Fall 2021
Dear Friends and Family,
This segment is another look at the benefits society will derive from artificial intelligence, this rendition time limited to 2041 with an 80% probability of occurrence. All the excerpts come from Kai-Fu Lee’s recently published book AI: 2041. It follows his earlier book AI Superpowers whose excerpts were utilized in segments 7, 8, 9 and 12. The AI benefits include:
My Major Takeaway:
Healthcare, education, and entertainment will be substantial beneficiaries of AI by 2041. Additionally, most routine physical and cognitive work will be eliminated, freeing up substantial individual time. How to utilize that human time will be a huge problem and challenge.
Next: Segment 16 is the last segment in the series and will focus on a 5th potential scenario for an AI society.
Happy Learning,
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
This segment is another look at the benefits society will derive from artificial intelligence, this rendition time limited to 2041 with an 80% probability of occurrence. All the excerpts come from Kai-Fu Lee’s recently published book AI: 2041. It follows his earlier book AI Superpowers whose excerpts were utilized in segments 7, 8, 9 and 12. The AI benefits include:
- Far better financial results for internet and financial companies.
- Identity verification using biometrics.
- AI companions for children to assist their learning.
- Educational teacher assistants to free up teachers from the routine work.
- Improved healthcare treatment efficacy, doctor evaluation, anomaly detection, and disease prevention.
- Tailored individualized medical treatment.
- Robotic assisted surgery.
- Service robots for hotels, offices, information outlets, homes, and food preparation.
- Immersive stimulation entertainment.
- Self-driving cars (includes the five-step process to achieve fully autonomous cars by 2041).
- Autonomous weapons.
My Major Takeaway:
Healthcare, education, and entertainment will be substantial beneficiaries of AI by 2041. Additionally, most routine physical and cognitive work will be eliminated, freeing up substantial individual time. How to utilize that human time will be a huge problem and challenge.
Next: Segment 16 is the last segment in the series and will focus on a 5th potential scenario for an AI society.
Happy Learning,
Harley
BIG TECH AND AI – SEGMENT 15
A RELOOK AT AI BENEFITS -- EXCERPTS
All excerpts in this segment are from AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan (2021)
INTRODUCTION: In just the past five years, the technology has surpassed humans in speech and object recognition, served up “digital humans” with uncanny realism in both appearance and speech. AI is outperforming judges in fair and consistent sentencing, and radiologists in diagnosing lung cancer, as well as powering drones that will change the future of delivery, agriculture, and warfare. Finally, AI is enabling autonomous vehicles that drive more safely on the highway than humans.
What’s next?
I’ve observed that people often rely on three sources to learn about AI: science fiction, news, and influential people. In science fiction books and TV shows, people see depictions of robots that want to control or outsmart humans, and superintelligence turned evil. Media reports tend to focus on negative, outlying examples rather than quotidian incremental advances: automobile vehicles killing pedestrians, technology companies using AI to influence elections, and people using AI to disseminate misinformation and deepfakes. Relying on “thought leaders’ ought to be the best option, but unfortunately most who claim the title are experts in business, physics, or politics, not AI technology. Their predictions often lack scientific rigor. What makes things worse is that journalists tend to quote these leaders out of context to attract eyeballs. It is no wonder that the general view about AI – informed by half-truths has turned cautious and even negative. AI, like most technologies, is inherently neither good nor evil. And like most technologies, AI will eventually produce more positive than negative impacts on our society. I believe there are many exciting applications in which AI can profoundly enhance our society.
So, I decided to write another book about AI, to imagine the future of the world and our society in 20 years or 2041. The book is based on realistic AI, or technologies that either already exist or can be reasonably expected to mature in the next 20 years – technologies with a greater than 80% likelihood of coming to pass in that timeframe.
APPLYING DEEP LEARNING TO INTERNET AND FINANCE: Given the strengths and weaknesses of deep learning, it is no wonder that the first beneficiaries of this form of artificial intelligences are the biggest internet companies. Beyond internet companies, the next industry that is low-hanging fruit for AI is finance, including banks and insurance companies. The AI-based fintech companies are poised to overtake brick-and-mortar financial corporations because they deliver better financial results (lower default or fraud rates), instantaneous transactions (using AI and the app) and lower costs (no humans in the loop).
AI SECURITY: Human Verification Using Biometrics: Biometrics is the field of study of using a person’s physical characteristics to verify his or her identity. In real-life applications, biometrics are usually used in real time with special sensors rather than trying to glean features from just a video recording. For example, human irises and fingerprints are unique for each person, and ideal for identity verifications. By 2041 AI will take over this “routine” task of recognizing and verifying people.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT: AI Companions: What’s the chance of humans being able to form relationships with sophisticated AI companions within 20 years? For children, there is no doubt it can happen. Children already have a universal tendency to anthropomorphize toys, pets, and even imaginary friends. This is a phenomenal opportunity to design AI companions that can help children learn in a personalized way, and practice creativity, communications, and compassion – critical skills for the era of AI. AI companions that can speak, hear, and understand like humans could make a dramatic difference in a child’s development.
AI in Education: A classroom today still resembles a classroom 100 years ago. We know the flaws of today’s education – it is a one-size-fits-all, yet we know each student is different, and it is expensive and cannot be scaled to poorer countries and regions with a reasonable student-to-teacher ratio. AI can play a major part in fixing these flaws and transform education.
Teaching consists of lectures, exercises, examinations, and tutoring. All four components require a lot of the teacher’s time. However, many of the teacher’s tasks can be automated with sufficiently advanced AI. For example, AI can correct students’ errors, answer common questions, assign homework and tests, and grade them. AI will give a different homework assignment to each student based on his or her pace, ensuring a given student achieves a full mastery of a topic before moving to the next.
Beyond teaching, other educational tasks will be delegated to AI, such a planning, assessment, and even lectures. With ever-more data, AI will make learning much more effective, engaging, and fun. In this vision of an AI-infused school, there will still be plenty for human teachers to do so. Teachers will play two important roles: First, they will be human mentors and connectors for the students. Human teachers will be the driving force behind stimulating the student’s critical thinking, creativity, empathy, and teamwork. And the teacher will be a clarifier when a student is confused, a confronter when the student is complacent, and a comforter when the student is frustrated. In other words, teachers can focus less on the rote aspects of imparting knowledge and more on building emotional intelligence, creativity, character, values, and resilience in students. The second role that teachers will play is to direct and program the AI teacher and companion in ways that will best address the students’ needs. They will do this based on their experience, wisdom, and in-depth understanding of the student’s potential and dreams.
HEALTHCARE: When we look back in 2041, we will likely see healthcare as the industry most transformed by AI. “Modern medicine” in the 20th century benefited from unprecedented scientific breakthroughs, resulting in improvement in every aspect of healthcare. As a result, human life expectancy increased from 31 years in 1900 to 72 years in 2017. Today, I believe we are at the cusp of another revolution for healthcare, in which digitization will enable the application of all data technologies from computing, mobile, robotics, data science and AI.
First, existing healthcare databases and processes will be digitized, including patient records, drug efficacy, medical instruments, wearable devices, clinical trials, quality-of-care surveillance, infectious-disease-spread data, as well as supplies of drugs and vaccines. Digitization will create massive databases that will enable new AI opportunities such as improved treatment efficacy, doctor evaluation, medical teaching, anomaly detections, and disease prevention.
Precision Medicine and Diagnostic AI: “Precision medicine” is a term that refers to tailoring an individualized treatment for a given patient, rather than producing blockbuster, one-size-fits-all-type-drugs. As more digital information for each patient becomes available, including medical history, family history, and DNA sequencing, precision medicine will become increasingly feasible. AI is ideally suited to deliver this kind of individualized optimization. Even complex surgeries, which rely on sophisticated judgments and nimble movement will be increasingly automated over time. Robotic-assisted surgeries have increased from 1.8% of all surgeries in 2012 to 14.1% in 2018.
At the same time, semi-autonomous surgical tasks are becoming within reach for robots under doctor supervision, including colonoscopy, suturing, intestinal anastomosis, and teeth implants. Extrapolating from this trend, we can expect all surgeries will have some robotic participation in 20 years, with fully autonomous robotic surgeries increasingly accounting for the majority of procedures. Finally, the advent of medical nanobots will offer numerous capabilities that surpass human surgeons. These miniature surgeons will be able to repair damaged cells, fight cancer, correct genetic deficiencies and replace DNA molecules to eradicate disease.
Wearable devices, smart rooms with sensors for temperature, smart toilets, smart beds, smart toothbrushes, smart pillows, and all kinds of invisible gadgets will regularly sample vital signs and other data and detect possible health crises. Aggregated data from these devices will accurately identify if you have a serious condition, whether it is a fever, a stroke, arrhythmia, apnea, asphyxiation, or just injuries from a fall. AI will use big data and individualized data to deliver “precision longevity” by preparing personalized nutrition, supplements, exercise, sleep, medication, and therapy for each person. With all the advances in medicine, biology, and AI, some experts think we might live 20 years long than humans’ current life expectancy.
SERVICES: Fully autonomous door-to-door delivery vans are being tested in Silicon Valley. Some restaurants now use robotic waiters to reduce human contact. Tomorrow they may be a normal part of table service for many restaurants. Robots can be used in hotels (to clean and deliver laundry, suitcases, and room service), offices (as receptionists, guards, and cleaning staff), stores (to clean floors and organize shelves), and information outlets (to answer questions and give directions at airports, hotels, and offices). In-home robots can wash dishes (not like a dishwasher, but as an autonomous machine in which you pile all the greasy pots, utensils, and plates without removing leftover food, with all of them emerging cleaned, disinfected, dried, and organized). Robots can cook – not like a humanoid chef, but like an automated food processor connected to a self-cooking pot. Ingredients go in and the cooked dish comes out.
ENTERTAINMENT AND TRAVEL: Immersive simulation technologies known as XR “is like dreaming with you eyes open.” Says Dr. Brennan Spiegel. These technologies generate an intense experience known as “presence.” Virtual scenes, objects, and characters are lifelike and magical. The technology takes you into an immersive experience that feels like a parallel reality. In the next 20 years, XR will revolutionize entertainment, training, retail, healthcare, sports and travel.
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES (AV): At its most basic, an AV, or self-driving car, is a computer-controlled vehicle that drives itself. Autonomous vehicles will mature one step at a time, from assisting the human driver to eventually no longer requiring a human driver. These steps are classified by the Society of Automotive Engineers as “Level 0” to “Level 5” as follows:
You can think of L0 to L3 as extra options in a new car, which a human continues to drive with AI tools. They will have only a limited impact on the future of transportation. Starting with L4, the car starts to feel like it has a mind of its own, and this will lead to a revolutionary impact on our society. An L4 car could be an autonomous bus that circles a fixed route, and an L5 care could be a robo-taxi hailed by an Uber-like app. The way L5 technologies will mature is through L0-L4 technologies applied in increasingly more complex applications over the coming years, in concert with collecting data and iteratively improving technologies. When L5 AV roams the road, it will bring about a revolution in transportation – on demand cars that take you to your destination with lower cost, greater convenience, and improved safety.
AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS: Autonomous weaponry is the third revolution in warfare, following gunpowder and nuclear arms. Its evolution from land mines to guided missiles was just a prelude to AI-enabled true autonomy – the full engagement of killing: searching for, deciding to engage and obliterating another human life, completely without human involvement. Autonomous weapons like all technology, will be used for good and evil. Autonomous weapons could save human soldiers’ lives in an era in which wars are fought by machines. However, the threat of mass or targeted slaughter of humans by machines overwhelms any benefits. Autonomous weapons may inspire a new arms race that could spin out of control. They could also be used by terrorists to assassinate state leaders or anyone. There are benefits from autonomous weapons – they can be used defensively against assassins and perpetrators, but the liabilities far outweigh these benefits. We need to engage the experts and the decision-makers to weigh different solutions to prevent the proliferation of autonomous weapons.
QUANTUM COMPUTING (QC): Quantum computing, which I believe has an 80% chance of working by 2041, may have a greater impact on humanity than AI. It is truly general-purpose technology (like the steam engine, electricity, computing and AI) that can help us dramatically improve science and understand nature. Quantum computers will be a great accelerator of AI and has the potential to revolutionize machine learning and solve problems that were once viewed as impossible. Most experts believe it will take 10 to 30 years to get useful QC. If successful, a QC will be able to model many complex natural phenomena that classical computers cannot fathom, even beyond drug discovery: for example, figuring how to counteract climate change, predicting pandemic risks, inventing new materials, exploring space, modeling our brains, and understanding quantum physics. This could potentially revolutionize machine learning and solve problems that were viewed as impossible before.
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
A RELOOK AT AI BENEFITS -- EXCERPTS
All excerpts in this segment are from AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan (2021)
INTRODUCTION: In just the past five years, the technology has surpassed humans in speech and object recognition, served up “digital humans” with uncanny realism in both appearance and speech. AI is outperforming judges in fair and consistent sentencing, and radiologists in diagnosing lung cancer, as well as powering drones that will change the future of delivery, agriculture, and warfare. Finally, AI is enabling autonomous vehicles that drive more safely on the highway than humans.
What’s next?
I’ve observed that people often rely on three sources to learn about AI: science fiction, news, and influential people. In science fiction books and TV shows, people see depictions of robots that want to control or outsmart humans, and superintelligence turned evil. Media reports tend to focus on negative, outlying examples rather than quotidian incremental advances: automobile vehicles killing pedestrians, technology companies using AI to influence elections, and people using AI to disseminate misinformation and deepfakes. Relying on “thought leaders’ ought to be the best option, but unfortunately most who claim the title are experts in business, physics, or politics, not AI technology. Their predictions often lack scientific rigor. What makes things worse is that journalists tend to quote these leaders out of context to attract eyeballs. It is no wonder that the general view about AI – informed by half-truths has turned cautious and even negative. AI, like most technologies, is inherently neither good nor evil. And like most technologies, AI will eventually produce more positive than negative impacts on our society. I believe there are many exciting applications in which AI can profoundly enhance our society.
So, I decided to write another book about AI, to imagine the future of the world and our society in 20 years or 2041. The book is based on realistic AI, or technologies that either already exist or can be reasonably expected to mature in the next 20 years – technologies with a greater than 80% likelihood of coming to pass in that timeframe.
APPLYING DEEP LEARNING TO INTERNET AND FINANCE: Given the strengths and weaknesses of deep learning, it is no wonder that the first beneficiaries of this form of artificial intelligences are the biggest internet companies. Beyond internet companies, the next industry that is low-hanging fruit for AI is finance, including banks and insurance companies. The AI-based fintech companies are poised to overtake brick-and-mortar financial corporations because they deliver better financial results (lower default or fraud rates), instantaneous transactions (using AI and the app) and lower costs (no humans in the loop).
AI SECURITY: Human Verification Using Biometrics: Biometrics is the field of study of using a person’s physical characteristics to verify his or her identity. In real-life applications, biometrics are usually used in real time with special sensors rather than trying to glean features from just a video recording. For example, human irises and fingerprints are unique for each person, and ideal for identity verifications. By 2041 AI will take over this “routine” task of recognizing and verifying people.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT: AI Companions: What’s the chance of humans being able to form relationships with sophisticated AI companions within 20 years? For children, there is no doubt it can happen. Children already have a universal tendency to anthropomorphize toys, pets, and even imaginary friends. This is a phenomenal opportunity to design AI companions that can help children learn in a personalized way, and practice creativity, communications, and compassion – critical skills for the era of AI. AI companions that can speak, hear, and understand like humans could make a dramatic difference in a child’s development.
AI in Education: A classroom today still resembles a classroom 100 years ago. We know the flaws of today’s education – it is a one-size-fits-all, yet we know each student is different, and it is expensive and cannot be scaled to poorer countries and regions with a reasonable student-to-teacher ratio. AI can play a major part in fixing these flaws and transform education.
Teaching consists of lectures, exercises, examinations, and tutoring. All four components require a lot of the teacher’s time. However, many of the teacher’s tasks can be automated with sufficiently advanced AI. For example, AI can correct students’ errors, answer common questions, assign homework and tests, and grade them. AI will give a different homework assignment to each student based on his or her pace, ensuring a given student achieves a full mastery of a topic before moving to the next.
Beyond teaching, other educational tasks will be delegated to AI, such a planning, assessment, and even lectures. With ever-more data, AI will make learning much more effective, engaging, and fun. In this vision of an AI-infused school, there will still be plenty for human teachers to do so. Teachers will play two important roles: First, they will be human mentors and connectors for the students. Human teachers will be the driving force behind stimulating the student’s critical thinking, creativity, empathy, and teamwork. And the teacher will be a clarifier when a student is confused, a confronter when the student is complacent, and a comforter when the student is frustrated. In other words, teachers can focus less on the rote aspects of imparting knowledge and more on building emotional intelligence, creativity, character, values, and resilience in students. The second role that teachers will play is to direct and program the AI teacher and companion in ways that will best address the students’ needs. They will do this based on their experience, wisdom, and in-depth understanding of the student’s potential and dreams.
HEALTHCARE: When we look back in 2041, we will likely see healthcare as the industry most transformed by AI. “Modern medicine” in the 20th century benefited from unprecedented scientific breakthroughs, resulting in improvement in every aspect of healthcare. As a result, human life expectancy increased from 31 years in 1900 to 72 years in 2017. Today, I believe we are at the cusp of another revolution for healthcare, in which digitization will enable the application of all data technologies from computing, mobile, robotics, data science and AI.
First, existing healthcare databases and processes will be digitized, including patient records, drug efficacy, medical instruments, wearable devices, clinical trials, quality-of-care surveillance, infectious-disease-spread data, as well as supplies of drugs and vaccines. Digitization will create massive databases that will enable new AI opportunities such as improved treatment efficacy, doctor evaluation, medical teaching, anomaly detections, and disease prevention.
Precision Medicine and Diagnostic AI: “Precision medicine” is a term that refers to tailoring an individualized treatment for a given patient, rather than producing blockbuster, one-size-fits-all-type-drugs. As more digital information for each patient becomes available, including medical history, family history, and DNA sequencing, precision medicine will become increasingly feasible. AI is ideally suited to deliver this kind of individualized optimization. Even complex surgeries, which rely on sophisticated judgments and nimble movement will be increasingly automated over time. Robotic-assisted surgeries have increased from 1.8% of all surgeries in 2012 to 14.1% in 2018.
At the same time, semi-autonomous surgical tasks are becoming within reach for robots under doctor supervision, including colonoscopy, suturing, intestinal anastomosis, and teeth implants. Extrapolating from this trend, we can expect all surgeries will have some robotic participation in 20 years, with fully autonomous robotic surgeries increasingly accounting for the majority of procedures. Finally, the advent of medical nanobots will offer numerous capabilities that surpass human surgeons. These miniature surgeons will be able to repair damaged cells, fight cancer, correct genetic deficiencies and replace DNA molecules to eradicate disease.
Wearable devices, smart rooms with sensors for temperature, smart toilets, smart beds, smart toothbrushes, smart pillows, and all kinds of invisible gadgets will regularly sample vital signs and other data and detect possible health crises. Aggregated data from these devices will accurately identify if you have a serious condition, whether it is a fever, a stroke, arrhythmia, apnea, asphyxiation, or just injuries from a fall. AI will use big data and individualized data to deliver “precision longevity” by preparing personalized nutrition, supplements, exercise, sleep, medication, and therapy for each person. With all the advances in medicine, biology, and AI, some experts think we might live 20 years long than humans’ current life expectancy.
SERVICES: Fully autonomous door-to-door delivery vans are being tested in Silicon Valley. Some restaurants now use robotic waiters to reduce human contact. Tomorrow they may be a normal part of table service for many restaurants. Robots can be used in hotels (to clean and deliver laundry, suitcases, and room service), offices (as receptionists, guards, and cleaning staff), stores (to clean floors and organize shelves), and information outlets (to answer questions and give directions at airports, hotels, and offices). In-home robots can wash dishes (not like a dishwasher, but as an autonomous machine in which you pile all the greasy pots, utensils, and plates without removing leftover food, with all of them emerging cleaned, disinfected, dried, and organized). Robots can cook – not like a humanoid chef, but like an automated food processor connected to a self-cooking pot. Ingredients go in and the cooked dish comes out.
ENTERTAINMENT AND TRAVEL: Immersive simulation technologies known as XR “is like dreaming with you eyes open.” Says Dr. Brennan Spiegel. These technologies generate an intense experience known as “presence.” Virtual scenes, objects, and characters are lifelike and magical. The technology takes you into an immersive experience that feels like a parallel reality. In the next 20 years, XR will revolutionize entertainment, training, retail, healthcare, sports and travel.
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES (AV): At its most basic, an AV, or self-driving car, is a computer-controlled vehicle that drives itself. Autonomous vehicles will mature one step at a time, from assisting the human driver to eventually no longer requiring a human driver. These steps are classified by the Society of Automotive Engineers as “Level 0” to “Level 5” as follows:
- Lo (no automation) – The human does all the driving, while AI watches the road and alerts the driver when deemed appropriate.
- L1 (“hands on”) – AI can do one specific task only if the human driver turns it on, such as steering.
- L2 (“hands off”) – AI can do multiple tasks (such as steering, braking, and acceleration) but still expects the human to supervise and take over as needed).
- L3 (“eyes off”) – AI can take over driving but will need the human to be ready to take over upon request by AI.
- L4 (“mind off”) – AI can take over driving completely for an entire trip, but only on roads and in environments that AI understands, like city streets and highways that have been mapped in high-definition.
- L5 (“steering wheel optional”) – No human is required at all, for any roads and environments.
You can think of L0 to L3 as extra options in a new car, which a human continues to drive with AI tools. They will have only a limited impact on the future of transportation. Starting with L4, the car starts to feel like it has a mind of its own, and this will lead to a revolutionary impact on our society. An L4 car could be an autonomous bus that circles a fixed route, and an L5 care could be a robo-taxi hailed by an Uber-like app. The way L5 technologies will mature is through L0-L4 technologies applied in increasingly more complex applications over the coming years, in concert with collecting data and iteratively improving technologies. When L5 AV roams the road, it will bring about a revolution in transportation – on demand cars that take you to your destination with lower cost, greater convenience, and improved safety.
AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS: Autonomous weaponry is the third revolution in warfare, following gunpowder and nuclear arms. Its evolution from land mines to guided missiles was just a prelude to AI-enabled true autonomy – the full engagement of killing: searching for, deciding to engage and obliterating another human life, completely without human involvement. Autonomous weapons like all technology, will be used for good and evil. Autonomous weapons could save human soldiers’ lives in an era in which wars are fought by machines. However, the threat of mass or targeted slaughter of humans by machines overwhelms any benefits. Autonomous weapons may inspire a new arms race that could spin out of control. They could also be used by terrorists to assassinate state leaders or anyone. There are benefits from autonomous weapons – they can be used defensively against assassins and perpetrators, but the liabilities far outweigh these benefits. We need to engage the experts and the decision-makers to weigh different solutions to prevent the proliferation of autonomous weapons.
QUANTUM COMPUTING (QC): Quantum computing, which I believe has an 80% chance of working by 2041, may have a greater impact on humanity than AI. It is truly general-purpose technology (like the steam engine, electricity, computing and AI) that can help us dramatically improve science and understand nature. Quantum computers will be a great accelerator of AI and has the potential to revolutionize machine learning and solve problems that were once viewed as impossible. Most experts believe it will take 10 to 30 years to get useful QC. If successful, a QC will be able to model many complex natural phenomena that classical computers cannot fathom, even beyond drug discovery: for example, figuring how to counteract climate change, predicting pandemic risks, inventing new materials, exploring space, modeling our brains, and understanding quantum physics. This could potentially revolutionize machine learning and solve problems that were viewed as impossible before.
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
| 15l_big_tech_15l_benefits_relook_--segment_15.pdf |