can do right this minute. These three stories are themselves just proof of concept. All of this is only the beginning.
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Encountering the other mind: How AI will shift our design process, and in turn, our cities
Interview with Benjamin Bratton, 13 min read
An excellent interview with Bratton, mixing a number of fields, including architecture and urbanism with coming shifts induced by AI.
I don’t think we should measure it [AI]! I see it as a question of encounter and communication. I think of AI almost in terms of first contact narratives in sci-fi (or colonial history). In philosophy it’s called the other mind problem.
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Microsoft’s new head of research has spent his career building powerful AI — and making sure it’s safe
Dave Gershgorn, 9 min read
The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data
The Economist’s editors, 5 min read
China’s Rise in Artificial Intelligence
Sarah Zhang, 5 min read
Robots and Automation May Not Take Your Desk Job After All
Dan Finnigan, 4 min read
But have you considered this?
Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in
Andy Beckett, 26 min read
Many Silicon Valley leaders promoting AI can be seen as a particularly potent form of techno determinists that some have taken to calling Accelerationists. Here’s a good overview of what that ideology (whether subscribed to under that name or not) represents and it’s history. A useful lens when observing the technology world that’s now dominating so much of our lives.
“In Silicon Valley,” says Fred Turner, a leading historian of America’s digital industries, “accelerationism is part of a whole movement which is saying, we don’t need [conventional] politics any more, we can get rid of ‘left’ and ‘right’, if we just get technology right. Accelerationism also fits with how electronic devices are marketed — the promise that, finally, they will help us leave the material world, all the mess of the physical, far behind.”
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We Need to Tell Better Stories About Our AI Future
Sara M. Watson, 6 min read
The stories we tell ourselves (like Sci-fi as one example) influence what we actually build and from which angle we look at new technologies. Telling better, more purposeful and opinionated stories would help us to produce more ethical tech.
“Most of these narrative efforts will contribute little to get closer to some form of transparency for AI systems, but perhaps these narrative tools can move the bar on other AI challenges like scrutability, legibility, intelligibility, and interpretability, and therefore support more subtle and dynamic discussions about AI accountability among stakeholders and the wider public.”
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Why We Need More Women Taking Part In The AI Revolution
Samantha Walravens & Heather Cabot, 5 min read
An interview with VC Lolita Taub, on AI and the importance of more women being involved in the field.
AI will pass on the biases of its creators and the data its creators feed it. If we want there to be a woman’s perspective in the new world of AI, we need women to be part of it — and women of diverse backgrounds at that.
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Artificial intelligence is ripe for abuse, tech researcher warns: ‘a fascist’s dream’
Olivia Solon (about a Kate Crawford talk), 4 min read
Hybrid Intelligence: How Artificial Assistants Work
Clare Corthell. 10 min read
Further Reading
Searching for Lost Knowledge in the Age of Intelligent Machines
Adrienne Lafrance, 25 min read
A great read weaving the Antikythera Mechanism, Jacques Cousteau, Lost Knowledge, The Memex, libraries, museums, Google and algorithms. I mean really, what’s not to love?
What algorithms can help us do is process the whole information and delve into the knowledge to create something that is very similar to an inference, […] So when you are looking for something … thinking laterally — not just sequentially, but in a cross-disciplinary way — so you can connect things that are apparently unrelated. That is basically where we see the whole area of information processing going from now on.
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The AI Policy Landscape
Matt Chessen, 24 min read
A Strategist’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence
Anand Rao, 16 min read
Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Systems and the Learning Brain
Ben Williamson, 7 min read
Intelligence and Autonomy
“Data & Society’s Intelligence and Autonomy Initiative develops policy research connecting the dots between robots, algorithms and automation. Our goal is to reframe debates around the rise of machine intelligence.”
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Impact de l’Intelligence Artificielle sur l’économie
Laurent Alexandre, 20 min video
If you speak French, superb conference on AI and the economy.
This story was originally written for e180, a social business from Montreal that seeks to unlock human greatness by helping people learn from each other.
