Writing 08: AI and Automation

I think that the artificial intelligence will be an important and dominant factor in human society in the near future. The popular AI programs of today (AlphaGo, DeepBlue, Watson, etc.) show great promise as building blocks for more general AI systems that could rival human intelligence. The main two problems of the current contenders in AI are high specialization and low adaptability. These systems usually excel at a single, specific task; but lack broader intelligence needed to perform outside of their task area. To me, these systems seem to correspond to specialized neurons or subregions of the brain. For that reason, I think they work well as "cells" or building blocks toward more general systems. Abstraction of these units in a similar way to ensemble methods could provide more room for generalization. Furthermore, I think a larger focus on AI programs using other AI as tools and for evaluation metrics is on the near horizon.

Despite all of this progress in AI, I still question if artificial intelligence will be able to mimic human intelligence. For me, human intelligence isn't just about logic and reasoning skills; I think other elements of the human condition such as passions, suffering, and moral values (such as altruism and sympathy) all play significant roles in abstract thought and intelligence. In particular, I think that human intelligence is so powerful based on our ability to connect disparate, seemingly unrelated experiences to the task at hand.

Because of this, I think that the Turing test offers an incomplete view of intelligence. While the AI program may be able to produce the "right" responses to sound human enough under the test conditions, there is no guarantee that the machine is processing the information in a human-like way (Chinese Room problem). Thus, I think more efforts should be made to understanding the structures of the human brain and artificial neural networks. Currently, both artificial and natural intelligence systems are largely black boxes: while they may produce desirable results, we have very little knowledge about the meaning of the connections producing the outputs. Without this understanding, I think that we will not be able to create a machine that is truly equivalent to a mind.

With this in mind, I think it's fair to say that automation and AI offer great promise as an aid to humans rather than as a replacement. We've already seen how much computers have been able to greatly increase the productivity of a single person and improve quality of living. I think AI could also offer much of the same promise. Of course, as seen with the information revolution, automation can greatly affect the role of humans in the workplace. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing though. I feel there are great areas for growth in uniquely human areas such as care, education, and design. I don't think that we should arbitrarily throttle AI advancement or automation in order to maintain blue collar jobs; rather, we should focus more on making sure that those affected have support systems and training programs for finding work in an industry sector with more need for humans. This will require both government funding/regulation and industry guidelines for managing a changing workforce in the face of technological advancement.

Finally, I believe that the decreasing human need in the workforce due to automation pushes us to reevaluate the economic model of our country. With more and more of corporate productivity being supplied by automation, I think we need to consider some sort of Universal Basic Income in order to redistribute these productivity gains back to the populace.

Writing 07: Censorship

I believe that the Internet has become an essential public service that everyone has a right to access. In modern society, access to the Internet is becoming just as important as access to water, electricity, roadways, and other utilities. Sectors as far reaching as news, job searching, communication, and banking have all moved the majority of their activities onto the Internet. Just imagine how difficult modern life (and work especially) would be without email or web searching. Nowadays, if you don't have an email address, it's almost the same as not having a phone number or physical address. It's easy to forget how reliant we have become on Internet connectivity, but try to spend one month away from the Internet while working or studying at university and you'll quickly realize how necessary it is even for basic tasks.

Since I view the Internet as a utility, I believe that there should be as little restriction of content as possible online. As an analogy, it would be absurd (and unlawful) for a city to restrict roadway access to only people who support the current governor. In the same way, it would be similarly outrageous for companies like Google and Facebook to moderate content based on its political or social stances. Free speech only has power when it protects unpopular speech. That said, I still think that there are exceptions. For example, content moderation is acceptable and should be applied in the case of explicitly illegal content such as terrorism, human trafficking, and child pornography.

Moderation is ethical in the case of non-centralized, small, topic-based communities such as forums and other discussion groups (such as Facebook Pages and Reddit subreddits). In this case, these communities are analogous to private property where the landlords have the ability to set the rules of engagement. Moderation, though, should always be done by a human hand. When we entrust algorithms to moderation, we lose accountability, flexibility, and understanding. A recent example of this is with the many recent controversies with Youtube and its content management algorithms. These algorithms are notorious for shutting down channels automatically via copyright strikes despite fair use, while the creators have few avenues of recourse to combat these claims. Another brazen example of the ineptness of Youtube's algorithms has been in the recent Google account bans doled out to some users for spamming emojis during a Youtube livestream. This account ban affected all Google services and prevented people from accessing the Gmail and Drive services.

I am very concerned about online censorship, especially due to the actions of China with respect to the Great Firewall and the Great Cannon. As our society becomes more and more reliant on Internet as a means of communication and information exchange, nefarious governments and trolls gain more power over large parts of the general populace and can almost shape reality to their whims. There is no easy solution to this, but I believe the large amount of centralization in the modern web allows for these entities to easily gain control over the vast majority of web traffic. By pressuring just Google and Facebook, China can control the news stories viewed by the majority of Internet users. Unfortunately, decentralization is not enough. The Great Firewall isn't just a software issue. By controlling all Internet access points into the country, China can easily filter the packets flowing into and out of the country. There's no practical way for citizens to lay down their own Internet infrastructure to combat this. However, there is some promise in satellite Internet and projects like Starlink that may offer alternative Internet infrastructure that can circumvent Internet censorship through centralized pipelines.

Writing 06: Corporate Conscience

If we are to treat corporations as people with respect to rights, we should also treat them like people in respect to responsibilities. These responsibilities extend to moral and ethical considerations that must be respected when dealing with immoral entities or making decisions that can negatively affect the lives of the general populace. No company exists in a vacuum: no matter what they do, their actions in some way have moral consequences. Because of this, corporations cannot simply take a backseat with regards to ethical practices. In fact, I would argue that corporations have a greater obligation than individuals to uphold the moral values of our society due their incredible influence over our livelihood.

Ultimately, the law should be enforcing ethical practices on corporations. While this does limit our economy in some ways, regulation is necessary in order to ensure that the rights of consumers are protected and respected. Corporate competition is not enough to ensure that upholding these rights continue to be a major factor in business decisions. Corporations already enjoy many privileges not afforded to individuals in regard to accountability and culpability. Thus, regulation is needed in order to maintain a balance between corporate growth and consumer protections.

Moreover, being ethical in your business decisions and your dealings is simply good business. Honesty and transparency are highly valued among consumers, and if you neglect these, you are practically begging to be destroyed in the future by a competitor that understands the importance of these values. While these values do incur some overhead on the part of the business, good customer relations should always trump quick, short-term profits. A lot of the greatest business collapses occur when companies decide to put their investors before their consumers and use tactics such as stock buybacks to artificially inflate the value of their business without actually increasing the quality of their profits.

In order for our economy to encourage ethical practices and good consumer relations, there must be healthy competition within all industries. Without this competition, corporations naturally begin to ignore their consumers since the quality of their products and the morality of their practices have no influence over their products. Oftentimes, the most unethical businesses come about due to monopolistic practices. Thus, the law should encourage businesses that grow due to better products and discourage those that try to achieve growth through anti-competitive means such as large buy-outs, artificial deflation of sale prices, etc.

Government should play an active role in keeping businesses in check. The government's most important responsibilities lie in trust-busting and corporate oversight. The government also has a responsibility to enforce open standards regarding utilities so that the controllers of the pipelines can't disadvantage their competitors by restricting access through physical or proprietary means. These open standards are becoming increasingly important as our world becomes more connected through the Internet of Things. Additionally, setting "standards rather than rules" isn't enough. Standards are not legally enforceable and thus would have little effect on corporate behavior. This can be seen now in the lax actions Google and Facebook have taken to ensure that user data is not abused. Despite a large number of lawmakers speaking against these companies, the government is powerless to change their behavior since there are no applicable laws to enforce against them.