Intelligence Augmentation
This is a series of blog posts from assignments for a class I’m taking — “Leading Trends in Information Technology”. The content has been slightly modified for a blog post.
Dr. Simon Chan, in his talk “A Strategic Overview on AI”, spoke about “What is AI actually?”. He looked at it from two angles — Simulation and Augmentation. While I have read about and even studied AI, IA was new and intriguing . I became quite curious to delve into Intelligence Augmentation, and try and understand the subtle differences from Artificial Intelligence.
What is Intelligence Augmentation?
The term “Intelligence Augmentation” is frequently used synonymously with “Intelligence Amplification”. Both are abbreviated as IA and naturally so.
IA refers to the effective use of information technology in augmenting human intelligence [1].
IA was thought of, and proposed in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think” is summarized by the editor as
“For years inventions have extended man’s physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but not the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists” [2]
IA, is all about empowering humans with tools that make them more capable and more intelligent. Although the terminology is pretty new, IA has existed for a long time, and with considerable success. For example, the abacus, written communication, books, etc. are all some form of IA.
IA, is anthropocentric and envisages use of information technology and various tools to empower the human to perform better at one’s task. Although in recent years IA has been grouped with AI, they are fundamentally different. However, advancements in AI provide better tools, funding and research for IA.
AI vs IA
As said above, in IA the human is at the center of the system, whereas in AI, we are trying to build a human-like intelligence.
A great example, given by Dr. Simon Chan, is of service tickets in a customer service company. An algorithm which sorts tickets and helps rank them in order of importance, and the human decides which ticket to service, is IA. On the other hand, building a system that services the tickets on it’s own, is AI. In one, we are augmenting a human, in the other, we are simulating a human.
IA has seen far more success than AI. However, in recent years there have been significant advances in AI, with Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Artificial Neural Nets (which try to mimic the human brain). Yet, a complete understanding of the human brain eludes us, and there are other significant roadblocks to solving AI. These roadblocks are not present for IA, as it only aims to improve, support and augment the functioning of human intelligence.
The Future for IA and Conclusion
Although, we don’t see the term IA much, it is a huge part of the industry. The biggest evidence of that is IBM’s bet on the “Cognitive Era”. They define it as “Cognitive computing refers to systems that learn at scale, reason with purpose and interact with humans naturally” [4]. They say that cognitive computing doesn’t involve sentience or consciousness, but rather augmenting the human ability to understand and act upon the complex systems of our society. This view, is telling, and it shows in the way IBM has positioned its Watson system as a cognitive business that assists Businesses and Healthcare to augment human tasks.
However, many of these improvements to IA have come about from advances in AI, such as Natural Language Processing, Neural networks, Computer vision, etc. Even though these fields are often contrasted and compared, they feed off of each other.
I believe AI has come to be widely misunderstood, often construed as dangerous to humanity. Whether we will in our lifetime, see an “Artificial” intelligence, cannot be said with certainty. However, the technologies being developed and researched to solve AI, will have a profound impact on how human intelligence is augmented. I believe, IA or AI, which ever way you choose to call it, will be instrumental in how humanity is shaped by the end of the 21st Century.
I have said it before, and I shall say it again, because each of these technologies is so exciting — What a time to be alive!
