Outsmarting AI. Brennan Pursell

Needs Parenting

      All kids need parenting throughout childhood, from start to finish. Yet unlike children, who we can reasonably expect to grow into self-sufficient adults, AI systems remain needy until the end of their software life cycle.

      In the beginning you will have to do everything. Even if the software is readily available, the data has to be prepared, integrated, and validated. The system has to be thoroughly trained and tested over and over again, and then there is the great work of socialization. All coworkers who come into contact with the system will have to understand it, accept it, and work well with it. Once your system is firmly established, however, you will just need to check in and test it periodically to maintain your governance. If the input data changes in some unexpected way, the whole system could go haywire. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an organization for AI to succeed!

      Once fully functional, an AI system can be generally relied upon to complete its carefully scripted tasks, but beware when it comes to decision-making! At what age do you entrust children with authority? Autonomous algorithms left to make decisions can be like little kids with meds and guns.

      Cringe-worthy examples abound. An AI algorithm in Idaho cut Medicare payments to four thousand disabled people, which prompted a major lawsuit. The database it relied on was loaded with gaps and errors. What did the people in charge expect?

      Armed with AI, businesses can make themselves truly destructive if the people give in to natural recklessness. Want a global financial crisis worse than 2008–2009? Just set up AI-powered self-executing credit-default swaps. Want a criminal justice system devoid of reason and humanity? Turn it all over to computers. Want World War III? Turn the US president’s nuclear football into a fully autonomous algorithm.

      Want to see a real, live, AI-powered social media platform make money at any cost, despite all the suicides, extrajudicial killings, child pornography, child brides, and illegal drugs? Take a close look at Facebook, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp.

      Facebook’s AI did not catch the live-streamed massacre in New Zealand on March 15, 2019. It couldn’t. It had either not been trained, or its trained model failed. A Facebook user flagged the gruesome post within minutes, but the company did not react. Only after the police called in, about an hour after the event, did Facebook remove the original video. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit struggled to take down the 1.5 million re-postings of the slaughter.

      People using AI need minds unbent by malice and gross negligence.

      Rule 5: Embrace the Cyborg

      When we say “Embrace the cyborg,” we refer to the institutional and functional level, not the individual. Of course, if you want to implant autonomous control systems into your body, you are free to do so. The biomedical implant industry has been around for quite some time, and recently it has begun to grow in new ways.

      AI can assist life without an implant. Some companies are working on an AI solution that helps the blind to know their surroundings. The blind person carries or wears wide-angle video cameras and other sensors, the system classifies objects captured in the video files and other data, and an automated voice narrates the scene as the person moves through it. It’s wonderful!

      On an institutional level, robots have been assisting people in their work in manufacturing plants and warehouses for years, and their numbers are rapidly increasing because AI makes them much more adaptable to changing circumstances than in the past. Now chatbots are helping as well. AI-powered predictive analytics can help people complete tasks better, more accurately, more effectively, and more efficiently in just about every sector of the economy.

      All throughout organizations, AI can help augment people in their work through image identification, voice-operated controls, automatic data entry and transfer, and other functions. People should not be afraid of these AI augmentation tools, because the software will never be able to replace their critical thinking, sense of judgment, and human awareness and understanding, which in many ways is a business’s most valuable or fundamental asset. People, whether customers or coworkers, are frequently unpredictable, and computers are very bad at processing unforeseen situations.

      Hybrid AI-human systems, combined with expert human policy makers, can deliver real business value for your organization.

      Rule 6: Platform Is the Key

      In a business, AI should be a component of the technology platform. That platform involves both automated and human elements. Humans create, manage, and use tools such as data management systems, processors, sensors, and actuators. Semi- and fully automated systems in the platform need feedback loops to measure the effectiveness, satisfaction, and safety of the human user and those in the environment.

      The technology platform for your organization must be well integrated. You have to be able to aggregate and analyze the data for the feedback loops so that you can assess how well your technology systems are doing what they do. The system applications have to complement each other.

      And you have to maintain cost controls all throughout. If the technology platform costs more money than it’s worth, you have to change it, or you will harm your business. Never adopt a new tool just because it’s cool and shiny. Your AI system has to fit your technology platform, and vice versa.

      Design principles in AI are the same as they are for all good products and businesses. Empower your people, your customers and employees. Humanize your business analysts, engineers, and data scientists. You stay in charge, as you are the responsible one.

      In an autonomous car, you do the driving, whether you have your hands on the wheel—if there is one—or not. You decide to use it. You tell it where to go, and when. The vehicle’s guidance system, if well designed and maintained, enables people to go to their desired destination with less effort and greater safety. It’s just the tool, not the driver.

      Rule 7: Abide by the Law and Act Ethically

      You probably dislike lawyers—almost everyone does—but don’t hate the law. Many people in business view lawyers and legal controls as a hindrance, a drag on their profitability, or, as they say in Silicon Valley, “our creativity,” but the law is your friend. It’s what keeps us free.

      If you don’t believe us, go start a subsidiary in Russia. There you will find corruption everywhere, an unfree judiciary, and crime as the norm. Law enforcement is to be feared and avoided at all costs. Choose your mafia partner wisely.

      Legal control supports business control. Early, sound legal controls help to prevent technology train wrecks, including those caused by AI. And the sad truth is that those wipeouts lead to yet more regulations, many of them difficult and ineffectual. Businesses end up burdening themselves through not following the rules in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle, but you can avoid it with compliance built in from the get-go.

      If you comply with the law as you adopt your AI system, you will have a kind of insurance policy against a wide variety of internal disasters and crippling lawsuits. (You will learn more about this from Joshua in chapters 5 and 6.)

      The afterword in this book is a special chapter on “AI ethics.” Attention to ethical considerations can keep lawyers away and you out of all kinds of trouble. Ethics and the law go hand in hand. These days, public and private institutions have commissions, committees, boards, task forces, point people, and so on, all working on ethics for AI. And they should! While ethics lack the law’s teeth and are not in a position to command compliance, ethical discussions about what is right and wrong, what is appropriate and inappropriate, good and bad, should inform legislators in their work to order the state, society, and economy. Ethics should inform every worker in every organization, as well. You need to consider human rights, privacy, and stakeholder interests.

      Putting people at the forefront of AI adoption, not the algorithms, helps your business succeed. People in business and government need to evolve and adapt their thought to meet the challenge of AI’s data-processing capabilities. Reject the myths, hold fast to the