Why We Must Embed Humanitarian Values In Artificial Intelligence Before It's Too Late

• Updated on: 2019-05-24
• Read original article here

“Our brain was developed in one environment but now we are trying to navigate a new world with the same brain.” ">

There are two ways to look at the future: one is at us as prisoners of a technological revolution that we can no longer control, with climate change out of control, and the other as us the architects of a better future, imprinting humanitarian values into technology before it becomes more clever than us. 

“We have had dramatic technological change before, but this is the first time that within a single generation we have gone through so many fundamental changes,” argues Tomas Björkman, Founder of the Ekskäret Foundation. “Our brain was developed in one environment but now we are trying to navigate a new world with the same brain.”

Bjorkman believes that our old world view, so helpful since the enlightenment, limits us as we live through this era of turbulence sparked by the adoption of the internet and other new technologies, emerging ultimately into a new paradigm.

But as he argued at the Katapult Future Fest in Oslo last week, we cannotpossibly know today what kind of world we will be living in by 50 years' time. "This transition can’t be planned but we can facilitate it by developing our transformative skills.” 

Skills such as openness, perceptivity and creativity will become more important, he predicts, as well as what he describes as being able ‘to connecting the dots in deeper, more complex patterns.” 

Are we too late? Do robots already have the skills that mean they could take over from us and move into a darker world over which we have no control? The late physicist Professor Stephen Hawking warned that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race, a sentiment echoed by Tesla founder Elon Musk with his warnings about the dangers of an immortal dictator if humans don't merge with AI.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a profound impact on our lives and society already, argued Flynn Coleman, the international human rights attorney, professor and author of the forthcoming book A Human Algorithm, How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are. 

The era of our intellectual superiority is ending and we have to plan for this shift,” she says. “We are currently more focused on building the technology and predicting its outcomes than with its values."

Whereas technology has traditionally helped to lead to human transformation, with the development of the printing press and industrial revolution, this is different because we simply don’t have the time to implement the resulting changes. Coleman says that because the machines being designed now have the ability to reinvent and design themselves, they could become better at innovating than us.  

At some point, arguably, we lose the opportunities to make those changes ourselves. This is scary stuff.

We haven't yet designed the tools to save us from the worst of ourselves. Is it possible we underestimate the machines’ capacity to learn?

In 2010, more people killed themselves than died in wars and natural disasters, warned Elsa Sze, the founder of Agora, an AI based startup, and a  former McKinsey consultant and advisor to President Obama's election campaign.

Yet there is hope, and this comes from harnessing that technology. “Imagine if we go in through technology to solve the messiness of being human?” asked Sze. “What if our schools are about allowing us to be kind… to connect to the environment? What if we were to measure our wellbeing as a nation, instead of GDP?”

Why not? After all, as Sze said, "We put a man on the moon. No-one thought it could be done. We can do whatever we turn our minds to."

In Katapult’s third year, this three-day festival - which focuses on exponential technologies, impact investing and the future society - is just getting better and better, and that wasn't just because once again the festival was accompanied by three days of sunshine.

A cosy, friendly festival, held at the SALT quayside around a traditional Norwegian long barn and a cluster of cafes, with a last night sauna party, I doubt there was much more than 1000 of us. Katapult and Nordic Impact Co-founder Tharald Nustaed intends to keep it that way. “We don’t want huge events,” he says, “it’s about connecting.”

There are two ways to look at the future: one is at us as prisoners of a technological revolution that we can no longer control, with climate change out of control, and the other as us the architects of a better future, imprinting humanitarian values into technology before it becomes more clever than us. 

“We have had dramatic technological change before, but this is the first time that within a single generation we have gone through so many fundamental changes,” argues Tomas Björkman, Founder of the Ekskäret Foundation. “Our brain was developed in one environment but now we are trying to navigate a new world with the same brain.”

Bjorkman believes that our old world view, so helpful since the enlightenment, limits us as we live through this era of turbulence sparked by the adoption of the internet and other new technologies, emerging ultimately into a new paradigm.

But as he argued at the Katapult Future Fest in Oslo last week, we cannotpossibly know today what kind of world we will be living in by 50 years' time. "This transition can’t be planned but we can facilitate it by developing our transformative skills.” 

Skills such as openness, perceptivity and creativity will become more important, he predicts, as well as what he describes as being able ‘to connecting the dots in deeper, more complex patterns.” 

Are we too late? Do robots already have the skills that mean they could take over from us and move into a darker world over which we have no control? The late physicist Professor Stephen Hawking warned that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race, a sentiment echoed by Tesla founder Elon Musk with his warnings about the dangers of an immortal dictator if humans don't merge with AI.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a profound impact on our lives and society already, argued Flynn Coleman, the international human rights attorney, professor and author of the forthcoming book A Human Algorithm, How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are. 

The era of our intellectual superiority is ending and we have to plan for this shift,” she says. “We are currently more focused on building the technology and predicting its outcomes than with its values."

Whereas technology has traditionally helped to lead to human transformation, with the development of the printing press and industrial revolution, this is different because we simply don’t have the time to implement the resulting changes. Coleman says that because the machines being designed now have the ability to reinvent and design themselves, they could become better at innovating than us.  

At some point, arguably, we lose the opportunities to make those changes ourselves. This is scary stuff.

We haven't yet designed the tools to save us from the worst of ourselves. Is it possible we underestimate the machines’ capacity to learn?

In 2010, more people killed themselves than died in wars and natural disasters, warned Elsa Sze, the founder of Agora, an AI based startup, and a  former McKinsey consultant and advisor to President Obama's election campaign.

Yet there is hope, and this comes from harnessing that technology. “Imagine if we go in through technology to solve the messiness of being human?” asked Sze. “What if our schools are about allowing us to be kind… to connect to the environment? What if we were to measure our wellbeing as a nation, instead of GDP?”

Why not? After all, as Sze said, "We put a man on the moon. No-one thought it could be done. We can do whatever we turn our minds to."

In Katapult’s third year, this three-day festival - which focuses on exponential technologies, impact investing and the future society - is just getting better and better, and that wasn't just because once again the festival was accompanied by three days of sunshine.

A cosy, friendly festival, held at the SALT quayside around a traditional Norwegian long barn and a cluster of cafes, with a last night sauna party, I doubt there was much more than 1000 of us. Katapult and Nordic Impact Co-founder Tharald Nustaed intends to keep it that way. “We don’t want huge events,” he says, “it’s about connecting.”