AI needs both pragmatists and blue-sky dreamers

Artificial intelligence thinkers seem to come from two communities. One is what I call blue-sky visionaries, who speculate on the future possibilities of technology, invoking utopian fantasies to generate excitement. Blue sky visions are compelling but often clouded by unrealistic visions and ethical challenges of what can and should be built.

In contrast, what I call a mud boot pragmatist is one that focuses on problems and solutions. They hope to reduce the harm that widely used artificial intelligence systems can cause. They focus on fixing biased and flawed systems, such as facial recognition systems that often mistakenly identify people as criminals or violate privacy. Pragmatists hope to reduce the number of fatal medical mistakes AI can make and guide self-driving cars into safe driving vehicles. They also aim to improve AI-based decisions about mortgage loans, college admissions, job recruitment and parole grants.

As a computer science professor with a long history of designing innovative applications that have been widely implemented, I believe those with vision will benefit from the thoughtful information from Mud Boots Realist. Combining the work of both camps is more likely to produce beneficial results that lead to the success of next-generation technologies.

While the futuristic thinking of blue-sky speculators inspires our awe and secures much of the funding, mud-boot thinking reminds us that some AI applications threaten privacy, spread misinformation, and are overtly racial ism, sexism and other ethical issues. There is no denying that machines are part of our future, but will they serve all future humans equally? I think the caution and practicality of the mud boot camp will benefit humanity in the short and long term by ensuring diversity and equality in the development of algorithms that increasingly impact our daily lives. If blue-sky thinkers incorporate the concerns of mud-boot realists into their designs, they can create future technologies that are more likely to advance human values, rights, and dignity.

Blue Sky Thinking began in the early days of the development of artificial intelligence. The literature is dominated by authors who pioneered the technology and foreshadowed its inevitable social transformation. The “fathers” of artificial intelligence are generally considered to be Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy at MIT and Allen Newell and Herb Simon at Carnegie Mellon University. They gathered at conferences, such as the Dartmouth Conference in 1956, that inspired Simon's 1965 prediction that "machines will be able to do any job that humans can do within 20 years."

There are many other contributors to artificial intelligence, including three 2018 Turing Award winners: Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun. Their work on deep learning algorithms is an important contribution, but their continued celebration of the importance and inevitability of AI includes Hinton’s disturbing quote in 2016 that “People should stop training radiologists now. It’s clear that "In five years, deep learning will do a better job than radiologists." A more human-centered view is that deep learning algorithms will become another tool, such as mammograms and blood tests, that radiologists and other clinicians Able to make more accurate diagnoses and provide more appropriate treatment plans.

The theme of widespread unemployment caused by robots replacing humans was legitimized by a 2013 report from the University of Oxford, which claimed that 47% of jobs could be automated. Futurist Martin Ford's 2015 book "The Rise of the Robots" captured this idea, painting a disturbing picture of both low-skill and high-skill jobs becoming so fully automated that So much so that governments will have to provide a universal basic income because there will be few jobs left. The reality is that well-designed automation can increase productivity, thereby lowering prices, increasing demand, and delivering benefits to many people. These changes triggered a parallel phenomenon of vigorous new job creation, which has helped lead to the current high employment levels in the United States and some other countries. Yes, some authors offer cautionary tales and alternative visions, such as MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum in his 1976 book Computer Power and Human Reason,

But these are exceptions.

Mud-boot pragmatists have unleashed a new wave of thoughtful criticism of artificial intelligence. They shift the discussion from fanciful optimism to clearly identifying threats to human dignity, fairness and democracy. Op-Ed articles and a 2016 White House symposium were helpful initiatives, and mathematician Cathy O'Neil's 2016 book Weapons of Mathematical Destruction

broadened the audience. She focuses on how opaque artificial intelligence algorithms can be harmful when applied at scale to decide parole, mortgage, and job applications. O'Neill's powerful examples promote people-centered thinking.

Other books such as Ruha Benjamin's Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code follows

on how to change algorithms to increase economic opportunity and reduce racial bias.

Social psychologist Shoshanna Zuboff's 2019 book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism shows Google's shift from an early motto of "Don't be evil" to one of "obfuscating these processes and their effects." Planned effort. Zuboff’s solution is to call for changes in business models, democratic oversight, and privacy sanctuaries. Scholar Kate Crawford published another devastating mud-boot analysis in her 2021 book Atlas of Artificial Intelligence, which focused on the impact of AI on work, the environment, relationships, and democracy. Extractive and destructive. She refined this in a fascinating lecture at the National Academy of Engineering, describing constructive actions that AI researchers and implementers can take while encouraging government regulation and individual efforts to protect privacy.

Mud boot activists are recognized for their proactive research contributions that lead to ingenious designs that benefit people. In October 2021, Cynthia Rudin received the $1 million Artificial Intelligence for Good Award from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Her work on explainable forms of AI is a response to the dizzying complexity of opaque, black-box algorithms that make it difficult for people to understand why they were denied parole, a mortgage, or a job. Many of the mud boot thinkers are women, but men also speak of the need for humane oversight. Tech pioneer Jaron Lanier also raised concerns

in his Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Immediately

, which identified the dangers of social media and advised users to do better Take control of your use of social media. Legal scholar Frank Pasquale's New Laws of Robotics explains why AI developers should value human expertise, avoid a technological arms race and be responsible for the technology they create. However, ensuring human control through human-centered design will require significant changes in national policies, business practices, research agendas, and educational curricula.

This camp’s diverse workforce — including women, non-binary people, people with disabilities, and people of color — delivers important messages to ensure blue sky dreams are translated into achievable products and services, Thereby benefiting mankind and protecting the environment.

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