Artificial intelligence is changing the world, but IQ isn’t everything
Andrew Sheng says the future direction of technology can’t be predicted, and while machines are getting smarter, no single one can replace all human decision-makers
There has been so much hype about artificial intelligence that rock star historian-turned-futurist Yuval Noah Harari thinks that Homo sapiens will evolve into Homo Deus – godlike through science, conquering famine, war and possibly even death.
We used to suspend disbelief through science fiction, until many of the gadgets we watched in Star Trek in the 1960s became reality. With the computers’ ability to beat the best human Go champion, science fiction is becoming reality. AlphaGo cannot only learn from humans, but play and learn from games against itself. The machines are getting smarter than all of us.
The reason Star Trek and other sci-fi shows and movies are so popular is because they explore the moral dilemmas of science in an entertaining way. Will robots kill their makers? As science and technology advance to where we can edit genes, will we extend life or create new Frankenstein’s monsters?
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A screen displays the match featuring Chinese Go player Ke Jie against Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo during the Future of Go Summit at the Wuzhen International Conference and Exhibition Centre, in Zhejiang province, in May. Photo: EPA
The first thing to remember about AI is that it is the result of cumulative human knowledge, with each discovery, process, innovation and new institution leading to the opening of new fields of knowledge. We are at the edge of an explosive field of new knowledge.
Current artificial intelligence is the discovery that knowledge advances through algorithms, which Harari defined as “a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions”. Through them, you can program a computer or robot to learn and adapt. Perhaps computers can even learn to identify and write algorithms.
Remember also that human beings evolve through learning and adaptation. Any AI evolved from human intelligence is exactly like humans inventing the first dumb tool, then a smart one. The iPhone is already loaded with sensors to read maps, monitor your heartbeat, and Siri can answer your dumb questions (often with dumb answers). Whether you master the full capacity of your iPhone is another matter.
