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Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything
TheÌý New York Times –bestselling author ofÌý Rise of theÌýRobotsÌý showsÌýwhatÌýhappensÌýasÌýAI takes overÌýour lives Ìý
If you have a smartphone, you have AI in your pocket. AI is impossible to avoid online. And it has already changed everything from how doctors diagnose disease to how you interact with friends or read the news. But in Rule of the Robots , Martin Ford argues that the true revolution is yet to come.Ìý
In this sequel to his prescient New York Times bestseller Rise of the Robots , Ford presents us with a striking vision of the very near future. He argues that AI is a uniquely powerful technology that is altering every dimension of human life, often for the better. For example, advanced science is being done by machines, solving devilish problems in molecular biology that humans could not, and AI can help us fight climate change or the next pandemic. It also has a capacity for profound harm. Deep fakes—AI-generated audio or video of events that never happened—are poised to cause havoc throughout society. AI empowers authoritarian regimes like China with unprecedented mechanisms for social control. And AI can be deeply biased, learning bigoted attitudes from us and perpetuating them.Ìý
In short, this is not a technology to simply embrace, or let others worry about. The machines are coming, and they won’t stop, and each of us needs to know what that means if we are to thrive in the twenty-first century. And Rule of the Robots is the essential guide to all of both AI and the future of our economy, our politics, our lives.Ìý
Ìý
If you have a smartphone, you have AI in your pocket. AI is impossible to avoid online. And it has already changed everything from how doctors diagnose disease to how you interact with friends or read the news. But in Rule of the Robots , Martin Ford argues that the true revolution is yet to come.Ìý
In this sequel to his prescient New York Times bestseller Rise of the Robots , Ford presents us with a striking vision of the very near future. He argues that AI is a uniquely powerful technology that is altering every dimension of human life, often for the better. For example, advanced science is being done by machines, solving devilish problems in molecular biology that humans could not, and AI can help us fight climate change or the next pandemic. It also has a capacity for profound harm. Deep fakes—AI-generated audio or video of events that never happened—are poised to cause havoc throughout society. AI empowers authoritarian regimes like China with unprecedented mechanisms for social control. And AI can be deeply biased, learning bigoted attitudes from us and perpetuating them.Ìý
In short, this is not a technology to simply embrace, or let others worry about. The machines are coming, and they won’t stop, and each of us needs to know what that means if we are to thrive in the twenty-first century. And Rule of the Robots is the essential guide to all of both AI and the future of our economy, our politics, our lives.Ìý
Ìý
320 pages, Hardcover
Published September 14, 2021
85 people are currently reading
887 people want to read
About the author
Martin Ford
31Ìýbooks243ÌýfollowersMartin Ford is the author of the two books Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (2015) and The Lights In the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (2009) â€� both dealing with the effects of automation and mass-unemployment. He is the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm, and obtained a computer engineering degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a graduate business degree from UCLA's Anderson School of Management.
Ford was the first 21st century author[1] to publish a book (The Lights in the Tunnel in 2009) making a strong argument that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence would eventually make a large fraction of the human workforce obsolete.[2] In subsequent years, other books have made similar arguments, and Ford's thesis has been supported by a number of formal academic studies, most notably by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne of Oxford University, who found in 2013 that the jobs held by roughly 47 percent of the U.S. workforce could be susceptible to automation within the next two decades.[3]
In his most recent book Rise of the Robots, he argues that the growth of automation now threatens many highly-educated people, like lawyers, radiologists, and software designers.[4] To deal with the rise of unemployment, he is in favor of a basic income guarantee.[5]
Both of Ford's books focus on the fact that widespread automation could potentially undermine economic growth or even lead to a deflationary spiral because jobs are the primary mechanism for distributing purchasing power to consumers.[6] He has warned that as income becomes ever more concentrated into the hands of a tiny elite, the bulk of consumers will eventually lack the income and confidence to continue supplying demand to the mass market industries that form the backbone of the modern economy.[7]
Ford strongly supports both capitalism and continued technological progress but believes it will be necessary to adapt our economic system to the new reality created by advances in artificial intelligence, and that some form of basic income guarantee is the best way to do this.[8] In Rise of the Robots he cites the Peltzman effect (or risk compensation) as evidence that the safety net created by a guaranteed income might well result in increased economic risk taking and a more dynamic and entrepreneurial economy.
Ford has also argued for incorporating explicit incentives � especially for pursuing education � into a basic income scheme, suggesting for example that those who graduate from high school (or complete an equivalency exam) ought to receive a somewhat higher guaranteed income than those who drop out. Without this, many marginal or "at risk" students would be presented with a perverse incentive to simply drop out and collect the basic income.
Ford was the first 21st century author[1] to publish a book (The Lights in the Tunnel in 2009) making a strong argument that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence would eventually make a large fraction of the human workforce obsolete.[2] In subsequent years, other books have made similar arguments, and Ford's thesis has been supported by a number of formal academic studies, most notably by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne of Oxford University, who found in 2013 that the jobs held by roughly 47 percent of the U.S. workforce could be susceptible to automation within the next two decades.[3]
In his most recent book Rise of the Robots, he argues that the growth of automation now threatens many highly-educated people, like lawyers, radiologists, and software designers.[4] To deal with the rise of unemployment, he is in favor of a basic income guarantee.[5]
Both of Ford's books focus on the fact that widespread automation could potentially undermine economic growth or even lead to a deflationary spiral because jobs are the primary mechanism for distributing purchasing power to consumers.[6] He has warned that as income becomes ever more concentrated into the hands of a tiny elite, the bulk of consumers will eventually lack the income and confidence to continue supplying demand to the mass market industries that form the backbone of the modern economy.[7]
Ford strongly supports both capitalism and continued technological progress but believes it will be necessary to adapt our economic system to the new reality created by advances in artificial intelligence, and that some form of basic income guarantee is the best way to do this.[8] In Rise of the Robots he cites the Peltzman effect (or risk compensation) as evidence that the safety net created by a guaranteed income might well result in increased economic risk taking and a more dynamic and entrepreneurial economy.
Ford has also argued for incorporating explicit incentives � especially for pursuing education � into a basic income scheme, suggesting for example that those who graduate from high school (or complete an equivalency exam) ought to receive a somewhat higher guaranteed income than those who drop out. Without this, many marginal or "at risk" students would be presented with a perverse incentive to simply drop out and collect the basic income.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
October 9, 2021
47th book for 2021.
An excellent clear-eyed overview on both the history of AI and where it's going.
Ford writes well, and covers all the bases. He has apparently talked to everyone and takes a much more realistic view of the tech than many of its stronger boosters in the industry. For instance, he shows in some detail even as impressive as deep-learning is, how brittle it is as well—change some seemingly minor detail in a game that an AI plays at grandmaster level and performance will fall to chance. This has broad implications. Telsa self-driving cars also suffer this brittleness—which suggests that it will take a long time before they get to true autonomy anytime soon. My favorite example of brittleness is shown by Winograd schemas, which are short sentences that require semantic knowledge to complete. For instance:
1. The city councilmen refused the demonstrators a permit because they feared violence.
2. The city councilmen refused the demonstrators a permit because they advocated violence.
In the first question who feared violence, in the second who advocated violence? No AI today perform much above chance in these questions.
The strong sense from these examples is that while AI will be an increasingly powerful and disruptive technology, true General Intelligence is decades away.
Another thing I was surprised at was how bad robots are at dexterity. As Rodney Brooks points out, a person with a pair of cheap plastic rubbish thongs is WAY more dexterous than the best robots today. Dexterity is a major impediment for the implementation of robots. This is why Amazon continues to have workers in their factories. This is again a very hard problem that may take a significant amount of time to solve.
His analysis of the increasing strength of the state of art of AI research in China and its implications for the West is excellent, as is his analysis of the increasing dangers of AI to human rights.
Recommended.
Five-stars.
An excellent clear-eyed overview on both the history of AI and where it's going.
Ford writes well, and covers all the bases. He has apparently talked to everyone and takes a much more realistic view of the tech than many of its stronger boosters in the industry. For instance, he shows in some detail even as impressive as deep-learning is, how brittle it is as well—change some seemingly minor detail in a game that an AI plays at grandmaster level and performance will fall to chance. This has broad implications. Telsa self-driving cars also suffer this brittleness—which suggests that it will take a long time before they get to true autonomy anytime soon. My favorite example of brittleness is shown by Winograd schemas, which are short sentences that require semantic knowledge to complete. For instance:
1. The city councilmen refused the demonstrators a permit because they feared violence.
2. The city councilmen refused the demonstrators a permit because they advocated violence.
In the first question who feared violence, in the second who advocated violence? No AI today perform much above chance in these questions.
The strong sense from these examples is that while AI will be an increasingly powerful and disruptive technology, true General Intelligence is decades away.
Another thing I was surprised at was how bad robots are at dexterity. As Rodney Brooks points out, a person with a pair of cheap plastic rubbish thongs is WAY more dexterous than the best robots today. Dexterity is a major impediment for the implementation of robots. This is why Amazon continues to have workers in their factories. This is again a very hard problem that may take a significant amount of time to solve.
His analysis of the increasing strength of the state of art of AI research in China and its implications for the West is excellent, as is his analysis of the increasing dangers of AI to human rights.
Recommended.
Five-stars.
October 4, 2021
Douglas Adams described how the (fictional) Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy started off in an overexcited manner, telling the reader how mindbogglingly big space is - but after a while it settled down a bit and started telling you things you actually needed to know. Rule of the Robots is a bit like this. It begins with far too much over-excitement about what artificial intelligence can do, but then it settles down to a reasonable picture of what is achievable, what's good and bad about it, what it's likely to do and how it might need controlling.
The point where I started to be happier with Martin Ford was when he described the progress (and problems) with self-driving cars. For too long, AI enthusiasts have over-sold how easy it would be to have self-driving vehicles replacing all the error-prone human drivers on the road. It's certainly likely that over the next couple of decades we will see them in restricted applications on carefully managed bits of road - but the chances of a self-driving car being able to operate safely in a busy city or on a windy country road are very distant. Ford explains the difficulties well. It's not just the technical problems either. He points out that, for example, moving to self-driving taxis, which seems to be goal of the likes of Uber and Lyft, has real problems, because their human drivers don't just do the driving - they provide the car, keep it clean and maintained and more. Owning a fleet of very expensive self-driving cars is a whole different proposition - one that may not be financially viable when it can be undercut by an organisation with human drivers and car-owners.
Ford goes on to describe the capabilities and limitations of deep learning systems, and to consider the impact of AI automation on jobs. Here, perhaps, he is a little pessimistic, as in the past, rather than automation destroying jobs, it has tended to shift and expand activity, not reduce it. But where he comes into his own is when he gets on to China and the rise of the AI surveillance state. I've read quite a bit about China's use of AI, but Ford goes into considerably more clear detail than I've seen elsewhere. He then goes on to examine the implications for the West, and the US in particular pointing out the dilemma between, say US AI workers refusing to undertake some projects where they don't like the politics, but the risk this poses of the US being left behind.
The book is also very good on the dangers of AI. For too long, we've had something close to hysteria about AIs taking over the world, driven by hype about the 'singularity' and other super intelligent AI speculation. But, as Ford points out, the mostly likely prediction is that we are 80+ years away from the general artificial intelligence these panics are based on - in reality, the risk comes from misuses of the technology, whether it be for social control and autonomous weapons or AI systems making decisions about is that can be accidentally and intentionally biased in various ways.
Although Ford does recognise the limitations that mean we won't have generally available self-driving cars for quite a long time, he does still skate over some of the weaknesses of AI - for example, he doesn't mention catastrophic forgetting. It's true, for example, that you can train a machine learning based system to be good at distinguishing between, say, photos of cats and dogs. Let's imagine you decide to add another distinction - say between chairs and tables. You train the system up. But now it will have forgotten how to distinguish cats and dogs. To be fair, Ford does mention the related 'brittleness' of many AI systems - he points out an example of the famous Deep-Mind system that proved great at playing some Atari video games. Move the position of the paddle a couple of pixels up the screen and it's no longer any good. But more could have been made of this.
A bigger concern in the early, over-excited part was Ford's comparison of AI with electricity, suggesting it will be an equivalent for our century. I had two problems with this analogy. Firstly electricity is a universal power source to do anything - AI can only do one thing - information manipulation. It may have lots of applications, but it's not in the same category. A more apt comparison would be the electric motor or the silicon chip. The second problem is that AI is also one of the (very) many things that depends on electricity - a clockwork AI is pretty unlikely. So it can hardly be said to be the next electricity.
When I first hit the over-excited bit I was not at all impressed with this book - less so than I was with Ford's previous title The Rise of the Robots - but it grew on me. For its balanced view of self-driving cars and Ford's thoughts on China's use of AI, how the West should respond and the challenges it presents, this is a valuable book that deserves to be widely read.
The point where I started to be happier with Martin Ford was when he described the progress (and problems) with self-driving cars. For too long, AI enthusiasts have over-sold how easy it would be to have self-driving vehicles replacing all the error-prone human drivers on the road. It's certainly likely that over the next couple of decades we will see them in restricted applications on carefully managed bits of road - but the chances of a self-driving car being able to operate safely in a busy city or on a windy country road are very distant. Ford explains the difficulties well. It's not just the technical problems either. He points out that, for example, moving to self-driving taxis, which seems to be goal of the likes of Uber and Lyft, has real problems, because their human drivers don't just do the driving - they provide the car, keep it clean and maintained and more. Owning a fleet of very expensive self-driving cars is a whole different proposition - one that may not be financially viable when it can be undercut by an organisation with human drivers and car-owners.
Ford goes on to describe the capabilities and limitations of deep learning systems, and to consider the impact of AI automation on jobs. Here, perhaps, he is a little pessimistic, as in the past, rather than automation destroying jobs, it has tended to shift and expand activity, not reduce it. But where he comes into his own is when he gets on to China and the rise of the AI surveillance state. I've read quite a bit about China's use of AI, but Ford goes into considerably more clear detail than I've seen elsewhere. He then goes on to examine the implications for the West, and the US in particular pointing out the dilemma between, say US AI workers refusing to undertake some projects where they don't like the politics, but the risk this poses of the US being left behind.
The book is also very good on the dangers of AI. For too long, we've had something close to hysteria about AIs taking over the world, driven by hype about the 'singularity' and other super intelligent AI speculation. But, as Ford points out, the mostly likely prediction is that we are 80+ years away from the general artificial intelligence these panics are based on - in reality, the risk comes from misuses of the technology, whether it be for social control and autonomous weapons or AI systems making decisions about is that can be accidentally and intentionally biased in various ways.
Although Ford does recognise the limitations that mean we won't have generally available self-driving cars for quite a long time, he does still skate over some of the weaknesses of AI - for example, he doesn't mention catastrophic forgetting. It's true, for example, that you can train a machine learning based system to be good at distinguishing between, say, photos of cats and dogs. Let's imagine you decide to add another distinction - say between chairs and tables. You train the system up. But now it will have forgotten how to distinguish cats and dogs. To be fair, Ford does mention the related 'brittleness' of many AI systems - he points out an example of the famous Deep-Mind system that proved great at playing some Atari video games. Move the position of the paddle a couple of pixels up the screen and it's no longer any good. But more could have been made of this.
A bigger concern in the early, over-excited part was Ford's comparison of AI with electricity, suggesting it will be an equivalent for our century. I had two problems with this analogy. Firstly electricity is a universal power source to do anything - AI can only do one thing - information manipulation. It may have lots of applications, but it's not in the same category. A more apt comparison would be the electric motor or the silicon chip. The second problem is that AI is also one of the (very) many things that depends on electricity - a clockwork AI is pretty unlikely. So it can hardly be said to be the next electricity.
When I first hit the over-excited bit I was not at all impressed with this book - less so than I was with Ford's previous title The Rise of the Robots - but it grew on me. For its balanced view of self-driving cars and Ford's thoughts on China's use of AI, how the West should respond and the challenges it presents, this is a valuable book that deserves to be widely read.
July 13, 2021
Reading more like a hyper extension of Aldous-Huxley’s “Brave New Worldâ€� than an introduction to an explosion of technology, James Barrat’s Ìýthought provoking book, “Our Final Inventionâ€�, brings us face to face with the alarmingly potential consequences of Artificial Intelligence (“AIâ€�) gone uncontrolled. Warning the reader of an impending doom, Barrat finishes his book on a dystopian note by writing that while human-level AI will have countless applications, it will “fundamentally alter our existence (if it doesn’t end it first)â€�.
Martin Ford, a futurist and author focusing on artificial intelligence and robotics, and the best selling author of “The Rise of the Robotsâ€�, in an upcoming work, appropriately titled "The Rule of The Robotsâ€�, explores in a measured, methodical and meticulous manner the inevitable status of ubiquity that AI will attain in the future. While conceding that there is no escaping the fact that there would be a proliferation of AI in the coming days and decades, Ford sticks his neck out to proclaim that AI will ultimately evolve into a ‘general-purpose technology of such scale and power that it can be compared to electricity.â€� Extraordinary advances in branches such as deep neural networks, and machine learning have opened up a plethora of possibilities hitherto unimagined. The Holy Grail underpinning all these complex research is to birth an Artificial General Intelligence or an Artificial Super Intelligence even that would mimic the human brain. Once this phenomenon manifests, the rate of knowledge expansion would be exponential rather than incremental. The AI would reach a trajectory of ‘unsupervisedâ€� learning and thereby leave mankind gasping when it comes to super intelligence. This is also the pinnacle where, according to experts such as the late Stephen Hawking, entrepreneur Elon Musk, MIT physicist Max Tegmark and intellectuals such as Sam Harris etc. assurance ends, and anxiety begins. ÌýCompanies such as Intel and IBM have already made significant progress with “neuromorphicâ€� chip designs. These designs instantiate hardware versions of the neurons in human brain, directly onto silicon. The Loihi chip of Intel encompasses 130,000 hardware neurons each of which in turn connects to a multitude of other similar neurons.
As Ford illustrates in an exhilarating manner, the field of deep learning has revolutionised AI and the output emanating from this sphere has almost blurred the line separating reality from science fiction. In the year 2019, the Turing Award (popularly known as the “Nobel Prize of Computing�) was bagged by Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio. The trio won this distinction for their unparalleled and original contributions in the filed of deep learning. Ford provides an invaluable primer on the science and technology behind deep learning. Deep learning employing an artificial neural network attempts to create a rough numerical blueprint of the way neurons in the human brains operate and interact. Upon configuration such a network is trained to accomplish specific tasks such as image recognition and language translation. Every ‘layer� of the network enhances the level of abstraction of the knowledge fed to the network. Deep learning’s apex achievement came in the year 2016 when AlphaGo, a system developed by DeepMind defeated one of the greatest “Go� boardgame players Lee Seedol in a five-match game in Seoul. This almost represented an inflection point in the field of AI. Alpha Go had bested a champion in a game whose very intricate permutations and combinations almost made it immune to brute force algorithms.
However, as Ford writes, mankind is still way behind realizing the true potential of Artificial General Intelligence. Ford interviewed twenty three pioneering researchers in the field of AI for his book “Architects of Intelligence.� Many of the researchers expressed their strong skepticism about the advent of superintelligence. For example Andrew Ng, who was engaged in AI research at companies such as Google and Baidu, said that “worrying about an existential threat from AI is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars � long before even the first team of astronauts has been sent to the red planet.�
The experience and experiment with ‘self-driving� or ‘automated� cars lends a critical and seminal insight into both the progress and pitfalls of AI. Founder of the autonomous driving startup Aurora and also the former chief technology officer of Google, Chris Urmson once brazenly declared in 2015 that his then eleven year old son would have a redundant driving license when he turned sixteen. But Urmson’s declaration has turned out to be a mere speculation as the world is still trying to grapple with many an intricacy and nuance surrounding the technology underlying a self-driving car. Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, the CEO and co-founder of Starsky Robotics, avers that a critical factor throwing sand in the gears of the self-driving automobile industry is an inherent lacuna of deep learning. Paraphrasing Ford, “a system with the flexibility to truly offer autonomous driving under all circumstances without the need for remote human supervision, may well be beyond the capability of today’s deep learning system and is unlikely to arrive in the near future.�
But, as Ford articulates, the market for AI is burgeoning with inventive and innovative applications. Powered by a funding of over $200 million from investors such as Mark Zuckerberg, Samsung, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, technology company Vicarious is revolutionizing a “robots as a service� business. Acquiring industrial robots from various companies, Vicarious integrates the robots with AI software conceptualised by its own team before proceeding to rent the robots out to whoever needs them.
Ford also touches upon a very topical conundrum associated with untrammeled advances in the field of AI. In a world characterized by rampant technology, the lines between routine and non-routine stand blurred. Both routine as well as non-routine tasks that are emblematic of repetition are under the threat of being obliterated by AI. The formerÌýBank of EnglandÌýGovernor and currently, Vice Chairman and Head of Impact Investing atÌýBrookfield Asset Management, Mark CarneyÌýto exclaim that it was time for a “massacre of the Dilberts.â€� Machines of the modern era are not just capable of performing routine activities, but as AlphaGo illustrated in searing detail, are also extremely capable of executing tasks that require cognitive skills and affectations, traits that are ‘non-routineâ€� by all stretches of imagination. Netscape founder and world renowned venture capitalistÌýMarc AndreessenÌýimmortally said, “software is eating the worldâ€� and that in the end, there will be only two types of people left: those who program the machines, and everyone else. According to Ford, the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has also worsened the grim prospects of unemployment. “Indeed, the economists Nir Jaimovich and Henry E. Siu studied this phenomenon and in a 2018 paper found that ‘essentially all employment loss in routine occupations occurs in economic downturns’â€� Businesses reeling under economic strains are forced to furlough or lay off workers. At the same time with a view to extracting the maximum yields and efficiencies, these companies also make increasing use of technology such as automation. Once stabilization rears its head and the economy gets back to normalcy, the companies do not find any reason to hire back the employees that they have let go.
Ford also mulls about the invasive nature of AI by making a chilling reference to the sophisticated surveillance ecosystem perfected by China as a result of which more than 1.8 million Uighurs find themselves incarcerated in draconian concentration camps, euphemistically named “reeducation centres�. Other applications of AI such as drone technologies and ‘deepfakes� provide reasons to be apprehensive. A development known as “generative adversarial network� (GANs) has exacerbated the already dangerous power of deep fakes.
So what are these GANs? GANs represent algorithmic architectures employing two neural networks. These two neural networks are pitted against each other. The quintessential purpose behind such a face off being to generate new, synthetic instances of data that can pass for real data. GANs are liberally used to generate images videos and voice. The man behind the propagation of GANs was Ian Goodfellow, a researcher at the University of Montreal. While GANs have immense value in the domains of music and speech, their potential to birth evil is also immense. GANs are the primary vehicles to purvey Deepfakes by using voice and image overlays for derogatory and depraved purposes.
Ford ends his book in a deeply poignant and experiential manner. Envisioning the AI future as a continuum, Ford has two diametrically different scenarios at either end of the continuum. At one end lies Star Trek. This immortal television series featuring the endearing spaceship ‘Enterprise� with the debonair Captain James Kirk at the helm. The world of Star Trek is one filled with prosperity, abundance, fulfillment and shorn of poverty and skull drudgery. There is a total paucity or absence of conventional jobs, yet people live a life of contemplation, exploration and introspection. There is an appreciation of the values attributed to intrinsic humanity rather than monotonous output.
At the other extreme end of the continuum lies the bleak and terribly dark movie The Matrix.Ìý However unlike the picture where a world enslaved by AI looks to an unlikely saviour to extricate itself from the vice-like grip of its tormentor, Ford’s Matrix has a ‘balkanizedâ€� society where a segment of the privileged elite remain anchored in the actual world, while the rest of the teeming masses find themselves absorbed in an addictive world of technology or the murky and dark bowels of crime.
It is ultimately in the hands of the world to choose its future.
(Rule of the Robots is published by Perseus Books and Basic Books and will be released on 14 September, 2021)
The reviewer thanks Net Galley for the Advanced Reviewer Copy.
Martin Ford, a futurist and author focusing on artificial intelligence and robotics, and the best selling author of “The Rise of the Robotsâ€�, in an upcoming work, appropriately titled "The Rule of The Robotsâ€�, explores in a measured, methodical and meticulous manner the inevitable status of ubiquity that AI will attain in the future. While conceding that there is no escaping the fact that there would be a proliferation of AI in the coming days and decades, Ford sticks his neck out to proclaim that AI will ultimately evolve into a ‘general-purpose technology of such scale and power that it can be compared to electricity.â€� Extraordinary advances in branches such as deep neural networks, and machine learning have opened up a plethora of possibilities hitherto unimagined. The Holy Grail underpinning all these complex research is to birth an Artificial General Intelligence or an Artificial Super Intelligence even that would mimic the human brain. Once this phenomenon manifests, the rate of knowledge expansion would be exponential rather than incremental. The AI would reach a trajectory of ‘unsupervisedâ€� learning and thereby leave mankind gasping when it comes to super intelligence. This is also the pinnacle where, according to experts such as the late Stephen Hawking, entrepreneur Elon Musk, MIT physicist Max Tegmark and intellectuals such as Sam Harris etc. assurance ends, and anxiety begins. ÌýCompanies such as Intel and IBM have already made significant progress with “neuromorphicâ€� chip designs. These designs instantiate hardware versions of the neurons in human brain, directly onto silicon. The Loihi chip of Intel encompasses 130,000 hardware neurons each of which in turn connects to a multitude of other similar neurons.
As Ford illustrates in an exhilarating manner, the field of deep learning has revolutionised AI and the output emanating from this sphere has almost blurred the line separating reality from science fiction. In the year 2019, the Turing Award (popularly known as the “Nobel Prize of Computing�) was bagged by Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio. The trio won this distinction for their unparalleled and original contributions in the filed of deep learning. Ford provides an invaluable primer on the science and technology behind deep learning. Deep learning employing an artificial neural network attempts to create a rough numerical blueprint of the way neurons in the human brains operate and interact. Upon configuration such a network is trained to accomplish specific tasks such as image recognition and language translation. Every ‘layer� of the network enhances the level of abstraction of the knowledge fed to the network. Deep learning’s apex achievement came in the year 2016 when AlphaGo, a system developed by DeepMind defeated one of the greatest “Go� boardgame players Lee Seedol in a five-match game in Seoul. This almost represented an inflection point in the field of AI. Alpha Go had bested a champion in a game whose very intricate permutations and combinations almost made it immune to brute force algorithms.
However, as Ford writes, mankind is still way behind realizing the true potential of Artificial General Intelligence. Ford interviewed twenty three pioneering researchers in the field of AI for his book “Architects of Intelligence.� Many of the researchers expressed their strong skepticism about the advent of superintelligence. For example Andrew Ng, who was engaged in AI research at companies such as Google and Baidu, said that “worrying about an existential threat from AI is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars � long before even the first team of astronauts has been sent to the red planet.�
The experience and experiment with ‘self-driving� or ‘automated� cars lends a critical and seminal insight into both the progress and pitfalls of AI. Founder of the autonomous driving startup Aurora and also the former chief technology officer of Google, Chris Urmson once brazenly declared in 2015 that his then eleven year old son would have a redundant driving license when he turned sixteen. But Urmson’s declaration has turned out to be a mere speculation as the world is still trying to grapple with many an intricacy and nuance surrounding the technology underlying a self-driving car. Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, the CEO and co-founder of Starsky Robotics, avers that a critical factor throwing sand in the gears of the self-driving automobile industry is an inherent lacuna of deep learning. Paraphrasing Ford, “a system with the flexibility to truly offer autonomous driving under all circumstances without the need for remote human supervision, may well be beyond the capability of today’s deep learning system and is unlikely to arrive in the near future.�
But, as Ford articulates, the market for AI is burgeoning with inventive and innovative applications. Powered by a funding of over $200 million from investors such as Mark Zuckerberg, Samsung, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, technology company Vicarious is revolutionizing a “robots as a service� business. Acquiring industrial robots from various companies, Vicarious integrates the robots with AI software conceptualised by its own team before proceeding to rent the robots out to whoever needs them.
Ford also touches upon a very topical conundrum associated with untrammeled advances in the field of AI. In a world characterized by rampant technology, the lines between routine and non-routine stand blurred. Both routine as well as non-routine tasks that are emblematic of repetition are under the threat of being obliterated by AI. The formerÌýBank of EnglandÌýGovernor and currently, Vice Chairman and Head of Impact Investing atÌýBrookfield Asset Management, Mark CarneyÌýto exclaim that it was time for a “massacre of the Dilberts.â€� Machines of the modern era are not just capable of performing routine activities, but as AlphaGo illustrated in searing detail, are also extremely capable of executing tasks that require cognitive skills and affectations, traits that are ‘non-routineâ€� by all stretches of imagination. Netscape founder and world renowned venture capitalistÌýMarc AndreessenÌýimmortally said, “software is eating the worldâ€� and that in the end, there will be only two types of people left: those who program the machines, and everyone else. According to Ford, the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has also worsened the grim prospects of unemployment. “Indeed, the economists Nir Jaimovich and Henry E. Siu studied this phenomenon and in a 2018 paper found that ‘essentially all employment loss in routine occupations occurs in economic downturns’â€� Businesses reeling under economic strains are forced to furlough or lay off workers. At the same time with a view to extracting the maximum yields and efficiencies, these companies also make increasing use of technology such as automation. Once stabilization rears its head and the economy gets back to normalcy, the companies do not find any reason to hire back the employees that they have let go.
Ford also mulls about the invasive nature of AI by making a chilling reference to the sophisticated surveillance ecosystem perfected by China as a result of which more than 1.8 million Uighurs find themselves incarcerated in draconian concentration camps, euphemistically named “reeducation centres�. Other applications of AI such as drone technologies and ‘deepfakes� provide reasons to be apprehensive. A development known as “generative adversarial network� (GANs) has exacerbated the already dangerous power of deep fakes.
So what are these GANs? GANs represent algorithmic architectures employing two neural networks. These two neural networks are pitted against each other. The quintessential purpose behind such a face off being to generate new, synthetic instances of data that can pass for real data. GANs are liberally used to generate images videos and voice. The man behind the propagation of GANs was Ian Goodfellow, a researcher at the University of Montreal. While GANs have immense value in the domains of music and speech, their potential to birth evil is also immense. GANs are the primary vehicles to purvey Deepfakes by using voice and image overlays for derogatory and depraved purposes.
Ford ends his book in a deeply poignant and experiential manner. Envisioning the AI future as a continuum, Ford has two diametrically different scenarios at either end of the continuum. At one end lies Star Trek. This immortal television series featuring the endearing spaceship ‘Enterprise� with the debonair Captain James Kirk at the helm. The world of Star Trek is one filled with prosperity, abundance, fulfillment and shorn of poverty and skull drudgery. There is a total paucity or absence of conventional jobs, yet people live a life of contemplation, exploration and introspection. There is an appreciation of the values attributed to intrinsic humanity rather than monotonous output.
At the other extreme end of the continuum lies the bleak and terribly dark movie The Matrix.Ìý However unlike the picture where a world enslaved by AI looks to an unlikely saviour to extricate itself from the vice-like grip of its tormentor, Ford’s Matrix has a ‘balkanizedâ€� society where a segment of the privileged elite remain anchored in the actual world, while the rest of the teeming masses find themselves absorbed in an addictive world of technology or the murky and dark bowels of crime.
It is ultimately in the hands of the world to choose its future.
(Rule of the Robots is published by Perseus Books and Basic Books and will be released on 14 September, 2021)
The reviewer thanks Net Galley for the Advanced Reviewer Copy.
February 12, 2025
The title claims AI will change everything. The question is, when?
The day Turing testing confirms that AI possesses AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), humanity will face critical decisions on how much faith to have in the technology and how much power to confer it.
AGI is difficult to achieve because it must be nimble and robust. By contrast, "Deep Learning" AI applications like the AlphaGo program in 2016 that defeated the reigning world Go champion, are "shallow and fragile": any change to the rules of Go would require tossing out and regenerating all its training data.
Most real world problems, such as how to form economic policy, are subject to shifting ground rules, conditions, and assumptions. Anything like that AI would need AGI.
AGI thus needs to be able to create and maintain dynamic, on-the-fly representations of problem areas. AGI also needs to learn something about causation. Current big-data-driven AI applications only seem to recognize correlations. Mere correlation is probably insufficient for developing and modeling scenarios as AGI would need to do to "think" about the future.
Massive cloud databases contain millions of images carefully tagged so machine-learning apps can feed on them during "supervised training" to learn to identify objects. Maybe similar databases of stories and other narrative data will someday serve to teach causality and other dynamic phenomena by example to AGI and its adiuvant apps.
Is AGI definitely in our future? In a previous book, Architects of Intelligence, Mr. Ford interviewed twenty-three of the greatest AI experts. Their median guess of when AGI may arrive is somewhere near the end of this century. Over all, no one seems to have much of a clue.
When AGI does arrive, the question of whether or how much to trust it will be difficult. It's bound to be an Oz-like black box, i.e., one whose innards only other software, not people like you and me, will be able to comprehend. That's bound to put us in a curious and perilous predicament.
The day Turing testing confirms that AI possesses AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), humanity will face critical decisions on how much faith to have in the technology and how much power to confer it.
AGI is difficult to achieve because it must be nimble and robust. By contrast, "Deep Learning" AI applications like the AlphaGo program in 2016 that defeated the reigning world Go champion, are "shallow and fragile": any change to the rules of Go would require tossing out and regenerating all its training data.
Most real world problems, such as how to form economic policy, are subject to shifting ground rules, conditions, and assumptions. Anything like that AI would need AGI.
AGI thus needs to be able to create and maintain dynamic, on-the-fly representations of problem areas. AGI also needs to learn something about causation. Current big-data-driven AI applications only seem to recognize correlations. Mere correlation is probably insufficient for developing and modeling scenarios as AGI would need to do to "think" about the future.
Massive cloud databases contain millions of images carefully tagged so machine-learning apps can feed on them during "supervised training" to learn to identify objects. Maybe similar databases of stories and other narrative data will someday serve to teach causality and other dynamic phenomena by example to AGI and its adiuvant apps.
Is AGI definitely in our future? In a previous book, Architects of Intelligence, Mr. Ford interviewed twenty-three of the greatest AI experts. Their median guess of when AGI may arrive is somewhere near the end of this century. Over all, no one seems to have much of a clue.
When AGI does arrive, the question of whether or how much to trust it will be difficult. It's bound to be an Oz-like black box, i.e., one whose innards only other software, not people like you and me, will be able to comprehend. That's bound to put us in a curious and perilous predicament.
October 12, 2021
Artificial intelligence is already affecting all our lives in one way or another. Soon it could be dominating it. In this book Martin Ford which has only just been published so it is up to date sketches out both where we are & examines the road ahead. Ford is not a technological booster even though he is immersed in the subject. Instead he seeks to provide realistic analysis identifying things possible, likely & very unlikely in the short to medium term. I found the book informative & timely. It's pages introduced me to Woebot a bit technology I am using each day.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
December 16, 2021
Super interesting and well written.
My favourite idea, was likening AI to electricity. Ford suggests that AI is "poised to deliver a transformation that will someday rival the impact of electricity."
Three favourite excerpts:
"For those of us who live in the developed world, there is virtually nothing that is not somehow touched by, or indeed made possible by, access to electric power. Electricity is probably the best—and certainly the most durable� example of a general-purpose technology: in other words, an innovation that scales across and transforms every aspect of the economy and society. [...] electricity. It is, therefore, an extraordinarily bold claim to argue that artificial intelligence will evolve into a general-purpose technology of such scale and power that it can reasonably be compared to electricity. Nonetheless, there are good reasons to believe that this is the path we are on: AI, much like electricity, will eventually touch and transform virtually everything. Artificial intelligence is already impacting every sector of the economy, including agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, retail and virtually all other industries. The technology is even beginning to invade areas that we consider the most human. Already, AI-enabled chatbots provide round-the-clock access to mental health counseling. New forms of graphic art and music are being generated with deep learning technology. None of this should really surprise us. After all, virtually everything of value that human beings have created is a direct product of our intelligence—of our ability to learn, to innovate, to exhibit creativity. As AI amplifies, augments or replaces our own intelligence, it will inevitably evolve into our most powerful and widely applicable technology. Indeed, artificial intelligence may ultimately prove to be one of the most effective tools we have as we look to recover from the crisis unleashed by the coronavirus. What’s more, it’s a good bet that artificial intelligence will rise to dominance far faster than was the case with electricity. The reason is that much of the infrastructure required to deploy AI—including computers, the internet, mobile data services and especially the massive cloud computing facilities maintained by companies like Amazon,Microsoft and Google—is already in place. Imagine how rapidly electrification might have occurred if most power plants and transmission lines had already been built at the time Edison invented the light bulb. Artificial intelligence is poised to reshape our world—and it may happen much sooner than we expect it [...] The upshot of all this is that AI will ultimately achieve the reach of electricity, but it will never have the same stability or predictability. It will always remain a vastly more dynamic and disruptive force with the potential to upend nearly anything it touches. Intelligence is, after all, the ultimate resource—it is the fundamental capability that underlies everything human beings have ever created. It is difficult to imagine a development more consequential than the transformation of that resource into a universally accessible and affordable utility".
"The reality is that artificial intelligence will be a dual-edged sword in terms of its economic impact. On one hand, it will likely increase productivity, make products and services more affordable and enable innovation that can improve all our lives. AI has the potential to create economic value that will be indispensable as we look toward digging ourselves out of the massive economic hole in which we now find ourselves. On the other hand, it is virtually certain to eliminate or deskill millions of jobs while driving economic inequality to even higher levels."
On jobs for the future:
"I’ve found that the most common questions I receive from the audience are nearly always the same: what jobs are most likely to be safe, and what fields should I advise my children to study? The general answer is perhaps a bit obvious and unsatisfying: avoid jobs that tend to be fundamentally routine and predictable in nature. These are clearly the areas that will see the most significant near-term impact of AI-powered automation. Another way to phrase this might be “avoid jobs that are boring.� If you’re coming to work and facing new challenges every day and if you’re constantly learning on the job, then you’re probably well positioned to stay ahead of technology, at least for the foreseeable future. If, on the other hand, you spend a lot of time cranking out the same kinds of reports, presentations or analyses again and again, you should probably start to worry—and begin to think about adjusting your career trajectory. More specifically, I think the jobs least susceptible to automation in the near to intermediate term fall into threegeneral areas. First, jobs that are genuinely creative in nature are likely to be relatively safe. If you’re thinking outside the box, coming up with innovative strategies to solve unforeseen problems or building something genuinely new, then I think you will be well positioned to leverage artificial intelligence as a tool. In other words, the technology is much more likely to compliment you than it is to replace you. To be sure, significant research into building creative machines is underway, and AI will inevitably begin to encroach on creative work as well. Already smart algorithms can paint original works of art, formulate scientific hypotheses, compose classical music and generate innovative electronic designs. DeepMind’s AlphaGo and AlphaZero have injected new energy and creativity into professional Go and chess competitions because the systems represent truly alien intelligences, often adopting unconventional strategies that astonish human experts. However, I think that for the foreseeable future artificial intelligence will be used to amplify, rather than replace, human creativity. A second safe area consists of those jobs that put a premium on building meaningful and complex relationships with other people. This would include, for example, the kind of empathetic, caring relationship that a nurse might have with a patient, or that a business person or consultant offering sophisticated advice might develop with a client. It’s important to note that I’m not referring so much to short-term service encounters that involve smiling and being friendly with customers, but rather those that require deeper and more complex interpersonal interactions. Once again, AI is also encroaching into this area; as we saw in Chapter 3, chatbots can, for example, already provide rudimentary mental health therapy, and there will continue to be significant advances in AI’s ability to perceive, respond to and simulate human emotion. I think it will be a long time, however, before machines become capable ofdeveloping truly sophisticated, multidimensional relationships with people. The third general category of safe jobs includes occupations that require significant mobility, dexterity and problem-solving skills in unpredictable environments. Nurses and elder care assistants would also fall into this category, as would skilled trade occupations like plumbers, electricians and mechanics. Building affordable robots capable of automating work of this type likely lies far in the future. These skilled trade jobs will generally represent some of the best opportunities for those who choose not to pursue a college education. In the United States, I think we should be putting far more emphasis on accessible vocational training or apprenticeships that prepare young people for these opportunities rather than simply pushing ever more high school graduates to attend college or university. The most important factor, however, may not be so much which occupation you choose but how you position yourself within it. As artificial intelligence advances, it’s likely that across broad swathes of the job market, jobs consisting largely of routine “nuts and bolts� activities will evaporate, while those who focus in areas requiring creative skills or who can leverage extensive professional networks in ways that add value to organizations will rise to the top. In other words, there’s likely to be something of a winner-take-all or superstar effect of the kind you see among athletes or entertainers imposed on occupations that were previously more homogeneous in terms of opportunity. A lawyer with strong courtroom skills or the client connections that bring business to the firm will likely continue to do well even as artificial intelligence advances. An attorney who, on the other hand, toils away mostly on legal research or contract analysis may be in a less promising situation. The best way for you as an individual to adapt to this situation is probably to select an occupation that you genuinely enjoy—something that you’re passionate about� because this will increase your chances of excelling and becoming an outlier in the field. Going forward, choosing an occupation simply because the field has traditionally provided lots of jobs may not be such a good bet. The problem, of course, is that this may be good advice for a given individual, but it is not a systemic solution. Many people will, in all likelihood, be left behind as these transitions unfold, and ultimately, I think we will need policies to address that reality."
My favourite idea, was likening AI to electricity. Ford suggests that AI is "poised to deliver a transformation that will someday rival the impact of electricity."
Three favourite excerpts:
"For those of us who live in the developed world, there is virtually nothing that is not somehow touched by, or indeed made possible by, access to electric power. Electricity is probably the best—and certainly the most durable� example of a general-purpose technology: in other words, an innovation that scales across and transforms every aspect of the economy and society. [...] electricity. It is, therefore, an extraordinarily bold claim to argue that artificial intelligence will evolve into a general-purpose technology of such scale and power that it can reasonably be compared to electricity. Nonetheless, there are good reasons to believe that this is the path we are on: AI, much like electricity, will eventually touch and transform virtually everything. Artificial intelligence is already impacting every sector of the economy, including agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, retail and virtually all other industries. The technology is even beginning to invade areas that we consider the most human. Already, AI-enabled chatbots provide round-the-clock access to mental health counseling. New forms of graphic art and music are being generated with deep learning technology. None of this should really surprise us. After all, virtually everything of value that human beings have created is a direct product of our intelligence—of our ability to learn, to innovate, to exhibit creativity. As AI amplifies, augments or replaces our own intelligence, it will inevitably evolve into our most powerful and widely applicable technology. Indeed, artificial intelligence may ultimately prove to be one of the most effective tools we have as we look to recover from the crisis unleashed by the coronavirus. What’s more, it’s a good bet that artificial intelligence will rise to dominance far faster than was the case with electricity. The reason is that much of the infrastructure required to deploy AI—including computers, the internet, mobile data services and especially the massive cloud computing facilities maintained by companies like Amazon,Microsoft and Google—is already in place. Imagine how rapidly electrification might have occurred if most power plants and transmission lines had already been built at the time Edison invented the light bulb. Artificial intelligence is poised to reshape our world—and it may happen much sooner than we expect it [...] The upshot of all this is that AI will ultimately achieve the reach of electricity, but it will never have the same stability or predictability. It will always remain a vastly more dynamic and disruptive force with the potential to upend nearly anything it touches. Intelligence is, after all, the ultimate resource—it is the fundamental capability that underlies everything human beings have ever created. It is difficult to imagine a development more consequential than the transformation of that resource into a universally accessible and affordable utility".
"The reality is that artificial intelligence will be a dual-edged sword in terms of its economic impact. On one hand, it will likely increase productivity, make products and services more affordable and enable innovation that can improve all our lives. AI has the potential to create economic value that will be indispensable as we look toward digging ourselves out of the massive economic hole in which we now find ourselves. On the other hand, it is virtually certain to eliminate or deskill millions of jobs while driving economic inequality to even higher levels."
On jobs for the future:
"I’ve found that the most common questions I receive from the audience are nearly always the same: what jobs are most likely to be safe, and what fields should I advise my children to study? The general answer is perhaps a bit obvious and unsatisfying: avoid jobs that tend to be fundamentally routine and predictable in nature. These are clearly the areas that will see the most significant near-term impact of AI-powered automation. Another way to phrase this might be “avoid jobs that are boring.� If you’re coming to work and facing new challenges every day and if you’re constantly learning on the job, then you’re probably well positioned to stay ahead of technology, at least for the foreseeable future. If, on the other hand, you spend a lot of time cranking out the same kinds of reports, presentations or analyses again and again, you should probably start to worry—and begin to think about adjusting your career trajectory. More specifically, I think the jobs least susceptible to automation in the near to intermediate term fall into threegeneral areas. First, jobs that are genuinely creative in nature are likely to be relatively safe. If you’re thinking outside the box, coming up with innovative strategies to solve unforeseen problems or building something genuinely new, then I think you will be well positioned to leverage artificial intelligence as a tool. In other words, the technology is much more likely to compliment you than it is to replace you. To be sure, significant research into building creative machines is underway, and AI will inevitably begin to encroach on creative work as well. Already smart algorithms can paint original works of art, formulate scientific hypotheses, compose classical music and generate innovative electronic designs. DeepMind’s AlphaGo and AlphaZero have injected new energy and creativity into professional Go and chess competitions because the systems represent truly alien intelligences, often adopting unconventional strategies that astonish human experts. However, I think that for the foreseeable future artificial intelligence will be used to amplify, rather than replace, human creativity. A second safe area consists of those jobs that put a premium on building meaningful and complex relationships with other people. This would include, for example, the kind of empathetic, caring relationship that a nurse might have with a patient, or that a business person or consultant offering sophisticated advice might develop with a client. It’s important to note that I’m not referring so much to short-term service encounters that involve smiling and being friendly with customers, but rather those that require deeper and more complex interpersonal interactions. Once again, AI is also encroaching into this area; as we saw in Chapter 3, chatbots can, for example, already provide rudimentary mental health therapy, and there will continue to be significant advances in AI’s ability to perceive, respond to and simulate human emotion. I think it will be a long time, however, before machines become capable ofdeveloping truly sophisticated, multidimensional relationships with people. The third general category of safe jobs includes occupations that require significant mobility, dexterity and problem-solving skills in unpredictable environments. Nurses and elder care assistants would also fall into this category, as would skilled trade occupations like plumbers, electricians and mechanics. Building affordable robots capable of automating work of this type likely lies far in the future. These skilled trade jobs will generally represent some of the best opportunities for those who choose not to pursue a college education. In the United States, I think we should be putting far more emphasis on accessible vocational training or apprenticeships that prepare young people for these opportunities rather than simply pushing ever more high school graduates to attend college or university. The most important factor, however, may not be so much which occupation you choose but how you position yourself within it. As artificial intelligence advances, it’s likely that across broad swathes of the job market, jobs consisting largely of routine “nuts and bolts� activities will evaporate, while those who focus in areas requiring creative skills or who can leverage extensive professional networks in ways that add value to organizations will rise to the top. In other words, there’s likely to be something of a winner-take-all or superstar effect of the kind you see among athletes or entertainers imposed on occupations that were previously more homogeneous in terms of opportunity. A lawyer with strong courtroom skills or the client connections that bring business to the firm will likely continue to do well even as artificial intelligence advances. An attorney who, on the other hand, toils away mostly on legal research or contract analysis may be in a less promising situation. The best way for you as an individual to adapt to this situation is probably to select an occupation that you genuinely enjoy—something that you’re passionate about� because this will increase your chances of excelling and becoming an outlier in the field. Going forward, choosing an occupation simply because the field has traditionally provided lots of jobs may not be such a good bet. The problem, of course, is that this may be good advice for a given individual, but it is not a systemic solution. Many people will, in all likelihood, be left behind as these transitions unfold, and ultimately, I think we will need policies to address that reality."
October 8, 2024
The newest technological trends will no doubt impact what we see, hear, how we work, telecommute etc and will these changes be positive or negative; many new skills will have to be learned, developed but then there will also be risks from deepfake activities, from a libertarian orientation. There will need to be some regulations between large technology companies and AI regulatory agencies and governments but when will it be useful and when undue influence. So much to consider, concern ourselves with, stay up to date with. Amazing the number of companies that Ford mentions in this 2021 book that have already disappeared or merged with much larger companies. Ford "suggests a productive alliance between industry, academia and government centred in a regulatory agency with sufficient in-house expertise to keep things moving in the right direction so that AI is deployed safely, inclusively and justly" (p263).
November 10, 2024
"Teremos de aprender a navegar numa nova realidade sem precedentes, em que tudo o que vemos e ouvimos pode potencialmente ser uma ilusão."
Um livro que faz um bom apanhado sobre o que se passa na IA e os seus futuros problemas, contudo, não aprofunda nas possÃveis soluções (apesar de o autor apresentar algumas), porque ainda não as temos.
Uma coisa é certa: ninguém tem a certeza de nada.
O livro dá uma breve apanhado técnico do que é a IA e quais os seus tipos, explorando vários dos seus desafios futuros. Desafios tais como a IAG (Inteligência Artificial Geral) em que se fala das várias modalidades que estão a ser exploradas para tentar que a máquina seja capaz de ir mais longe do que apenas juntar probabilidades, sem compreender o que está a fazer.
Depois explora o impacto económico e como, inevitavelmente, a IA será mais útil que um ser humano (ainda está longe, mas está próximo )e o problema da distribuição de riqueza (a IA irá fazer aumentar o crescimento da economia, mas está previsto que apenas uma pequena parte dos seres humanos usufrua disso). Passa pelas questões de polÃtica internacional, focando-se na China. Aqui entrou para mim o capÃtulo mais assustador: depois de a AI ter batido um humano num jogo Go, a China apercebeu-se das suas potencialidade. O livro fala como o Partido Comunista incentivou o aparecimento de empresas investigadoras neste ramo e as colocou ao serviço dos seus interesses, que claramente passam por reforçar ainda mais o seu sistema de vigilância sobre os cidadãos, que se baseia num tipo de Crédito Social por pontos, ao estilo de George Orwell.
É assustador como a AI está a ser implementada para seguir e devassar a vida dos cidadãos que, tudo o que fazem, por ser centralizada praticamente na mesma plataforma, a WeChat, é monitorizado e registado. No geral, este sistema é bem aceite pela população chinesa, mas ainda muito difÃcil de aceitar no ocidente. No entanto, fica a questão: até quando? Os sistemas de defesa e policiamento já têm acesso a estas tecnologias e, inclusivamente, se não fosse pelo escrutÃnio dos cidadãos e media, não se saberia em que grau são estas tecnologias usadas.
Tecnologias que em muito têm de ser aperfeiçoadas, nomeadamente a nÃvel de estas reproduzirem preconceitos, nomeadamente de género e raça. Sendo que, já são mal empregues, como vemos através das DeepFakes que estão a ser usadas das formas mais misóginas.
Infelizmente, este não é o livro que transmite esperança porque tudo o que este descreve em termos de problemas, conseguimos observar a decorrer à nossa frente, sem existirem respostas fortes frente aos perigos económicos, sociais e polÃticos. No entanto, não deixo de ficar maravilhada com o que estamos prestes a conseguir alcançar e de sentir que assistimos à quilo que irá ser a base de uma nova Era. Se estaremos cá para a ver? Talvez não, mas estivemos cá para a ver ser desenhada.
Um livro que faz um bom apanhado sobre o que se passa na IA e os seus futuros problemas, contudo, não aprofunda nas possÃveis soluções (apesar de o autor apresentar algumas), porque ainda não as temos.
Uma coisa é certa: ninguém tem a certeza de nada.
O livro dá uma breve apanhado técnico do que é a IA e quais os seus tipos, explorando vários dos seus desafios futuros. Desafios tais como a IAG (Inteligência Artificial Geral) em que se fala das várias modalidades que estão a ser exploradas para tentar que a máquina seja capaz de ir mais longe do que apenas juntar probabilidades, sem compreender o que está a fazer.
Depois explora o impacto económico e como, inevitavelmente, a IA será mais útil que um ser humano (ainda está longe, mas está próximo )e o problema da distribuição de riqueza (a IA irá fazer aumentar o crescimento da economia, mas está previsto que apenas uma pequena parte dos seres humanos usufrua disso). Passa pelas questões de polÃtica internacional, focando-se na China. Aqui entrou para mim o capÃtulo mais assustador: depois de a AI ter batido um humano num jogo Go, a China apercebeu-se das suas potencialidade. O livro fala como o Partido Comunista incentivou o aparecimento de empresas investigadoras neste ramo e as colocou ao serviço dos seus interesses, que claramente passam por reforçar ainda mais o seu sistema de vigilância sobre os cidadãos, que se baseia num tipo de Crédito Social por pontos, ao estilo de George Orwell.
É assustador como a AI está a ser implementada para seguir e devassar a vida dos cidadãos que, tudo o que fazem, por ser centralizada praticamente na mesma plataforma, a WeChat, é monitorizado e registado. No geral, este sistema é bem aceite pela população chinesa, mas ainda muito difÃcil de aceitar no ocidente. No entanto, fica a questão: até quando? Os sistemas de defesa e policiamento já têm acesso a estas tecnologias e, inclusivamente, se não fosse pelo escrutÃnio dos cidadãos e media, não se saberia em que grau são estas tecnologias usadas.
Tecnologias que em muito têm de ser aperfeiçoadas, nomeadamente a nÃvel de estas reproduzirem preconceitos, nomeadamente de género e raça. Sendo que, já são mal empregues, como vemos através das DeepFakes que estão a ser usadas das formas mais misóginas.
Infelizmente, este não é o livro que transmite esperança porque tudo o que este descreve em termos de problemas, conseguimos observar a decorrer à nossa frente, sem existirem respostas fortes frente aos perigos económicos, sociais e polÃticos. No entanto, não deixo de ficar maravilhada com o que estamos prestes a conseguir alcançar e de sentir que assistimos à quilo que irá ser a base de uma nova Era. Se estaremos cá para a ver? Talvez não, mas estivemos cá para a ver ser desenhada.
December 10, 2021
Martin Ford is a prolific author, his work as futurist and AI first row reporter is very important for those of us who care about what is coming without having the connections, knowledge and time to be at the front line. Rule of Robots is an excellent description of the challenges, possible avenues and timeframe. Although it is impossible to know what, when and how this book narrows the scenarios. Time will be the final arbiter of Ford's accuracy, but we can make a choice now.
One of the most interesting ideas is Ford's analogy of AI an electricity. It is a technology that is already prevailing in all aspects of life; mobile phones, hiring, production, entertaining, etc. Thus it is not affecting only specific sectors. If AI were more narrow, it would be possible to compensate its effects with retraining, support to the affected. However, being so broad, solutions need to be strategic and general.
It is in the economic analysis where Ford arguments are weak. His neoclassical point of view is limited and ends relying the general solution on more power to governments. A false choice between unregulated/job-destoying technology or an almighty winner-chooser government. Ford's description of the struggle between Western mostly free countries (lead by the US) and an authoritarian China should prove that government is not the solution.
One of the most interesting ideas is Ford's analogy of AI an electricity. It is a technology that is already prevailing in all aspects of life; mobile phones, hiring, production, entertaining, etc. Thus it is not affecting only specific sectors. If AI were more narrow, it would be possible to compensate its effects with retraining, support to the affected. However, being so broad, solutions need to be strategic and general.
It is in the economic analysis where Ford arguments are weak. His neoclassical point of view is limited and ends relying the general solution on more power to governments. A false choice between unregulated/job-destoying technology or an almighty winner-chooser government. Ford's description of the struggle between Western mostly free countries (lead by the US) and an authoritarian China should prove that government is not the solution.
December 22, 2022
Martin Forddan bir kitap daha bitirdik..
Yazarımızın yazım tarzı hoşuma gitti. Kaynak sayfaları çıktığımız zaman 270 gibi bir sayfa tutan kitabımız YZ teknolojilerinin günümüzdeki ve gelecek zamanda olabilecek potensiyel avantajlarını ve tehlikelerini ele almış. Gerçi bu konuda Nick Bostrom isimli yazarın "Süper Zeka" kitabını okumak daha iyi olurdu ama ben "Süper Zeka" kitabını daha sonraya saklamayı tercih ediyorum.
Daha önceki yorumlarda kitabın isminin yanıltıcı olduğu gibi birşey okumuştum. Kitabı okuduğum zaman bunun kanıtlarını daha iyi deneyimledim diyebilirim. Zira kitabın isminde yazmasına rağmen robotlar ve YZ hiç de günümüz dünyasına hükmetmiyor. Ve yazarın kitapda sunduğu verinin (8 yıl aralıklı) örneğine bakılırsa YZ 21. yüzyılın sonuna kadar da hükmetmeyecek gibi gözüküyor. Hatta o zaman bile hükmetmemesi mümkün, zira makinelerin bizim gibi düşüne bilmediğinin örnekleri neredeyse heryerde. Gözümüze çarpan ve bazen de korkutucu gelecek dünyası tasvirine aldanmak içten bile değil aslında.
Kitap konusunda diyebileceğim şeylerden biri de basitçe ifade edersem, aslında bu kitabın yazarımızın daha önceki okuduğum kitabı olan "Robotların Yükselişi"nin güncellenmiş edisyonu. Zira her iki kitapda sürücüsüz arabalar, kendi-kendine hareket eden robotlar, YZ-nin dokunacağı işler gibi pek çok benzer konu var. Yani temelde o kadar da büyük fark yok gibi.
Yazarımızın yazım tarzı hoşuma gitti. Kaynak sayfaları çıktığımız zaman 270 gibi bir sayfa tutan kitabımız YZ teknolojilerinin günümüzdeki ve gelecek zamanda olabilecek potensiyel avantajlarını ve tehlikelerini ele almış. Gerçi bu konuda Nick Bostrom isimli yazarın "Süper Zeka" kitabını okumak daha iyi olurdu ama ben "Süper Zeka" kitabını daha sonraya saklamayı tercih ediyorum.
Daha önceki yorumlarda kitabın isminin yanıltıcı olduğu gibi birşey okumuştum. Kitabı okuduğum zaman bunun kanıtlarını daha iyi deneyimledim diyebilirim. Zira kitabın isminde yazmasına rağmen robotlar ve YZ hiç de günümüz dünyasına hükmetmiyor. Ve yazarın kitapda sunduğu verinin (8 yıl aralıklı) örneğine bakılırsa YZ 21. yüzyılın sonuna kadar da hükmetmeyecek gibi gözüküyor. Hatta o zaman bile hükmetmemesi mümkün, zira makinelerin bizim gibi düşüne bilmediğinin örnekleri neredeyse heryerde. Gözümüze çarpan ve bazen de korkutucu gelecek dünyası tasvirine aldanmak içten bile değil aslında.
Kitap konusunda diyebileceğim şeylerden biri de basitçe ifade edersem, aslında bu kitabın yazarımızın daha önceki okuduğum kitabı olan "Robotların Yükselişi"nin güncellenmiş edisyonu. Zira her iki kitapda sürücüsüz arabalar, kendi-kendine hareket eden robotlar, YZ-nin dokunacağı işler gibi pek çok benzer konu var. Yani temelde o kadar da büyük fark yok gibi.
December 6, 2021
I have read a few books about Artificial intelligence. And I think that rule of the robots is one of the best about the subject. My favorite chapter was China and the rise of the AI surveillance state. Which talks about how china is using A.I. to surveil its citizens.
Rule of the robots talks about the history of A.I., some of the important areas where A.I. is used, the impact A.I might have on jobs, the problems with todays A.I technology with regard to the field advancing; Deep learning takes a lot of data, Reinforcement learning takes a lot of trial to get the computer to get good a what you want it to get good at, when A.I. reads text it has no idea what the text means. Rule of the robots even talks about deep fakes.
So I thought Rule of the robots was a wide ranging discussion on Artificial Intelligence.
Rule of the robots talks about the history of A.I., some of the important areas where A.I. is used, the impact A.I might have on jobs, the problems with todays A.I technology with regard to the field advancing; Deep learning takes a lot of data, Reinforcement learning takes a lot of trial to get the computer to get good a what you want it to get good at, when A.I. reads text it has no idea what the text means. Rule of the robots even talks about deep fakes.
So I thought Rule of the robots was a wide ranging discussion on Artificial Intelligence.
April 5, 2023
I decided to pick this book up because I wanted to add some nonfiction into my normal reading habits, and with the recent overwhelming influx of AI in social media, I thought it would be timely.
I liked that Ford situated his audience in the history, present state, and possible future of AI. Some of the ideas and themes were a little over my head, and I felt like I should’ve kept a notepad handy to reference the different theories within AI and the various companies throughout the industry. But his speculations and defenses for how AI will impact society were easier to understand and I often found myself guessing what the next paragraph or sentence would say. The second half of this book was very helpful for understanding what the future may entail for AI, and how it would affect the general population.
I liked that Ford situated his audience in the history, present state, and possible future of AI. Some of the ideas and themes were a little over my head, and I felt like I should’ve kept a notepad handy to reference the different theories within AI and the various companies throughout the industry. But his speculations and defenses for how AI will impact society were easier to understand and I often found myself guessing what the next paragraph or sentence would say. The second half of this book was very helpful for understanding what the future may entail for AI, and how it would affect the general population.
February 20, 2024
I am relatively new to the world of Artificial Intelligence, and I decided to read this book because I just became responsible for supporting AI development at my company. Martin Ford starts at a beginner level, and I appreciated that. As the book went on (and as the concepts became increasingly complex), I occasionally lost the thread. Some of the chapters were more relevant and interesting to me than others, but each chapter had something to teach, and I’m glad I read this. The chapters about changes to the future job market were particularly eye-opening, and as a mother, I learned about some career choices to steer my kids away from. I’m not sure this book is the best introduction to AI (perhaps Ford’s first book—Rise of the Robots—would be a better place to start), but I would still recommend it. I listened to this as an audiobook, and it worked well in that format.
May 13, 2024
I loved Martin Ford's "Rise of the Robots" but found that there was less original work here -- perhaps because there's been lots of great new writing on the future of AI (I've read 10 books on the topic in the last month or so), and this level of effort no longer stands out as truly exceptional.
This is a good book for folks who don't have the time to read deeply on the topic. Ford's writing is clear, approachable, and he makes great decisions about which parts of the massive topic to tackle. It doesn't quite live up to the marketing copy: "Rule of the Robots is the essential guide to all of both AI and the future of our economy, our politics, our lives", but it comes close!
This is a good book for folks who don't have the time to read deeply on the topic. Ford's writing is clear, approachable, and he makes great decisions about which parts of the massive topic to tackle. It doesn't quite live up to the marketing copy: "Rule of the Robots is the essential guide to all of both AI and the future of our economy, our politics, our lives", but it comes close!
August 30, 2023
I heard Martin Ford talking about this book and AI in general a month of so ago on RNZ and thought he sounded like someone who could write a book about AI that I might be able to understand. I actually feel like I could hold a conversation with someone now about AI and know what I was talking about.
December 12, 2022
Another fascinating read by Martin Ford. Rise of the Robots ignited an interest in AI. Architects of Intelligence inspired me to seek an AI certification, and this book further fuels my interest in the future of AI. A truly amazing subject so clearly captured by Martin. Love his work and definitely recommend..
June 19, 2023
Picked this up in order to learn about AI from scratch. It taught me two things thoroughly.
- A great basic understanding of AI as a subject
- Martin Ford (the author) is left-wing as they come
I don’t agree with alot of his world views that were inserted into this book about tech, but he definitely did a great job of explaining AI. So 4 stars
- A great basic understanding of AI as a subject
- Martin Ford (the author) is left-wing as they come
I don’t agree with alot of his world views that were inserted into this book about tech, but he definitely did a great job of explaining AI. So 4 stars
December 24, 2021
Longitudinal AI View
Interesting stories evolve around the promises and perils behind AI, with good researched points of view, examples and of course, some educated guess speculation
Interesting stories evolve around the promises and perils behind AI, with good researched points of view, examples and of course, some educated guess speculation
July 29, 2022
A little too technical for what I was looking for, so if you are into that you will probably really enjoy. There was still some interesting concepts and ideas discussed that made it worth finishing the read, even if skimming some of the more technical parts.
September 8, 2022
A good source if you are looking to generally expand your knowledgebase on the topic of A.I. I gave the book 2 stars because I think that the title is misleading and counterproductive. Most of the book addresses the practical applications of A.I. that will occur in the foreseeable future. The title only supports all the fear that people have for this technology - some kind of terminator style uprising of cyborgs that will end the human race, ergo 'RISE OF THE ROBOTS', however, the reality is that we might have more unattended grocery stores soon.
January 20, 2023
I love a good storyteller; however, this book is more like a historical documentation of the significant changes occurring in the 21st century, for example, the coronavirus and the development of Tesla. The topics discussed in this book could have been more concise.
February 4, 2024
This book opened my eyes,advanced my knowledge of AI,and genuinely made me concerned for the future of this world. My five star review also represents the number of decades I believe remain for man's existence on this orb.
May 25, 2024
Perfect overview of the current studies/upgrades in IA industry, including a very good “dummy� explanation concerning the future of current jobs! Nice opinion by the author and supported by. Kudos for an excellent mapping and different views of current and future IA risks.
May 28, 2024
A survey of the state of AI in 2021 and of the things that could go wrong (will go wrong). The author closes on an optimistic note, but the book does not offer detailed thoughts on what to do about the problem.
October 18, 2021
There wasn't much new in this book if you are familiar with A.I. technology. Parts of the comparison of Chinese vs Western progress on AI was very insightful though.
November 9, 2021
I loved Rise of the Robots. This book wasn’t as good but still had very interesting new information. We’ll worth reading!
November 29, 2021
An update on recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence and the realistic opportunities and dangers of the technology which are imminent.
February 6, 2022
Nice job of addressing the new normal and the fears stoked by dystopian literature. Who can say what’s ahead, but it’s still good and necessary to plan for it.
March 10, 2022
Didn't enjoy this one as much as Rise of the Robots but still a lot of good information.
October 30, 2022
Harika bir kitap. YZ , derin ogrenme gibi gelecegin konulari uzerine farkli boyutlardan yaklasim; hem teknoloji, hem ekonomi hem sosyoloji�
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