It, which must be obeyed!

Coded Bias (Netflix Documentary, 2020)
Director: Shalini Kantayya

If passing the Turing test marks the acceptance of an automaton as a legitimate thinking body, we must also have a test to ascertain whether we have enough intelligence to be identified as a full-bodied homosapien at all. We think we are wise, but we repeatedly fall prey to sweet talks and indulgences in a single minute's pleasure, only to brood it all the morning after. We give away all our personal and intimate information willingly, only to realise much later that it has been used against us by the powerful. In the name of the country and doing good deeds, we surrender, only to be led to the slaughter.

Even when it comes to sending someone to the guillotine, there is discrimination. This, an MIT computer scientist, Joey Buolamwini, found it the hard way. When working on a facial identification device, she increasingly realised that machines repeatedly falter in identifying black and brown faces. When she wore a white mask over her face, she did not encounter such problems. With this startling discovery, together with other data scientists, mathematicians, human rights lawyers and other watchdog groups, she went on a crusade of exposing discrimination by algorithms. 

A recent fiasco involving the UK A-level examination is testimony to this. After being cooped at home with frequent disruption in their studies, the Education Department decided to use AI to churn out students' final results based on specific preset parameters. That opened the floodgates of discontent amongst public school students and their parents from the not-so-affluent side of town and the minority groups. It also showed private school students performing significantly better. The algorithm-based results proved to be biased against students from poorer backgrounds.

Replica of Maschinenmensh 
(Human Machine) @ Maria
in Metropolis (1929)

Technology evolves. We cannot do anything about it. The problem is that these new technologies - facial recognition information, algorithms, smart devices, social platforms - all collect data, sometimes clandestinely and sometimes hidden in jargon, to sell it to the most significant bidder.

The big conglomerates which can afford to pay for this enormous amount of data can streamline their business strategies to meet their self-serving ambitions. Algorithms use the information from data to stereotype females, non-whites and the marginalised to give a bad deal in resumês, job applications, eligibility for loans, and suspects in criminal activities. Men and fair-skinned individuals always fared favourably via algorithm selection.

The problem with the whole thing is that the person at the short end of the stick has no means to appeal his rejection. His plea for reconsideration is only met with chatbots or individuals who are powerless in changing anything. The algorithm's choices are worshipped as if they are God-sent decrees cast on stones. Are these unquestionable orders made by 'She-who-must-be-obeyed' the fictitious Mrs Hilda Rumpole in John Mortimer's 'Rumpole on the Bailey'? We have not learned from 'Frankenstein' and 'Maschinenmensh' (Metropolis 1929) that man-made creations invariably go berserk or against their creators.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Towards the Happy Moron and Human 2.0

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power: 5 Battlegrounds.

Author: Rajiv Malhotra

Look at God and His invention from a philosophical angle. God created all beings, including Man. From a simpleminded simpleton, he evolved to develop a brain complex enough to tap the secrets of the Universe. His intelligence found new frontiers and was able to create and modify new lifeforms. Pretty soon, Man thinks he is better than God. He sometimes thinks God/Universe does not exist. Man is the centre of the Universe, and everything revolves around him.

In self-discovery and expansion of human intellectual capacities, he discovered artificial intelligence (AI). From a tool to aid Man in his day-to-day mundane and repetitive jobs - help him around the house and then help in factories, AI slowly began, through Man's astute observation, that many of our actions and problem can be broken down into algorithms. 

Over time, these algorithms were created for AI to be creative and responsive independently. The point of no return must have been reached when the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a game of chess. Many modern AI programmes are said to have come close to passing the Turing test, the instance when machine response is indistinguishable from a human's. 

Creative artistic compositions and even emotive responses have been broken down into algorithms. So, for example, AI can compose music pieces and paintings.

Will there come a time when consciousness be broken down into algorithms? What happens after that mirrors the many scenarios of innumerable dystopian sci-fi movies. AI does not need its inventors and can work independently and against its creators. Man will be redundant, an annoyance or irrelevant enough to be disposed of. 

That is the course of things. AI is here to stay. The author looks at five areas (which he refers to as battlegrounds) that may need intervention by the powers that be. The mentioned areas are economics, geopolitics, loss of agency or psychological control of the public, metaphysics of consciousness and human capital.

There is a palpable fear that the rapid replacement of jobs by AI. Even though historically, industrialisation did cut jobs, this time around, the loss of employment could be too fast and too widespread. The disparity between the haves and have-nots will be more prominent as the middle-class shrinks.

Geopolitical dealings will hit a more extensive frontier. If previously, the loss of human lives was the impediment for nations to go to war, with AI and fighter machines, the only thing that would prevent them is the ability to finance wars. Countries with more enormous AI-based military-industrial complexes will likely rule the world.

As most of us are aware now, the internet and social media have turned us into automatons. Our personal information is public domain. We had willingly signed off our right to privacy. Like dogs in dog shows, we are easy pacified with serotonin-inducing likes and approvals in our comfortable echo chambers. Virtual reality and augmented reality devices, wearables and implants will put us in a constant state of psychedelic euphoria. Our social behaviour is analysed and gamified to influence us to dance to the tunes of the webmasters.

Augmented Reality glasses

It seems that everything can be coded. Scientists have algorithms for everything, including possibly our consciousness. The average human being would be a moron as all thinking processes can be outsourced to AIs, which would be essentially Human 2.0.

The world will be divided into two categories - the 1% of the elite God-like mega-rich larger-than-life entrepreneurs and the rest being the masses who have to be servants and consumers to the institutions of the 1%.  

With the future so dim, we probably would not need shades. Perhaps just VR, AR glasses or Google goggles.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.