Claire A. Nelson

FUTURES BAROMETER

AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) VS HI (HUMAN INTELLIGENCE): WHAT’S THE SCORE?

By Claire A. Nelson

FUTURISTS elicit the future from the landscape of the past and present by following trends and watching out for grey rhinos, blue whales and black swans that seem to defy all trends and appear for better out worse, whether we failed to spot them or simply ignored that we spotted them. For the most part trend identifiers have been defined under five domains: Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental and Political. This means, that many things often remain out of sight and thus out of mind and are absent from our ‘futurescapes’. In this regard, there is sometimes a more robust attempt to make sense of the world in which we are embedded.

Thus, we find some futures planners, who include the domain ‘demographic’ to make plain that not all humans are cut from the same cloth and ensure that the advance of society affects each part of the quilt differently. In other instances, some futures planners recognize that rule of law is so vital to our lived reality that legal demands its own criteria. While there are others who recognize the need to highlight human civilization and so further isolate the issues of culture and ethics in defining the quality of human experience. But there is still one domain that has seemed to elude our notice. It might be in large part because it is an emergent process of our being. We might describe it as the domain that considers our very humanness -- in its totality.

The body, mind and soul or spirit of that which constitute Human Intelligence or HI. As futurists we have for the most part treated HI as fixed and immutable, but genetic studies have demonstrated that humans are still evolving. But what to call this domain? Humanness doesn’t quite cut it. Could we say ‘Humanitical’? Or ‘Humanistic’? Or ‘Anthropological’? What to call this new trend to watch. For if AI is going to replace the chimpanzee as our next-of-kin, we really should start watching ourselves evolve. Meanwhile what is your take on AI versus HI futures? How do you think AI will shape our evolution? Your feedback is required.

PLEASE RANK THESE STATEMENTS AS: -1= DON’T AGREE; 0= NEUTRAL; 1 = AGREE.

1“As more and more artificial intelligence is entering into the world, more and more emotional intelligence must enter into leadership.” Amit Ray, Famous AI Scientist, Author of Compassionate Artificial Intelligence -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

2“Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, and we will have multiplied the intelligence – the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization – a billion-fold.” Ray Kurzweil, American inventor and futurist -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

3“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race… It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.” Stephen Hawking, BBC -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

4“AI doesn’t have to be evil to destroy humanity – if AI has a goal and humanity just happens to come in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course without even thinking about it, no hard feelings.” Elon Musk, Technology Entrepreneur, and Investor -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

5“If we, do it right, we might be able to evolve a form of work that taps into our uniquely human capabilities and restores our humanity. The ultimate paradox is that this technology may become a powerful catalyst that we need to reclaim our humanity.” John Hagel -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

6“The coming era of Artificial Intelligence will not be the era of war, but be the era of deep compassion, nonviolence, and love.” Amit Ray, Pioneer of Compassionate AI Movement -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree 7“There’s a real danger of systematizing the discrimination we have in society through AI technologies. What I think we need to do — as we’re moving into this world full of invisible algorithms everywhere — is that we have to be very explicit, or have a disclaimer, about what our error rates are like.” Timnit Gebru, research scientist -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

8“I think what makes AI different from other technologies is that it’s going to bring humans and machines closer together. AI is sometimes incorrectly framed as machines replacing humans. It’s not about machines replacing humans, but machines augmenting humans. Humans and machines have different relative strengths and weaknesses, and it’s about the combination of these two that will allow human intents and business process to scale 10x, 100x, and beyond that in the coming years.” Robin Bordoli, former chief executive officer -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

9“I think one of the most important things that government and industry can do is think beyond bottom line reporting, and more about the AI, we deploy itself. This is a more influential technology than we have ever seen. [We need to think about] not just the conversational stuff we’re seeing today, but the future AI that’s going to be making complex decisions on our behalf. What is the impact AI is having on human lives? That’s where we need to go.” Liesl Yearsley, chief executive officer -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

10“By allowing algorithms to control a great deal of what we see and do online, such designers have allowed technology to become a kind of ‘digital Frankenstein,’ steering billions of people’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.” Tristan Harris, co-founder and executive director -1= Don’t Agree; 0= Neutral; 1 = Agree

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