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Showing posts with label artificial intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artificial intelligence. Show all posts
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Foresight Signals: Star Trek at 50, the Economics of the Singularity, and More
Saturday, September 3, 2016
From Science Fiction to Science Factualized: Star Trek at 50, the Economics of the Singularity, and More
Vol.
2, No. 11 | September 2016 | AAI
Foresight
Star Trek at 50: The Future Is Human
On September 8, 1966, Gene Roddenberry's television series Star Trek boldly led the human imagination where it had never gone before. Rather than enumerate the series' many technological and social forecasts and inspirations, we'll take a look at what stirred Roddenberry's creative juices. (For the former angle, check out Fortune's coverage, perhaps by accessing it on your as-predicted handheld computer.)
In his presentation at the World Future Society's 1984 conference, longtime member Roddenberry spoke on “the literary image of the future.” He said that as a dramatist his function was to create alternative realities, but that his concern always was with people. “It seems to me that futurists to often wander too far away from considerations of people, as if somehow assuming that science's 'realities' represent the full horizon,” he said.
 |
| Leonard Nimoy, Robert Wise, Gene Roddenberry, DeForest Kelley and William Shatner on the set of Star Trek The Motion Picture in 1978. Credit: Tom Simpson / Flickr |
Fiction and drama enable the creative artist to find new perspectives on the human reality; just as Lewis Carroll used a white rabbit, Roddenberry used aliens, such as the half-human, half-Vulcan Mr. Spock. To create this new character, Roddenberry began by interviewing him, letting the character evolve until Spock ultimately began asking his own questions and answering with the logic we came to know and love.
Twenty years after so creating Spock, Roddenberry was visited by another new alien character, called Gaan, a marine-based life-form from a methane sea planet, whose profession was scholar. “It is in areas of futurism that dialogue with him has become so valuable to me that for almost a year now I have been attempting to bypass the dialogue level by practicing the trick of actually thinking like Gaan,” he told the 1984 conference attendees. “Those capable of using an extraterrestrial's eyes as an exercise, as a challenge, as an exciting game, improve on their ability to estimate where today may be taking us.”
The exercise of creating Gaan for a novel led Roddenberry to reflect on other “alien” questions humans needed to ask back in the mid-1980s—questions that yet need consideration today:
- If automation puts half our workforce on the street (and we dare not call that impossible), what of the police? If they are overworked and outnumbered, how do we increase their numbers, their legal powers? …
- If disorder threatens our cities, should we consider travel passes that limit which vehicles can travel through which areas? …
- Can our political system survive television's “Hollywood” method of casting candidates and presenting issues?
- Is there a self-ordained “messiah” in our future? Are there indications of a public hunger for this? Is there a very obvious trend toward more and more simplistic answers to life's problems?
Gaan, and likely Roddenberry as well, was hopeful about humanity's prospects: “I look forward to the day when these humans, who are so much more than they yet believe they are, will at last understand that the Cosmos outside and the Cosmos inside themselves are one and the same.”
Reference: “Mr. Spock and Gaan: Alien Perspectives on the Future,” The Futurist, February 1985.
Signals: extraterrestrial intelligence; Gene Roddenberry; science fiction; Star Trek: World Future Society
A Singularity Economy—If Uploads Come First
By Randall Mayes
The Singularity—a point in time in the future where machine intelligence exceeds that of humans—is a popular topic of discussion among futurists. For uncertain reasons, the literature is dominated by discussions of the likelihood of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and it possibly functioning without humans in control.The Singularity could follow other paths, such as mind uploading. AI researchers are also investigating human-machine interfaces. The convergence of numerous technologies could produce a synthetic neocortex linked to a human brain and connected to the cloud.
It is possible that artificial brains may actually develop first. However, this assumes that Moore's law will continue at least several decades into the future and that algorithms can exceed human capabilities without researchers understanding completely how the brain works.
After nine years as an AI researcher and programmer for Lockheed and NASA, Robin Hanson, now an economics professor at George Mason University, became skeptical of a master algorithm that will combine the speed of supercomputers with the cognitive skills of humans. As a result, in 1994, he wrote If Uploads Come First.
In a culmination of over twenty years of research, Hanson’s new book, The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth (Oxford University Press, 2016), provides an unprecedented look into what the world may look like when run by uploaded minds.
Whole-brain emulations, or ems, are fully functional models of human brains copied and stored in robots or, as Hanson visualizes, in android bodies in virtual reality. He envisions using the brains of several hundred hard-working and smart people with personalities that are likely to follow new norms. Instead of food, these ems would require plenty of electricity for cooling and power to run hardware. Ultimately, he projects ems could think a thousand times faster than a typical human.
Hanson further envisions trillions of these ems in high-rise buildings, so productive they would create a fourth human era—an economy that doubles every month. For comparison purposes, he calculated that, in the first three human eras, the foraging economy doubled every quarter million years, the farming economy doubled every thousand years, and the current industrial economy has doubled every 15 years.
Before the em scenario transcends sci-fi to reality, it will require the development of superfast computers, nondestructive brain scans, and models of human brain cells in order to process their features and connections. Mapping the brain is very complex, and it is uncertain at present how deep in the brain-signaling processes scientists will need to understand. Mind-loading researchers estimate that this path to the Singularity will take anywhere from two decades to a century to develop.
Hanson’s economic model assumes the forces of supply and demand. So, current ethical standards could also delay the development of uploaded human minds. Em research on lab animals will not translate into results useful in humans. Unfortunately, em research will require that intelligent individuals be willing to sacrifice their earthly life, since human brains would not survive the current scanning processes.
The Age of Em is imaginative and provides a thought-provoking discussion of the social implications of an em economy. For more insight on how ems may function in virtual reality and how the lack of understanding of consciousness will impact the development of uploaded minds, see my in depth discussion with Hanson for TechCast Global.
Randall Mayes is a technology analyst and author of Revolutions: Paving the Way for the Bioeconomy (Logos Press, 2012). He may be contacted at randy.mayes@duke.edu.
Signals: artificial general intelligence, economics, neuroscience, robotics
Blog Report: Foresight in the Public Sector
In the past five years, two groups of futurists working in the public sector have formed to share intelligence and experience in working with their respective agencies. In 2011 the Public Sector Foresight Network formed, open to anyone globally working in government, and in 2013 the Federal Foresight Community of Interest formed to unite those working in various branches of the U.S. federal government.These two networks agreed to join forces, meeting jointly on July 22, 2016, to facilitate the exchange of diverse views and best practices by U.S. and international foresight officials. Foresight Signals' special correspondent Lane Jennings was on hand to report on the presentations by Clem Bezold, Nancy Donovan, James-Christian Blockwood, Jason Stiles, Joe Moore, John Basso, Joe Greenblott, Peter Padbury, Ibon Zugasti, M. Gotzone Sagardui, Juan Ibarreche, Tracey Wait, Chris Mihm, and Catarina Tully.
“The meeting highlighted the extensive and evolving foresight efforts in Spain, Canada, U.S. federal agencies, and globally (particularly around the Sustainable Development Goals),” Jennings reports.
Read “Sharing Foresight Knowledge and Experience” by Lane Jennings on the Foresight Signals blog (posted August 27, 2016).
Mack Report: VR and AI Development
In his latest post for the AAI Foresight blog, managing principal Timothy C. Mack writes that “science fiction and other popular media have so raised expectations” about virtual reality “that people are always disappointed, because they all think that fully functional VR is already here.”Mack notes that virtual reaility is making an impact in storytelling, simulator games, and training, however. “Deep human impulses are released in gaming,” he writes. “Many experienced players even provoke their opponents to play more emotionally and thus make mistakes. While fun can be transformational—physically, emotionally, and cognitively—there is seldom complete transfer of skills in gaming or simulations. A good example is a firefighter simulation in a burning building, which does not adequately prepare one for the heat, choking gases, and real danger. And so outcomes and success levels are different for each person.”
Read “VR and AI Development” by Timothy C. Mack, Foresight Signals blog (posted August 22, 2016).
__________
Send
us your signals!
News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on
Foresight
Signals.
Contact
Cynthia
G. Wagner,
consulting editor.
Feel
free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any
stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon
that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight
community.
__________
©
2016 AAI
Foresight
Foresight
Signals is a publication of AAI
Foresight
1619
Main Street, #1172
Freeland, WA 98249
Managing
Principal: Timothy C. Mack
tcmack333@gmail.com
| 202-431-1652
Webmaster and IT
Consultant: Tom Warner
Consulting Editor:
Cynthia G. Wagner
Designer:
Lisa Mathias
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
VR and AI Development
By Timothy
C. Mack
The
trouble with virtual reality (VR) is that science fiction and other
popular media have so raised expectations that people are always
disappointed, because they all think that fully functional VR is
already here. But what VR is really good at is storytelling,
simulator games, and training of all sorts.
This
is to distinguished virtual from augmented reality (AR), which is
also in development. However, nobody has unrealistic expectations
about AR, which strongly challenges present assumptions that it will
be very disruptive. There continues to be a dichotomy between
physically visiting a place or event and virtually doing so. There
are so many physical aspects to actual presence—smell, taste,
touch—that only very limited opportunities to simulate them are now
possible (such as haptic gloves). One of the most appealing aspects
of real presence is serendipity: the unexpected event or outcome.
Deep
human impulses are released in gaming. Many experienced players even
provoke their opponents to play more emotionally and thus make
mistakes. While fun can be transformational—physically,
emotionally, and cognitively—there is seldom complete transfer of
skills in gaming or simulations. A good example is a firefighter
simulation in a burning building, which does not adequately prepare
one for the heat, choking gases, and real danger. And so outcomes and
success levels are different for each person.
 |
| VR simulations for training still may not prepare firefighters for the real thing. Credit: Skeeze/Pixabay |
One
of the challenges in VR game design is determing what assumptions the
designer can make about players' prior knowledge. Also, in the United
States, there is less independent game playing; rather, gaming is
usually on multiplayer online settings with a single screen for each
player.
Online
gaming (streaming) is becoming more of a spectator sport, but live
spectator sports will endure—even broadcast spectator sports that
offer no audience controls. Holographic technology is improving
rapidly, however, moving toward completely immersive experiences. And
this holographic view is unsually unique to each viewer, depending on
where they are standing in the available viewing space, enabling
multiple players/viewers to share different viewpoints and values.
Will
new technologies allow for virtual visits to national parks and
experiences of events that allow for greater levels of participation
and observation detail? Interactive playing rather than participating
in live games and events could lead to changes in attitude and even
in thinking about a subject. Many games are actually on a continuum
between gaming and reality.
Gaming
in the workplace is growing, but it is not always digital. Games such
as Escape
Route
(Locked Room Puzzles) now popular in employee development are often
more exercises for observation, analysis, and team building. It
consists of half a dozen people in a physically confined space, given
clues for escape with the goal of developing a successful team
approach to solve the problem. But one outcome can be a “trough of
despair” where people stop responding to the game structure and
innovative behavior declines. Because no one game works for everyone,
it raises the questions of why people play any specific game at all.
This requires understanding your community of players.
It
is clear that games can communicate complex ideas to their players in
ways that seem intuitive. Games can communicate meaning. New York
University's Game Center and University of Southern California's
Annenberg Innovation Lab are working in this arena. One important
thing that games offer to their players is engagement. In order for
this engagement to develop, the game must invite iteration—repetition
builds engagement over time. But it is very difficult to anticipate
how all players will respond to any specific game, and not everyone
seeks empowerment. That lack of control can be the novel and
intriguing experience. And role playing can provide all sorts of new
experiences
At
Google, researchers are working on natural language solutions,
leading to new machine learning frameworks, including deep learning
projects such as Tensorflow. The whole deep learning area is moving
ahead quite quickly, as computing power advances. Besides Google,
Facebook and Microsoft are committing large resources, and a number
of smaller companies are also involved.
Machine-learning
tools drive advances in robotic movement controls and energy
management, which are two of the most difficult challenges at
present. Virtual models developed to build robotic systems often were
poorly conceived or even wrong—they did not work in practice. There
was not enough real-world input into building those systems, and the
outputs were often full of digital noise. For example, task-training
data is often too scarce to inform task design.
Another
real challenge is crafting strategies for interpreting emotional
interaction—and reading opponents in game playing. This research is
being led by Google Deep Mind (renamed after Deep Mind Technologies
in UK was acquired by Google). Graphic processing units are often
more effective than CPUs to communicate problem solving strategies,
and the majority of present AI work relates to assisting humans
rather than beating humans at games. This is not artificial but
augmented intelligence.
Many
are concerned about black box intelligence with full agency and
independence—so some are designing and bulding attention-tracking
tools allowing us to see what was incorporated in an AI decision.
This will help us better understand the decision steps involved and
replicate them—and help us understand mistakes, as well.
It
is nearly impossible to look out 20 years in AI research because
change is happening so fast. Even 10 years out is too far ahead to be
accurate. But one thing that will happen is that the Internet of
Things will continue to improve its understanding of users through
enabled devices, as well as their desires and patterns of behavior.
And deep-learning tools will inform research in areas such as
biology, medicine, and energy development.
Timothy C. Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight.
Image
credit: Skeeze/Pixabay
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Signals: Predictionzzz ... Luddite Shaming ... Technolife 2035 ... and more
Vol. 2, No. 3 | January 13, 2016 | AAI Foresight
News for the Foresight Community
> Hot Topic: Predictionzzz
> Unnecessary Roughness: Luddite Shaming
> Publication: Technolife 2035
> Special Issue: Journal of Futures Studies and Science Fiction
> On the Move: Brian David Johnson
> Foresight Report: Digital Citizenship
> ICYMI: End of Year Report
> Feedback: On “How Technology Professionals Will Work”
Hot Topic: Predictionzzz
The beginning of a New Year was greeted with the usual popular media
attention to “the future,” which means collections of ongoing and imminent
trends disguised as click-attracting predictions. For futurists and other
foresight professionals, it is an opportunity to capture the imaginations of
those otherwise preoccupied by the present, even as we remind ourselves of our true
purpose.
The usual futuristic subjects—artificial intelligence, virtual reality,
and robotics—appeared in some lists, but a few twists on these topics caught
our eye: In Ireland, a Future of Law and Legal Tech Conference, warned that
lawyers could go extinct if they don’t reduce their fees and streamline their
practices. “Eight out of ten U.S. law firms believe that robots will take over
most low level and data- driven procedures within 10 years,” reports the Independent.
Writing on LinkedIn Pulse,
Singapore futurist Harish Shah had a
slightly different take on the annual predictions exercise: He offered a list
of technologies that will be obsolete by 2030, including physical monitors,
which will be replaced with holographic displays, and nearly all forms of
computer we now rely on—PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones—which will be
replaced by wearables.
Comment: I find the latter forecast a bit disconcerting, as I attempt to execute
this newsletter on a five-year-old (no longer manufacturer-supported) laptop
with a dead battery. Though I’ve achieved the paperless future, I’m not yet ready
for the holographic one. —CGW
References: “Lawyers Told to Cut Fees or Face Future Led by Robots” by Dearbhail McDonald, Independent (December 17, 2015).
“Obsolete By 2030: A List of Tech Items We
Cannot Imagine Life Without Today” by Harish Shah, LinkedIn
Pulse (January 6, 2016).
Unnecessary Roughness: Luddite Shaming
The Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation’s second annual Luddite of the Year Award is still
taking nominations. The “honor,” ITIF says, “recognizes the year’s most egregious
example of a government, organization, or individual stymieing the progress of
technological innovation.”
Topping the not-in-any-particular-order list of nominees for 2015 are the
duo “alarmists” Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, nominated for their
endorsement of last year’s open letter to their scientific peers warning of the
danger of creating an artificial intelligence. (See the story in the April 2015 Foresight
Signals.)
Comment: While we certainly admire ITIF’s work to encourage innovation, shaming
respected scientific leaders for encouraging others to consider the potential
negative consequences of their work strikes us as counter to the mission of
foresight generally and technology assessment specifically. The real Luddite
awards should be reserved for those who attempt to ban the research they fear,*
which Musk and Hawking did not do; they asked for broader research, not no research. —CGW
*For example, see the North Carolina legislature’s 2012 ban of
research on climate change.
Source: ITIF Announces 2015 Luddite Award
Nominees (press release).
Signals: artificial intelligence, innovation,
Luddites, technology
Publication: Technolife 2035
The English-language version of Elina
and Kari Hiltunen’s Technolife 2035: How Will Technology Change Our
Future? has now been published by Cambridge
Scholars Publishing.
In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of technology
forecasting methodologies, the authors offer an insightful vision of where
technologies may lead us into the future. The text concludes with three
extended scenarios based on a reimagining of the Romeo and Juliet story, first
presented in The Futurist magazine
(July-August 2014).
In their preface, the authors invite readers to put the book away and
leave it in a drawer for another 20 years, the open it again for a “burst of
laughter” at how “silly were they back then.” For we no doubt will all predict
a few silly things and miss quite obvious ones, the authors admit. But
prediction, they point out, is not the point, but rather raising “discussion
about what technology can bring with it—both the good and bad.”
Source: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Signals: foresight, scenarios, society, technology
Special Issue: Journal of Futures Studies and Science Fiction
The December 2015 issue of the Journal of Futures Studies, co-edited
by Thomas Lombardo and Jose Ramos, focused on the relationship
between science fiction and foresight. In the lead article “Science Fiction:
The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future,” Lombardo writes that those science fiction works that deal
with the future may be viewed as narratives of tomorrow's possibilities.
“A good story about a possible future, with its drama,
action, and sensory detail, is psychologically more compelling and realistic
than an abstract theory, static image, depersonalized futurist scenario, or
statistical prediction,” Lombardo writes. “Science fiction personally draws us
into a rich vicarious experience of the future through its vivid and memorable
characters. We live the story through the characters. All told, through science
fiction narrative, we live and feel the future at a deep and intimate
level.”
Reference: “Science Fiction: The Evolutionary
Mythology of the Future” (PDF) by Tom
Lombardo, Journal of Futures Studies (December
2015).
Signals: futurism, science fiction
On the Move: Brian David Johnson
Longtime Intel futurist Brian David Johnson has joined the faculty
of Arizona State University as a “professor of
practice” in the School for the Future of Innovation
in Society and futurist in residence for the spring 2016
term. At ASU Johnson will lead two major projects: The Future of the American Dream
and the 21st Century Robot.
“I’m so excited about the future and what
we’ll be able to accomplish,” Johnson said. “ASU is one of the world’s most
innovative and forward-looking institutions. It’s the perfect place to
collaborate with a broad, diverse set of people and to explore the future in
exciting, intellectually rigorous and surprising ways.”
Source: Arizona State University.
Signals: education, futurists, robotics
Foresight Report: Digital Citizenship
In AAI Foresight's latest Foresight Report, “Digital Citizenship,” futurist consultant Karl
Albrecht describes many advantages of a national digital ID system,
including what might be the “killer app”——immigration reform. The digital
citizenship program he describes would tackle at least one fundamental issue:
determining who is a citizen and who is a “guest.” What to do with guests
determined to be where they shouldn't be has yet to be resolved.
Albrecht observes that the technical obstacles to creating a connected
but secure and anonymous database system to establish national identity are not
as daunting as are the political and social obstacles. Fears of government
overreach match fears of hacking and terrorism, and as long as the supporters
match the opponents of a national ID system, a satisfactory system is unlikely
to come about soon.
Reference: “Digital Citizenship: The Case for a National ID Card” by Karl Albrecht (Foresight Report, Winter 2016).
Contact Albrecht at www.karlalbrecht.com. “Digital
Citizens” is AAI Foresight’s sixth Foresight Report and is available as a free PDF
download. Access the series at www.aaiforesight.com/foresight-reports.
Signals: citizenship, digital society, information technology,
privacy, security
ICYMI: Mack Report
In case you missed it: In his end-of-year report, Tim Mack reviews
the activities and accomplishments of the first full year of operations for AAI
Foresight Inc. In addition to a number of internal and external publishing
projects, Mack participated in a new science-focused series, SciTech Voyager TV
series for Turkish Radio Television. See AAI Foresight Year-End Report, Foresight Signals (December 2015).
Feedback: Technology Work and Technological Displacement
In response to Timothy Mack’s Foresight Report “How Technology
Professionals Will Work” (Foresight Report, Fall 2015), Dennis Bushnell, chief
scientist at NASA Langley Research Center, writes:
What is new this time with machines replacing humans is
that … we are now producing a second intelligent species. The unanticipated
huge and evolving success of the combination of deep learning, big data, and
fast machines is producing greatly improved machine intelligence via soft
computing long before brain emulation is slated to do so. Therefore, the
machines taking the jobs, including the creative jobs, is now being
accelerated.
Much of [Mack’s] piece is nearer term, as humans try to
fight desperately to hang onto traditional thinking and functions. It is all
going to have to be wholly reinvented, [as I discussed in] “Creating Problems and Enabling
Solutions”
(Foresight Report, Summer 2015). “We
reinvented humans … twice before: the agricultural age and the industrial age.
In each there was a major change in what humans did and [in] their social
fabric. This new “Machine Revolution” [will] have essentially all of the human
capabilities for economic activities, including creativity, only far greater
and far more than humans. If anything this is even more of a sea change to the
human existence theorem than the Agricultural and Industrial [revolutions].
Humans have simply been too successful and have invented
themselves out of their jobs. Humans 3.0 is now “our” horizon. Much of what you
cover in this present piece is rapidly being transcended.
Contact: Dennis
M. Bushnell, dennis.m.bushnell@nasa.gov.
__________
Send us your signals! News about your work and other
tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor. mailto:CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com
Want more signals from AAI Foresight? Check out the blog! Log in to add comments.
Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any
stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share
with other stakeholders and the foresight community.
__________
© 2016 AAI Foresight
Foresight Signals is a publication of AAI Foresight
1619 Main Street, #1172
Freeland, WA 98249
Managing Principal: Timothy C. Mack
tcmack333@gmail.com
| 202-431-1652
Webmaster and IT Consultant: Tom Warner
Consulting Editor: Cynthia G. Wagner
CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com
| Twitter: @CynWag1
Designer: Lisa Mathias
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