Five myths about artificial intelligence

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: April 29, 2018 at 5:59:15 PM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Five myths about artificial intelligence
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Five myths about artificial intelligence
> By Bill LaPlante and Katharyn White
> Apr 27 2018
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-artificial-intelligence/2018/04/27/76c35408-4959-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html>
>
> Artificial intelligence is the future. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are all making big bets on AI. (Amazon 
> owner Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) Congress has held hearings and even formed a bipartisan Artificial 
> Intelligence Caucus. From health care to transportation to national security, AI has the potential to improve lives. 
> But it comes with fears about economic disruption and a brewing “AI arms race .” Like any transformational change, 
> it’s complicated. Perhaps the biggest AI myth is that we can be confident about its future effects. Here are five 
> others.
>
> Myth No. 1
>
> You can differentiate between a machine and a human.
>
> It is certainly true that conversations with AI chatbots are often unintentionally funny. And no one who interacts 
> with Alexa or Siri or Cortana is going to say they pass the Turing Test. “Their responses, often cobbled together out 
> of fragments of stored conversations, make sense at a local level but lack long-term coherence,” Brian Christian 
> wrote in a 2012 Smithsonian Magazine article. Garbled sentences and ridiculous responses often make clear just how 
> poorly machines mimic human capabilities — or even, sometimes, how they process information. “Machines don’t have 
> understanding,” Garry Kasparov told TechCrunch last year. “They don’t recognize strategical patterns. Machines don’t 
> have purpose.” 
>
> But AI is already writing financial news, sports stories and weather reports, and readers aren’t noticing. From the 
> Associated Press to The Washington Post, it’s becoming increasingly common. AI is also producing “deep fake” videos — 
> from invented speeches by politicians to pornography featuring celebrities’ computer-generated faces — that many 
> people think are real. These rapid advances present significant concerns, shaking the public’s confidence in what 
> they see and hear. As a 2017 Harvard study warned, “The existence of widespread AI forgery capabilities will erode 
> social trust, as previously reliable evidence becomes highly uncertain.” 
>
> Myth No. 2
>
> The U.S. is falling behind in the race for AI breakthroughs.
>
> China’s national strategy to lead the world in artificial intelligence — which calls for “the training and gathering 
> of high-end AI talent” — has elicited fear and loathing in the United States. “China’s prowess in the field will help 
> fortify its position as the dominant economic power in the world,” Will Knight observed in MIT Technology review in 
> 2017. Writing in the Hill, Tom Daschle and David Bier warned in January that “the U.S. government is behind the 
> curve.” 
>
> While there is clearly reason for concern about the United States’ standing, China’s strategic document admits that 
> “there is still a gap between China’s overall level of development of AI relative to that of developed countries.” 
> According to Jeffrey Ding , a University of Oxford researcher, “China trails the U.S. in every driver except for 
> access to data.” The United States also has more AI experts, who publish more Association for the Advancement of 
> Artificial Intelligence papers on the topic, and far more commercial investments in the field. 
>
> That said, given China’s dedication to pursuing AI, the United States will need to take a concerted societal approach 
> if it wants to maintain its dominant position. Such efforts are already underway: In March, the New York Times 
> reported that the Pentagon is attempting to work with Silicon Valley companies to push projects ahead.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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