How Artificial Intelligence is reshaping our world
By: George Krasadakis
Tags: Tech, Artificial Intelligence, News, Data Science, Technology

4. The concerns

There are serious concerns and unanswered questions regarding the social, political, and ethical implications of the massive adoption of AI.

For instance, the ‘intelligent automation’ which can be achieved at scale by using Artificial Intelligence, is expected to transform the way we work and the skills in demand. Certain roles will become obsolete and some professions will eventually disappear.

Lethal Autonomous Weapons

The concept of an autonomous machine is impressive. Think of an autonomous car, which can capture its environment and dynamics and make real-time decisions, to achieve a predefined objective — move from point A to B — under certain constraints.

In a military context though, this autonomy in decision-making is frightening: the so-called Lethal Autonomous Weapons, refer to futuristic robotic systems, which could hit targets without human intervention or approval.

But, who is controlling the design, operation, and target assignment to such ‘killer robots’? How such a robot will be able to understand the nuances regarding a complex situation and make life-threatening decisions? And many more.

The risk of bias and the need for transparency

AI systems learn by analyzing huge volumes of data and they keep adapting through continuous modeling of interaction data and user-feedback.

How can we ensure that the initial training of the AI algorithms is unbiased? What if a company introduces bias via the training data set (intentionally or not) in favor of particular classes of customers or users?

For instance, what if the algorithm responsible for identifying talented candidates from a pool of CVs, has inherited known or unknown biases, leading, for example, to diversity-related issues?

We must ensure that such systems are transparent regarding their decision-making processes. This is key to allow better handling of edge cases while supporting the general understanding and acceptance by the wider audience and the society.

Access to data, knowledge, technology.

In our interconnected world, a relatively small number of companies are collecting vast amounts of data. Access to this data would allow an accurate replay of our day-to-day life in terms of activities, interactions, and explicitly stated or implicitly identified interests. Somebody with access to this data would ‘know’ our mobility history, our online search and social media activity, chats, emails, and other online micro-behaviors and interactions.

An AI system will be able to ‘understand’ any online user — in terms of interests, daily habits and future needs; it could derive impressive estimations and predictions, ranging from purchasing interests to user’s emotional state.

If you think of this AI output at scale — analyzing data at the population level — these predictions and insights could describe the synthesis, state, and dynamics of an entire population.

This would obviously provide extreme power to those controlling such systems over this wealth of data. Just recall the Cambridge Analytica case. The data for a given individual user might be of low value, but when analyzed at scale — for a sufficiently large group of users, with advanced analytical and inference models — it could drive massive socio-political influence.

The right to privacy

When you consider the possibility of unauthorized access to one’s online history (or other) data, the right to privacy is obviously at risk. But even in the case of an offline user — somebody who has deliberately decided to stay ‘disconnected’ — the right to privacy is still under threat.

Imagine a disconnected user (no smartphones or other devices aware of the user’s location) moving through the ‘smart city’ of the future. A walk through a couple of major streets would be enough for the network of security cameras to capture user’s trails and possibly identify them via reliable facial recognition, against a centralized data store. There are obvious, big questions on who has access to this information and under what conditions.

Unauthorized access and control

Security and access control is a critical aspect. If somebody compromises a smart system (for instance, an autonomous car) the consequences can be disastrous. Security of intelligent, connected systems and machines against unauthorized access is a top priority.

Technological unemployment

This is defined as the unemployment ‘explained’ by the application of new technologies — in the AI era it refers to the jobs replaced by intelligent automation.

In the years to come, we will witness significant changes in the workforce and the markets. Roles and jobs will become obsolete, industries will be radically transformed, employment models and relationships will be redefined.

For instance, tasks and activities related to customer care/call centers, document management, content moderation are increasingly based on technology and intelligent systems.

The same is true for roles related to operation and support of production lines and factories. Humans are being replaced by smart robots that can safely navigate the space, find and move objects (such as products, parts, or tools) and perform complex assembling operations.

But AI proves to be very effective in handling even more complex activities — those requiring the processing of multiple signals, data streams, and accumulated knowledge in real-time. A characteristic case is the autonomous vehicles that can capture and ‘understand’ their environment and its dynamics — they can ‘see’, decide and act in real-time. Professional drivers (taxi, trucks, and more) will see the demand for their skill-set dropping rapidly.

Ethics, social responsibility, and difficult decisions

AI enables optimal decisions in a real-time mode. Although in most cases the optimal decision is objectively determined and generally accepted, there are several examples raising ethical and moral issues.

For instance, an autonomous car that knows it is about to hit a pedestrian must decide if it will try to avoid the sensitive pedestrian via a risky (to its passengers) maneuver. And this needs to be decided in milliseconds.

The logic behind these critical decisions must be predefined, well-understood, and accepted. At the same time, the detailed history of activity and decisions of the autonomous car must be accessible and available for analysis — under certain data protection rules.

Disproportional power and control over data

Technology companies are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, both at the scientific/engineering and also at the commercial and product development level.

These corporations have an unmatched advantage when compared to any ambitious competitor out there. The massive datasets describing a wide range of human activity (searches, communication, content creation, social interaction, and more), in many different formats (text, images, audio, video).

In an effort to retain their leading market positions, tech corporations tend to acquire those promising tech/AI startups disrupting the market. This could lead to super-powers, with a unique setup of AI technologies over massive amounts of accumulated user and machine data.