AI teams: where do I fit in?
If I were to work on an AI team in the future, I would place myself somewhere between the AI choreographer and a designer. A constant in my recreational life is art; I seek artistic expression in my free time, and also try to integrate it into my academic life. Creating something from nothing is the very principle of artistic expression, and I believe this skill could be useful in the design aspect of an AI system. This part of my role focuses more on the technicalities of the machine, but I also feel I would be valuable in assisting the relationship between the machine and user.
Studying neuroscience has allowed me to take many classes on the neurologically and psychologically based underpinnings of our behavior (and the abnormalities of our behavior). With this knowledge, I am able to obtain a well rounded understanding of how humans interact and behave on a day to day basis. Studying human behavior and innate tendencies is helpful in anticipating human-machine interaction problems. With a neuroscience background, it would be easy to suggest changes that promote natural, human-like conversations.
The crossover between AI and Neuroscience is immense; I truly believe research in my field will be dominated by AI and other technological advancements in the near future. Already, we study neural networks in order to employ this architecture and systematic processing in machines. If we do not truly understand the brain, its structure, and the way it influences behavior, we cannot design an elegant machine to mimic high intelligence.
Additionally, I enjoy studying communication (particularly nonverbal communications and subtleties of social cues). This expertise could be applied to further advancing AI communication, with hopes of making ai interaction indistinguishable from a human agent. Today, experts in communication are commonly part of an AI team; they are integral in preventing dead ends for chat bots, amending responses that received uncertainty from users, and suggesting language that makes the user comfortable. I would love to see the day to day life of someone in this position already.
Though the communication expert is already accepted as a necessary component of an AI team, neuroscientists are not. Though I see the need, I also harbor worries with the employment of neuroscience experts. Will the machine become too advanced, or too similar to the human brain? I’m not sure that we will ever understand enough about the human brain to fully encompass its capabilities in a machine, but what if we do? The creation of AI in the image of humans begins to unravel as we advance. I worry we will lose sight of the important distinctions between a computer and a human as we strive to create the perfect replica. Of course, we need certain similarities to be consistent, but how far is too far? For now, there are certain jobs and questions that can only be addressed by a human, preserving the value of many human-only jobs. If we ever master the human brain, how closely can we design an AI system to match it? To me, this idea could be the degradation of human-only jobs.
For now, we just aren’t there yet.
