A.I. Is Human
By Jeremy Bernstein
Hollywood has always had its way when depicting A.I. technology. Filmmakers see it as a futuristic concept, just like flying cars and superpowers.
Although, they also see it as a potential threat to humanity. It’s quite noticeable in films including 2001 A Space Odyssey, iRobot and the Terminator franchise that an A.I. takeover is widely feared throughout the world.
However, it’s more human than people think. A.I. is not just a twin or replica to the human race. A.I. is a person. A.I. is human. That’s the truth that people fail to understand.
It may seem far-fetched to state such an opinion in this early stage of the game, but it’s not. In fact, amid the Uber and Tesla accidents, this is a perfect time. With that in mind, humans and A.I. share a specific similar trait; they both make mistakes often.
In reality, A.I. is nothing like Terminator.
An example of this references the Uber crash in March. While that algorithm specifically is receiving widespread scrutiny for its killing of a pedestrian in Phoenix, human drivers haven’t been much better replacements either. Recently in Brooklyn, a woman hit and killed two children pedestrians when she hit a red light. Have you heard about it? Probably not, just like you didn’t know that her daughter was an actress on FX’s The Americans.
If the aforementioned was bad, whats even worse is that 10 more of these incidents have occurred in the country in a single week alone. Whats even scarier is the fact all of the drivers were human.
Comparing that to the number of times A.I. has hit pedestrians, which is only once, it would probably be a safer driver and more equipped, mentally and physically, to handle driving a car. To begin with, the woman that killed two children in Brooklyn had a history with seizures. Mayor Bill De Blasio even admitted to his fault by not revoking her driving license earlier.
“She should never have been allowed to have been driving a car after what we know of these other violations,” De Blasio said in a public statement.
Meanwhile, the other offenders were believed to have criminal records or some other reasons for bypassing stoplights. If A.I. were driving the vehicles instead, the fatalities would’ve probably never happened.
Unlike the woman in Park Slope, A.I. does not have seizures. As for the other criminal offenders, those fatalities would’ve as well been avoided. In fact, they’ve may have even been caught if the A.I. knew better. Hopefully, that will happen in the near future, should the world’s population stop fearing a robot takeover of man.
The bikers haven’t been doing too well either. From the start of 2018 to this point in time, over 5,000 bikers have been caught for running red traffic lights in all five boroughs of New York City.
This just proves how increasingly reliable A.I. is compared to humans who run stop lights on what seems to be a daily basis. At least, unlike humans, A.I. doesn’t choose to be ignorant of its surroundings. 5,000 is greater than 1 anyway,
There are other instances where A.I. has been framed. For instance, in the Tesla Autopilot crash, the driver was told multiple times to put his hands back on the steering wheel. But he didn’t, which ultimately resulted in the crash.
“According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location,” claimed Tesla in a public statement regarding the Model X crash in March. “The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so.”
Another large issue in A.I. is this so-called ‘A.I. bias.’ However, it’s not A.I. bias, its human bias. What people tend to forget is that we, humans, created A.I.
Therefore, we are responsible for all of its attributes. This includes its deployment, uses, regulations, and bias. If the ACLU is so concerned about bias in A.I., they should demand regulations for the datasets.
Likewise, they can do the same for every other dilemma involving algorithms that upset them. Nothing is the algorithm’s fault, however, its human fault. It’s not the work of a smarter-than-the-average-bear robot attempting to overthrow the human population, similar to the plot in iRobot.
But, out of all the filmmakers in Hollywood and most of the population in the world, there’s one who supports the current A.I. trend; Steven Spielberg, who wrote and directed A.I. along with the late Stanley Kubrick.
“It’s what we project into mechanisms and machines that are important,” says the critically-acclaimed filmmaker in an interview. “It’s not so much that the machine can love us, its how much love we invest back into it.”
Although we won’t be seeing David or any other advanced algorithm-based robots walking down the street anytime soon, we’ll at least witness the parallel technology in cars.
According to Fehr and Peers, 95 percent of traffic in 2070 will be level 5 autonomous, or completely self-reliant. While some Luddites fear this means the end for humanity, others are embracing these facts and a day when traffic jams are no longer a reality.
Instead, artificial Intelligence and driverless cars are soon going to be our reality. In fact, it is our reality. That’s the truth people fail to understand.
