Page 136 - EW May 2023_Neat

Books

They concoct fake eye- Oxford and professor of
witness accounts of the computer science at Ox- THE DIGITAL APE: HOW TO
congenital anti-Hindu ani- ford University and Roger LIVE (IN PEACE) WITH SMART
mosity of Muslims. Even Hampson, an academic MACHINES
educated Hindu youth are and public servant — do Nigel Shadbolt & Roger
Hampson
often susceptible to such well to put these fears to
manufactured narratives. rest in this very readable MANJUL PUBLISHING HOUSE
The Anatomy of Hate book. Rs.354 Pages 90
is a must read for citizens “Machines at this stage
committed to constitu- simply have nothing to
tional values. It analyses compare…,” they write. authors remind us, are (as We are reassuringly
the continuous strategy “They have no selves. Nor mentioned before) deeply told that AI
of sangh parivar outfits do we yet have, except rooted in whether humans actually is poor at
to recruit foot soldiers, for isolated and narrow will be able to fully under- “commonsense
shows how they transform capabilities, a sufficiently stand what makes up our reasoning”, and while
individuals into hate-filled good picture of what is “consciousness”. “Sen- they are superhuman
mobs, which become the happening inside our tience is one end product in completing
tools in implementing heads to begin to model it of hundreds of millions certain tasks, they
the Hindu majoritarian with machines, let alone to of years of descent with are “overall bad at
agenda of the RSS and ask a machine to imitate modification from prior generalising”
sangh parivar. or do it.” living things. We have no
ANIL THAKORE In fact, we are quite re- certainty about how it is
assuringly told that while constituted, but it seems with their significance in
AI researchers intended to at the least to include both times to come.
New smart build systems which would perception and activity,” literally say they are
In fact, they quite
be able to solve abstract
they write.
machines age problems in computa- the larger existential more afraid of what harm
The book also probes
tional reasoning for maths
“natural stupidity, rather
and science, they are concerns about AI. For than artificial intelli-
t the heart of The actually poor at “common instance, while taking the gence,” might wreak in the
Digital Ape: How sense reasoning”. So while example of the 2014 sci-fi near future with all the
Ato Live (in Peace) they are superhuman in movie Ex Machina, the cutting-edge technology at
with Smart Machines lies completing certain tasks, authors examine whether hand. According to them,
the fundamental question they are overall “bad at an android of the future we need to instead worry
that has been haunting generalising”. will be able to fool us into about how companies
human beings for the last Perhaps the first in- thinking it is a human. Can like “Google, Facebook,
few decades — is Artificial stance when AI fears really it trick us into believing and others today use very
Intelligence (AI) on the hit us was in the 1990s that it is conscious? And advanced neural net-
cusp of ‘waking up’, with when IBM’s Deep Blue su- the fear is, if machines can work techniques to train
the ruinous consequences percomputer programme imitate how we recognize machines to do, at large
of consigning humans to beat then world chess people or objects, will they scale, tasks young children
the trash can? champion Garry Kasparov simply be able to take this can do on a small scale in
If you look at the in a six-game play-off. function over from us? the comfort of their own
staggering pace of tech Deep Blue was capable of What should come as head”.
advancements that have evaluating 100-200 mil- some relief to readers is In fact, far from worry-
taken place in the past lion chess positions per that the authors are more ing about being subjugated
50 years or so, there second, and its win had a convinced that humans by robots, the authors
is enough evidence to chilling effect on Kasp- are not particularly inter- look at the type of ethical
suggest that the possi- arov. Later in an article, he ested in creating robots challenges enhancements
bilities of AI are no longer described the experience that look or act like us embedded in our bodies
restricted to works of sci-fi as sensing a “new kind of (except for some sectors to boost our senses will
— there are good reasons intelligence” on the other like elderly care or some soon pose. Just as profes-
to base our fears on. The side of the table. kind of fantasy play). But sional athletes are tested
authors — Nigel Shadbolt, These questions about that doesn’t mean we can and banned from ‘doping’
principal of Jesus College, sentience in robots, the sit back and not engage before sporting competi-

136 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2023