Tag Archives: Rodney Brooks

How might artificial intelligence affect urban life in 2030? A study

Peering into the future is always a chancy business as anyone who’s seen those film shorts from the 1950’s and 60’s which speculate exuberantly as to what the future will bring knows.

A sober approach (appropriate to our times) has been taken in a study about the impact that artificial intelligence might have by 2030. From a Sept. 1, 2016 Stanford University news release (also on EurekAlert) by Tom Abate (Note: Links have been removed),

A panel of academic and industrial thinkers has looked ahead to 2030 to forecast how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) might affect life in a typical North American city – in areas as diverse as transportation, health care and education ­– and to spur discussion about how to ensure the safe, fair and beneficial development of these rapidly emerging technologies.

Titled “Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030,” this year-long investigation is the first product of the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100), an ongoing project hosted by Stanford to inform societal deliberation and provide guidance on the ethical development of smart software, sensors and machines.

“We believe specialized AI applications will become both increasingly common and more useful by 2030, improving our economy and quality of life,” said Peter Stone, a computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin and chair of the 17-member panel of international experts. “But this technology will also create profound challenges, affecting jobs and incomes and other issues that we should begin addressing now to ensure that the benefits of AI are broadly shared.”

The new report traces its roots to a 2009 study that brought AI scientists together in a process of introspection that became ongoing in 2014, when Eric and Mary Horvitz created the AI100 endowment through Stanford. AI100 formed a standing committee of scientists and charged this body with commissioning periodic reports on different aspects of AI over the ensuing century.

“This process will be a marathon, not a sprint, but today we’ve made a good start,” said Russ Altman, a professor of bioengineering and the Stanford faculty director of AI100. “Stanford is excited to host this process of introspection. This work makes practical contribution to the public debate on the roles and implications of artificial intelligence.”

The AI100 standing committee first met in 2015, led by chairwoman and Harvard computer scientist Barbara Grosz. It sought to convene a panel of scientists with diverse professional and personal backgrounds and enlist their expertise to assess the technological, economic and policy implications of potential AI applications in a societally relevant setting.

“AI technologies can be reliable and broadly beneficial,” Grosz said. “Being transparent about their design and deployment challenges will build trust and avert unjustified fear and suspicion.”

The report investigates eight domains of human activity in which AI technologies are beginning to affect urban life in ways that will become increasingly pervasive and profound by 2030.

The 28,000-word report includes a glossary to help nontechnical readers understand how AI applications such as computer vision might help screen tissue samples for cancers or how natural language processing will allow computerized systems to grasp not simply the literal definitions, but the connotations and intent, behind words.

The report is broken into eight sections focusing on applications of AI. Five examine application arenas such as transportation where there is already buzz about self-driving cars. Three other sections treat technological impacts, like the section on employment and workplace trends which touches on the likelihood of rapid changes in jobs and incomes.

“It is not too soon for social debate on how the fruits of an AI-dominated economy should be shared,” the researchers write in the report, noting also the need for public discourse.

“Currently in the United States, at least sixteen separate agencies govern sectors of the economy related to AI technologies,” the researchers write, highlighting issues raised by AI applications: “Who is responsible when a self-driven car crashes or an intelligent medical device fails? How can AI applications be prevented from [being used for] racial discrimination or financial cheating?”

The eight sections discuss:

Transportation: Autonomous cars, trucks and, possibly, aerial delivery vehicles may alter how we commute, work and shop and create new patterns of life and leisure in cities.

Home/service robots: Like the robotic vacuum cleaners already in some homes, specialized robots will clean and provide security in live/work spaces that will be equipped with sensors and remote controls.

Health care: Devices to monitor personal health and robot-assisted surgery are hints of things to come if AI is developed in ways that gain the trust of doctors, nurses, patients and regulators.

Education: Interactive tutoring systems already help students learn languages, math and other skills. More is possible if technologies like natural language processing platforms develop to augment instruction by humans.

Entertainment: The conjunction of content creation tools, social networks and AI will lead to new ways to gather, organize and deliver media in engaging, personalized and interactive ways.

Low-resource communities: Investments in uplifting technologies like predictive models to prevent lead poisoning or improve food distributions could spread AI benefits to the underserved.

Public safety and security: Cameras, drones and software to analyze crime patterns should use AI in ways that reduce human bias and enhance safety without loss of liberty or dignity.

Employment and workplace: Work should start now on how to help people adapt as the economy undergoes rapid changes as many existing jobs are lost and new ones are created.

“Until now, most of what is known about AI comes from science fiction books and movies,” Stone said. “This study provides a realistic foundation to discuss how AI technologies are likely to affect society.”

Grosz said she hopes the AI 100 report “initiates a century-long conversation about ways AI-enhanced technologies might be shaped to improve life and societies.”

You can find the A100 website here, and the group’s first paper: “Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030” here. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to read the report but I hope to do so soon.

The AI100 website’s About page offered a surprise,

This effort, called the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, or AI100, is the brainchild of computer scientist and Stanford alumnus Eric Horvitz who, among other credits, is a former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

In that capacity Horvitz convened a conference in 2009 at which top researchers considered advances in artificial intelligence and its influences on people and society, a discussion that illuminated the need for continuing study of AI’s long-term implications.

Now, together with Russ Altman, a professor of bioengineering and computer science at Stanford, Horvitz has formed a committee that will select a panel to begin a series of periodic studies on how AI will affect automation, national security, psychology, ethics, law, privacy, democracy and other issues.

“Artificial intelligence is one of the most profound undertakings in science, and one that will affect every aspect of human life,” said Stanford President John Hennessy, who helped initiate the project. “Given’s Stanford’s pioneering role in AI and our interdisciplinary mindset, we feel obliged and qualified to host a conversation about how artificial intelligence will affect our children and our children’s children.”

Five leading academicians with diverse interests will join Horvitz and Altman in launching this effort. They are:

  • Barbara Grosz, the Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at HarvardUniversity and an expert on multi-agent collaborative systems;
  • Deirdre K. Mulligan, a lawyer and a professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, who collaborates with technologists to advance privacy and other democratic values through technical design and policy;

    This effort, called the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, or AI100, is the brainchild of computer scientist and Stanford alumnus Eric Horvitz who, among other credits, is a former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

    In that capacity Horvitz convened a conference in 2009 at which top researchers considered advances in artificial intelligence and its influences on people and society, a discussion that illuminated the need for continuing study of AI’s long-term implications.

    Now, together with Russ Altman, a professor of bioengineering and computer science at Stanford, Horvitz has formed a committee that will select a panel to begin a series of periodic studies on how AI will affect automation, national security, psychology, ethics, law, privacy, democracy and other issues.

    “Artificial intelligence is one of the most profound undertakings in science, and one that will affect every aspect of human life,” said Stanford President John Hennessy, who helped initiate the project. “Given’s Stanford’s pioneering role in AI and our interdisciplinary mindset, we feel obliged and qualified to host a conversation about how artificial intelligence will affect our children and our children’s children.”

    Five leading academicians with diverse interests will join Horvitz and Altman in launching this effort. They are:

    • Barbara Grosz, the Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at HarvardUniversity and an expert on multi-agent collaborative systems;
    • Deirdre K. Mulligan, a lawyer and a professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, who collaborates with technologists to advance privacy and other democratic values through technical design and policy;
    • Yoav Shoham, a professor of computer science at Stanford, who seeks to incorporate common sense into AI;
    • Tom Mitchell, the E. Fredkin University Professor and chair of the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University, whose studies include how computers might learn to read the Web;
    • and Alan Mackworth, a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia [emphases mine] and the Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence, who built the world’s first soccer-playing robot.

    I wasn’t expecting to see a Canadian listed as a member of the AI100 standing committee and then I got another surprise (from the AI100 People webpage),

    Study Panels

    Study Panels are planned to convene every 5 years to examine some aspect of AI and its influences on society and the world. The first study panel was convened in late 2015 to study the likely impacts of AI on urban life by the year 2030, with a focus on typical North American cities.

    2015 Study Panel Members

    • Peter Stone, UT Austin, Chair
    • Rodney Brooks, Rethink Robotics
    • Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT
    • Ryan Calo, University of Washington
    • Oren Etzioni, Allen Institute for AI
    • Greg Hager, Johns Hopkins University
    • Julia Hirschberg, Columbia University
    • Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan, IIT Bombay
    • Ece Kamar, Microsoft
    • Sarit Kraus, Bar Ilan University
    • Kevin Leyton-Brown, [emphasis mine] UBC [University of British Columbia]
    • David Parkes, Harvard
    • Bill Press, UT Austin
    • AnnaLee (Anno) Saxenian, Berkeley
    • Julie Shah, MIT
    • Milind Tambe, USC
    • Astro Teller, Google[X]
  • [emphases mine] and the Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence, who built the world’s first soccer-playing robot.

I wasn’t expecting to see a Canadian listed as a member of the AI100 standing committee and then I got another surprise (from the AI100 People webpage),

Study Panels

Study Panels are planned to convene every 5 years to examine some aspect of AI and its influences on society and the world. The first study panel was convened in late 2015 to study the likely impacts of AI on urban life by the year 2030, with a focus on typical North American cities.

2015 Study Panel Members

  • Peter Stone, UT Austin, Chair
  • Rodney Brooks, Rethink Robotics
  • Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT
  • Ryan Calo, University of Washington
  • Oren Etzioni, Allen Institute for AI
  • Greg Hager, Johns Hopkins University
  • Julia Hirschberg, Columbia University
  • Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan, IIT Bombay
  • Ece Kamar, Microsoft
  • Sarit Kraus, Bar Ilan University
  • Kevin Leyton-Brown, [emphasis mine] UBC [University of British Columbia]
  • David Parkes, Harvard
  • Bill Press, UT Austin
  • AnnaLee (Anno) Saxenian, Berkeley
  • Julie Shah, MIT
  • Milind Tambe, USC
  • Astro Teller, Google[X]

I see they have representation from Israel, India, and the private sector as well. Refreshingly, there’s more than one woman on the standing committee and in this first study group. It’s good to see these efforts at inclusiveness and I’m particularly delighted with the inclusion of an organization from Asia. All too often inclusiveness means Europe, especially the UK. So, it’s good (and I think important) to see a different range of representation.

As for the content of report, should anyone have opinions about it, please do let me know your thoughts in the blog comments.

Should we love our robots or are robots going be smarter than we are? TED’s 2014 All Stars Session 5: The Future is Ours (maybe)

Rodney Brooks seems to be a man who loves robots, from his TED biography,

Rodney Brooks builds robots based on biological principles of movement and reasoning. The goal: a robot who can figure things out.

MIT professor Rodney Brooks studies and engineers robot intelligence, looking for the holy grail of robotics: the AGI, or artificial general intelligence. For decades, we’ve been building robots to do highly specific tasks — welding, riveting, delivering interoffice mail — but what we all want, really, is a robot that can figure things out on its own, the way we humans do.

Brooks makes a plea for easy-to-use (programme) robots and mentions his Baxter robot as an example that should be improved; Brooks issues a challenge to make robots better. (Baxter was used as the base for EDI introduced earlier in TED’s 2014 Session 8 this morning (March 20, 2014).

By contrast, Sir Martin Rees, astrophysicist has some concerns about robots and artificial intelligence as per my Nov. 26, 2012 posting about his (and others’) proposal to create the Cambridge Project for Existential Risk. From his TED biography,

Martin Rees, one of the world’s most eminent astronomers, is a professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge and the UK’s Astronomer Royal. He is one of our key thinkers on the future of humanity in the cosmos.

Sir Martin Rees has issued a clarion call for humanity. His 2004 book, ominously titled Our Final Hour, catalogues the threats facing the human race in a 21st century dominated by unprecedented and accelerating scientific change. He calls on scientists and nonscientists alike to take steps that will ensure our survival as a species.

Rees states that the worst threats to planetary survival come from humans not, as it did in the past, nature. While science offers great possibilities, it has an equally dark side. Rees suggests robots going rogue, activists hijacking synthetic biology to winnow out the population, and more. He suggests that there is a 50% chance that we could suffer a devastating setback. Rees then mentions the proposed Cambridge Centre for Existential Risk and the importance of studying the possibility of human extinction and ways to mitigate risk.

Steven Johnson, writer, was introduced next (from his TED biography),

Steven Berlin Johnson examines the intersection of science, technology and personal experience.

A dynamic writer and speaker, Johnson crafts captivating theories that draw on a dizzying array of disciplines, without ever leaving his audience behind. Author Kurt Anderson described Johnson’s book Emergence as “thoughtful and lucid and charming and staggeringly smart.” The same could be said for Johnson himself. His big-brained, multi-disciplinary theories make him one of his generation’s more intriguing thinkers. His books take the reader on a journey — following the twists and turns his own mind makes as he connects seemingly disparate ideas: ants and cities, interface design and Victorian novels.

He will be hosting a new PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) series, ‘How We Got to Now’ (mentioned in Hector Tobar’s Aug. 7, 2013 article about the PBS series in the Los Angeles Times) and this talk sounds like it might be a preview of sorts. Johnson plays a recording made 20 years before Alexander Graham Bell ‘first’ recorded sound. The story he shares is about an inventor who didn’t think to include a playback feature for his recordings. He simply didn’t think about it as he was interested in doing something else (I can’t quite remember what that was now) and, consequently, his invention and work got lost for decades. Despite that, it forms part of the sound recording story. Thankfully, modern sound recording engineers have developed a technique which allows us to hear those ‘lost’ sounds today.

O’Reilly Media’s Solid Conference in San Francisco, California from May 21-22, 2014

Given that O’Reilly Media is best known  (by me, anyway) for its publishing/writing conferences, the notice about their Solid Conference abut the ‘internet of things’, etc. was unexpected’. From the O’Reilly Media Feb. 26, 2014 news release,

The “punctuated equilibrium” theory asserts that rapid bursts of change upend the leisurely pace of species stasis, creating events that result in new species and leave few fossils behind.

Technology has reached the cusp of such an event. Call it the Internet of Things, the Age of Intelligent Devices, the Industrial Internet, the Programmable World, a neologism of your own choosing—it amounts to the same thing—the intersection of software, the Internet, big data, and physical objects. Ultimately, our entire environment will be connected and intelligent.

To mark this seachange moment, O’Reilly Media introduces Solid Conference, scheduled for May 21-22 at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

“As big data moves from the Web into the physical world, it’s more important than ever that people who deal with software and people who deal with hardware and machinery understand each other,” says Jon Bruner, who chairs Solid with MIT Media Lab’s Joi Ito. “Solid is about creating an interdisciplinary mix of the sort that everyone—designers, engineers, investors, researchers, entrepreneurs—will need to tap in the coming year.”

Chairs Ito and Bruner have drafted a stellar lineup of innovators, funders, and visionaries for the conference, including:

  • Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at Google[x]
  • Rodney Brooks, CTO and Chairman of Rethink Robotics
  • Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media
  • Andra Keay, Managing Director at Silicon Valley Robotics
  • Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, Inc.
  • Moe Tanabian, Director of Mobile Technology at Samsung Mobile
  • Aurora Thornhill, Head of the Project Specialist Team at Kickstarter
  • Ayah Bdeir, Founder and CEO of littleBits
  • Matthew Gardiner, Artist and Senior Lead Researcher at Ars Electronica Futurelab
  • Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms
  • Brian Gerkey, CEO of Open Source Robotics Foundation
  • Renee DiResta, Principal at OATV
  • Timothy Prestero, Founder and CEO of Design that Matters
  • Janos Veres, Manager of the Printed Electronics Team at PARC

Solid is more show than tell. “This isn’t about sitting in a conference room and getting your brain freeze-dried by PowerPoint presentations,” Bruner says. “You’ll see demonstrations of real networked products and participate in intensive colloquies with those leading us into this new era. People who come to Solid won’t just be attending a conference. They’ll be walking through a portal to a new world.”

Early registration discounts apply until March 20.

As expected, this is not a cheap conference; an early bird all access pass for the two-day conference is $1095.00 USD.

Here’s my recounting of the March 12, 2014 ‘Solid’ web presentation by Tim O’Reilly & Jim Stogdill.

11:01 am O’Reilly: Longstanding interest in ‘maker’ movement since early 2000’s .

11:03 am O’Reilly: everything is connected ‘internet of things’, big data, robotics, maker movement, etc.

11:05 Stogdill: not sure name Solid is bit enough to describe this upcoming conference

11:05 Stogdill: says hardware is malleable (?) … more accessible, i.e., parts are easier to access and it’s easier to customize

11:08 O’Reilly: moves to subject of design … massive dislocation due to computers, e.g. graphic design … we need process designers (?) .. collisions between specialties

11:09 O’Reilly: collective intelligence and man/machine symbiosis important ideas for our age

11:11 O’Reilly: how do we change the interaction with a thermostat … remove need for human input

11:14 Stodgill: business models not taking advantage of open source options

11:15 O’Reilly: different options for future such as Google/Apple/… Internet of things (proprietary model) or a freely interoperable system of things

11:17 Stodgill: shifting to robotics … integrate virtual/digital/macro worlds in their work and thinking

11:18 O’Reilly: our notion of robots is of autonomous (intelligent) devices but we are surrounded by robots, e.g., washing machine that aren’t autonomous

11:20 Stogdill: shifting to manufacturing … talking about frictionless manufacturing  … new relationship for Silicon Valley and China

11:23 O’Reilly: it doesn’t have to be China  .. all the relationships are changing

11:24 O’Reilly: replacing matter with mathematics

11:25 O’Reilly: how you remake an industry, e.g., Square which started as a hardware company which turns a phone into a point-of-sale system

11:29 Stogdill: change topic to surveillance and privacy .. digital thermostats recently put in Stogdill’s home  .. he had them taken them offline while he was on vacation as he didn’t want the info. on the internet while he was gone (?)

11:32 O’Reilly: not good to be afraid of the future .. Stogdill agrees

11:33 O’Reilly: solid is already big in agriculture .. sensors, robotics, etc.

11:42 O’Reilly: answer to my question (Will UK PM David Cameron’s latest ‘internet of things’ funding announcement have an impact on gov’t funding in US?) .. there’s already lots of government funding here [in US] e.g. Google purchases of DARPA-funded companies … didn’t see much impact other than it’s good when governments invest … [see March 10, 2014 article by Jessica Bland for the Guardian about Cameron’s announcement]

11:45 off my Twitter feed, a tweet that seems synchronous in a Carl Jung kind of way:

claireoconnell @claireoconnell

High-tech maker space TechShop planned for Ireland at DCU Innovation Campus #TechShopsiliconrepublic.com/innovation/ite…via @siliconrepublic et moi

11:46 O’Reilly: sees big ‘Solid’ innovation in industrial space rather than consumer space

11:48 Stogdill: love the idea of generativity, i.e., innovation from unexpected quarters

11:49 Question: What is the stuff that matters

11:49 Stogdill: health care

11:50 O’Reilly: yes, health care and the environment .. e.g., keeping track of elderly parent and talks about mother-in-law, many years ago, having a stroke and laying on floor for days because family was not in town

11:51: question: How do we manage hacking?

11:52: O’Reilly: you have to be considering security but thoughtfully … not trying to anticipate everything that can go wrong and creating rules to avoid the problem .. but putting some thought into what might go wrong and responding appropriately when something does happen …

11:54 Stogdill: there’s an asymmetry problem when things go digital .. e.g. if you want to throw a rock throw his [Stogdill’s] windows you have to be there physically … digitally, anyone from anywhere has access

11:55 Question: What do we need to know to get started (paraphrase)

11:55 O’Reilly: there are some great programmes at university but right now you can get at least as much by playing around

11:57 Question: Are you optimistic?

11:57 O’Reilly: Yes, I am optimistic… and we do have possibilities both positive and negative … most concerned about anti-science movement … worse case scenario: anti-science and anti-technology backlash hits just when water, climate change, and other issues become pressing …

11:59 Stogdill: James Watt thought they were building a steam engine but they also created modernism and many other isms

12 pm O’Reilly: Lots to be optimistic about and lots to care about

I don’t know if they’ll be making this video available but you can try looking here.

ETA March 17, 2014: You can find the video for the O’Reilly/Stogdill on the Solid YouTube playlist or you can go directly to the video here.