Page 58 - Monocle Quarterly Journal Vol 3 Issue 2 Spring

MONOCLE QUARTERLY JOURNAL | DEEP LEARNING
others required to construct the full context of the image. It perceived the picture in an entirely different way than a human would.
And this is where the crux of our discomfort with AI lies. In any society, there is a degree of trust that people will act in an altruistic manner towards one another. If someone actively violates this trust, they are considered a criminal and they are separated from society. If someone is unable to demonstrate an understanding of causality, intent and meaning in their actions, we consider them to be insane, and they too are separated from normal society. In either case, we would not trust them to make decisions as important as who receives a loan for a house or what medical treatment will save a life, and we would not let them fly a plane or drive a military tank. AI is increasingly playing a central role in the daily decisions that influence our lives, yet it has not fully demonstrated that it will adhere to the social contract that governs human decision-making. It still needs to earn our trust.
As a result of AI’s “black box problem,” the idea that it should become a legal right to be able to interrogate AI about how it reaches its decisions is gaining momentum globally and being incorporated in laws such as the US’s Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and France’s Digital Republic Act. The central problem that these regulations are trying to solve is one of trust, but the source of this distrust
The central problem that these regulations are trying to solve is one of trust, but the source of this
distrust does not, in fact, reside within AI itself.
does not, in fact, reside within AI itself. AI’s continued development should always be based on the assumption that it is nothing more than an algorithmic extension of the data that we feed it. What this means is that all the biases inherent in our data will always result in those same biases emerging in the AI’s behaviour.
Artificial intelligence does not instinctively possess a guiding set of principles or social mores. It does not pass judgment on the results it produces – it simply processes the data it is given. Much like the group of boys who lose all sense of right and wrong whilst trapped on a deserted island in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954), without adult supervision and the morals of a social contract, AI has the potential to spiral out of control. And much like these adolescents – who end up murdering their own friends in an almost trance-like mob mentality – artificial intelligence requires the structures of human reasoning and moral decision-making to ensure that the biases that exist in the data do not wholly corrupt the system, resulting in potentially horrific outcomes.
3.3 ARTIFICIAL NIGHTMARES
Large corporations worldwide, as well as govern- ment, have all embarked on AI research in an increasing effort to be ever more competitive. Some of these undertakings have borne fruit, with successful real-world applications in many different fields. Unfortunately, however, there have also been several embarrassing and slightly concerning failures along the way. What is interesting about many of these failures is that there is
something of a common theme – machines do not have moral dilemmas, but instead do exactly what they are programmed to do, even if their actions are unexpected and ethically unacceptable.
Perhaps the most publicised artificial intelligence faux pas of recent times was Tay.ai, Microsoft’s attempt to create an autonomous, self-learning Twitter chatbot that was meant to have friendly conversations with the
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