How Close Are We To Technology? — Part 3: Intellectual

In the world of technology, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are hot topics. Despite being under development for a long time, and actually long hidden in some consumer tech, it is only more recently that the public are becoming more aware about the advances in these fields. This is perhaps due to the growing number of resources and opportunities for developers to embrace such technologies, and put them in the hands of the people.

In my last two articles I discussed the physical and emotional connections we have with technology. In this third and final part of the series I would like to explore how we are connecting with technology on an intellectual level.

If you haven’t seen the previous two articles you can find Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

“News collects all the stories you want to read”

Reliance

The emotional dependency I described in Part 2 is supported heavily by our faith in a machines intelligence. We feel confident in asking technology for answers across any topic, from health to maths problems. I have been a frequent visitor to Wolfram Alpha over the years to help with solving problems. I trust it’s intelligence; it’s pretty clever.

As technology becomes more intelligent, more people are relying on it, for example intelligently curated news feeds like Apple News. A quick look at their website describes how ‘News collects all the stories you want to read’ and how it provides ’stories that matter most to you’. My Co-Founder Alex Huntly and I have discussed this use of technology at length, and I’m sure you’ll see an article pop up about this topic soon from him. We concluded that this use of intelligent technology is interesting on two levels, firstly we’re not sure how comfortable we are being told what we care about, and secondly we’re not sure how good this is for society, it can be very easy to focus too much on showing somebody what they ‘would like’ to know about rather than what they ‘should’ know about. It’s a fine balance and an interesting conundrum.

“DeepMind’s AI AlphaZero taught itself to be the best chess playing AI in just 4 hours, how quickly could it train to do other activities?”

Mind Over Platter

We have seen various stories in the media (hopefully ones we chose to read ourselves!) where technology has been pitched against the human intellect. Everyone knows the stories about Rubik’s cube solvers and chess champion beating AI. As a Type 1 Diabetic passionate about technology in healthcare, I was really excited to see the recent approval by the FDA for AI based retinopathy detection. This for me is a much better test for AI, and stronger proof of its abilities. Technology is taking a time and resource consuming activity, which has the potential for human error, automating it, and having a dramatically positive impact on people. A Doctor can take 7 years to train; just imagine the potential for speed up when we see DeepMind’s AI AlphaZero taught itself to be the best chess playing AI in just 4 hours. How quickly could it train to do other activities?

Of course the importance building AI that can solve a Rubik’s cube is two-fold. Firstly, it is through building such examples AI has been able to be developed and refined — it is simply a natural step in the development process. Secondly, it helps the public to understand, and this is really important. Society needs to be able to relate, to comprehend. It’s much easier to demonstrate how clever a computer is by showing it can solve a Rubik’s cube in record time, as people understand how hard those frustrating plastic puzzles are to solve.

“now not only is technology embedded in society, it’s also challenging society”

Evolution

There is a lot of talk about how Artificial Intelligence will take jobs away, how it will become self aware and take over the world. These aren’t rabbit holes I wish to venture down, at least not today. Instead, I’d like to focus on something that can be seen, and that’s the merging of two worlds. At the start of this article I mentioned AI and ML becoming more prevalent. This is happening in many forms, from AI assistants to Virtual Reality.

There is no question that technology and machines are becoming more intelligent, and with more resources becoming available to developers such as Google’s TensorFlow, Apple’s Core ML, ARKit, and IBM’s Watson, this trend is only going to continue. It’s very exciting as a developer to see these tools grow and become more powerful, and also to appreciate how they can be utilised for good. We just need the right project to work on.

This merging of worlds is really interesting; it’s been happening for some time, but now not only is technology embedded in society, it’s also challenging society. People are beginning to feel threatened by technology, it is becoming so intelligent that some consider it invasive. I think we need to find the sweet spot of balance, and that will come in time as the technology evolves and people become more aware and understanding of it’s pros and cons.

“if we can develop ways for technology to teach us meaningful things it can have a really positive impact on the society of the future”

Learning Together

As we teach technology, and teach technology to teach technology we are learning from technology, technology is teaching us, so we’re inadvertently teaching technology to teach us. I imagine an AI may have been able to write that sentence more coherently! There is an interesting exchange of intellect here, and I think it’s really important. Society will continue to develop and technology can support this, if we can develop ways for technology to teach us meaningful things it can have a really positive impact on the society of the future.

My Vision

I am driven by technology for good, both personally and for my business; Lunar Works. I believe that technology will be most impactful when we balance our problems carefully and selectively between the human and machine intellects. It will be when we achieve this balance that technology will be able to impact society in the most meaningful way. This is the challenge that keeps me enthusiastic about the industry and excited for the difference I can make.

Next Steps

These are my thoughts and musings; you may see the world in a different way, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. How do you see AI helping society advance?

Unfortunately, that’s the end of this three part series on ‘How Close Are We To Technology?’. I’m currently working on some new articles on the topics of AI, ML, Web Apps and technology in society, so plenty more to follow.