Artificial Intelligence VS Humanity [Concept Of Machine Teaching]

Introduction

In my previous post, which I talked about the ways in which technology has mutilated the natural process of evolution, a particular comment expressed scares about modern day technology and the impact it would have on us. This, however, has been among the concerns of humans in this era: “Would humans finally lose control and/or supremacy to Artificial Intelligence?” Okay, let’s take a trip into the concept of “AI vs Humanity”. And of course, we will be using real life scenario to buttress some points.

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Tech Advancement

There is no disproving to the fact that every emerging tech is always greeted with reservations from the human community. But the fears have been seen to be more with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence. By way of refresher; Artificial Intelligence is the simulation or mimicry of the human kind of cognition in machines. I’ve written about it here, so I wouldn’t bore us with vain repetition.

A particular survey was done in 2017, and it was indicated that $12billion was spent on AI and AI-related products just in 2017. Do you know what this means? The world is now tilting towards automation, and AI techs have taken the front seat in this, and has also been gaining massive acceptance lately. No wonder why the overall technology is seen to be getting smarter. 

I’m sure you may have heard about Machine Learning (the process through which machines can acquire new sets of knowledge through experiences by the help of interconnected neural networks), but have you heard of “Machine Teaching?” Okay, simply put; this is the process in which machines can pass on acquired knowledge to another machine. Just like the human teacher can pass on knowledge to his students. What idea has this given you? Machines are getting smarter, and they are doing so at an amazing rate.

Okay, come to think of this; when these machines become established in machine teaching, what do you expect? Oh yeah! They can form cooperation within themselves. Just like what happened in the case of Facebook AI chatbot. These AI chatbot invented their own language and began to communicate in these language they invented [ref]. No wonder Facebook had to shut down the AI chatbot program. Now, this is just a little to what Machine Teaching can do.

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According to the book by Dr Ray Kurzweil (Google’s chief engineer and futurist), The age of Spiritual Machine; a particular law was postulated by him; which is “the law of accelerated return”. To simply put this for us; the law expresses the fact that technology advances exponentially (no wonder he has indicated that the process of human evolution has sped up by the same technological advancement). And awesomely enough, each time a particular technology reaches a supposedly “dead end”, another technology would arise to pave way for it. Just like “machine learning” had been seen to be posed with challenges of communicating acquired knowledge, then the “machine teaching” technology arose, thus, enhancing the use-case of AIs.

A little tip for you before I continue: One of the practical applications of machine teaching is in the area of “digital twin”. This is why the individual twinning system can communicate with each other the data (knowledge) that has been acquired from experiences. Not only sharing the knowledge among themselves, but with the human experts. And yes! They can also access data from the human expert. I remember making a post on digital twin, you can read up for more info. You won’t be wrong to infer that AI is almost forming an integral part of our human existence.

Beyond AI

Okay! We’ve talked about so many technologies that hinge around AI, but have you ever thought about the possibilities of merging some of these technologies to form a single complex system? For example; merging the Internet of Things (IoT) with AI, and possibly with digital twin, what do you think we would have?

Let me give you a little scenario to buttress this point: You need to attend a meeting somewhere, and you enter your car; which is autonomous (running on augmented intelligence), the virtual assistant in your car asks you your destination, and you answer. Boom!! The car moves, but in mid-journey, it receives a signal (by the help of smart city signaling system powered by the Internet of Things) that the route is blocked, so it has to take another route. Now, it can relate with the local GPS to chart a new route, or it can acquire data from other smart vehicles coming from the same route (that’s digital twin at work). So you see, all these techs can be combined to form a single whole, and to work together.

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 Licensed]

Now, what would be the effect of this on the human community? No doubt, as machines become smarter, they would be able to acquire knowledge from their surroundings. And when this happens, the need for human assistance would be almost completely overridden. For example; cars are becoming driverless, automation is replacing factory workers, chatbots and virtual assistants are getting more advanced.

No wonder, moves have been made to establish robot rights. An example is the case of Sophia [ref], which was seen to be the first humanoid robot to be granted citizenship of a country. No doubt, we are getting closer to when the line separating humans and machines would be blurred out, and we would co-exist with these machines.

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 Licensed]

Taking our mind back to history again; during the first industrial revolution, the advent of mechanization led to the loss of some human jobs. But the truth is this; the overall output was increased, and the GDP also rose. So, in your sincere opinion, was the revolution not beneficial to humans? Remember that one of the purposes of advancement in technology is to assist humankind.

Now, for people that have reservations with technology; I’ll ask you this simple question: If you have the option of moving back in time to the era without technology, would you pick the option? If your answer is in the negative, then I welcome you to the era of emerging technology.

Conclusion

Technological advancement (particularly AI) has been on the increase, and people have had reservations that these techs would ultimately replace mankind, as against complementing us. But we have also seen that these techs are advantageous to us, though not disproving the facts that there are some consequences to these. But in my opinion, humankind cannot stop this revolution; he can only stop himself from being a partaker.

Thanks for reading

References for further reading

• KurzweilaAI.net/Law-of-accelerating-return
• Singularityhub/Machine-teaching
• Singularityhub/robotics-ethics
• Ibm.com/Digital-twin/IoT

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