Everywhere AI bots, Is That So

So, to begin let me first spend a few lines, to tell something about my work. Actually, I am working as a researcher and doing research in current hot topic AI/ML. Apart from doing my own research, I also try to keep an eye on recent development happening in this field. And recently, I had got an opportunity to attend a conference in Japan. Japan is considered as a leader in terms of technological advancements. And actually that country amazed me, with its humble and helpful citizens to the most advanced technologies like human robots. This country landed far beyond my imagination in the context of research and development in AI/ML. They have worked efficiently and creatively on every single piece of work so as to enable ease of living for their citizens. Also, if you talk about preservation of natural beauty then I think you will need to redefine the word beauty once you visit Japan. It's a must country to visit at least once in life.

After attending the conference, when I was waiting for my return flight in the lobby a sudden surge of thought arose in my mind. I felt an impulse within me and it scared me. Suddenly, my heart asked a question (definitely not the brain as I know my researcher brain will not ask such stupid question). This question led to the consecutive set of arguments within me, and this fight had gone to such level that I got scared. Meanwhile a good thing happened, this war kept me awake till the waiting time and I didn't miss the flight.

The question/doubt or series of arguments (or whatever word you may like to describe it) started as follows...

In the current era, the AI/ML is invading our life in every aspect, so in future we will not need humans anymore? Is it so? If we training our machines to do every single task for us then are we going to lose our jobs? If this development of AI keeps on pacing ahead then that day is not far ahead when we will have to struggle for our survival not just with other living beings but also with robots? Is it so? So the next world war will be the war between human and human trained machines? Is that even possible? In fact, even now there are some countries where citizenship is given to robots, a piece of machinery tools assembled together in a beautiful fashion and trained as a human mind. Besides, we can't deny the fact that machines can perform tasks with better accuracy and precision than human beings. So what is next? The war for survival, the end of human being? With the advent of AI bots in our life, are we going to lose human existence? Is it so?

Like, in Japan I saw a small piece of machine or robot which you can buy and this bot can behave like your girlfriend or companion as per your wants. Basically, these bots are trained so beautifully and efficiently that you cannot recognize whether its a living being or a machine. You can talk to them like a live person. I know, many of you cannot relate to this, because this has yet to come to our country. Thank god! that we have enough number of girls that we don't need a machine to serve the purpose of the girlfriend (or maybe in future we will need it because possessing a living girlfriend is becoming expensive these days.

And then, I found another field of research where numerous scientist are exhausting their brain to replace human drivers with machine-driven vehicles. The great scientists all around the world are spending their days and nights in the laboratory, to develop such automatic self-driven vehicle. Their whole and sole aim is to provide ease of conveyance and to reduce road accidents. Obviously, like human beings these machines cannot cause an accident by driving vehicles in the drunk state. Even the speed, acceleration and position accuracy will be more accurate and precise as compared to human driving.

Next, there is another dimension of indulgence of AI in day-to-day life, i.e. replacement of human monitoring of kids and patients with machine monitoring. There are some companies which are working on development to AI based bots to look after patients in the hospitals and for small kids or old aged family members at home. Definitely, this work is going to lay off the jobs of nurses, day care maids at hospitals and might be emergency doctors to some extent? That means a mother is not required to nurture kids, AI bot can groom kids. In fact, a woman can buy a bot kid compared to giving birth to a natural child, this way she can enjoy her motherhood without any pain. Isn't this fantastic?

Or is this creepy and scary? Is this where are we heading? With all these research and advancements, scientists all around the world, are aiming at simplifying our day-to-day life on this earth. But somehow we have intruded into the private life of human, and certainly with the introduction of humanoid a common man feel invaded by robots. The research and development that I have mentioned above involves physical and intellectual spirits of human beings and with time these are quite efficiently being replicated in robots/machine using complex algorithm and brain-teasing mathematics. With such technological development, obviously we are going to face a job crisis. For example, a delivery person will lose his job because there will be drones deployed all around the city to provide door to door service. I can imagine, in future we will not have any work to do besides just commanding robots? Or the another way around, following commands of humanoid (the perfectly trained machine)? Isn't this amazing? Or creepy?

Not just these dimensions, this technology is now extending its reach in emotional intelligence aspect of human also. Until recently, I had a belief that emotional intelligence is one dimension in which humans can leave behind AI. Since, all the tasks requiring memorization and logic have already been invaded by AI, I had an impression that we can defeat this AI with our emotional intelligence. I was unaware of the fact that scientist have already sown the seeds of AI in this dimension and they are extensively exploring the emotional part of human intelligence. Fortunately, with this conference I got enlightened. There are multiple research groups in big universities and industries who are working on making machines emotionally intelligent, just like human being.

One of the recent books that I read, the author mentioned that our emotions and feelings are results of a set of organic algorithms that respond to our environment. And these algorithms are shaped by our cultural history, upbringing, and experiences.

I am scared that, if this is true then certainly one day scientist can use reverse engineering to replicate human emotion and feelings in machines. Is it so?

Moreover, if we observe ourselves then we will notice that we are actually not good at EQ. Generally, in our day-to-day life, most of us are ignorant about how our words trigger emotions in us as well as other people. We keep on fighting instead of having good sensible arguments because we are so much dipped in our own biases. With this kind of attitude and prejudices, we judge people based on their stereotypes. In fact, even after knowing the fact that any argument by anyone is not just the result of knowledge of the topic but its an accumulation of different parameters like cultural context, family background or life incidents of that person, we don't put an effort in gaining this information from our discussion partner. We rarely try to put ourselves in other person's position if they argue against our biases or prejudices. What kind of emotional intelligence is this? Actually, with time we are becoming more emotional fool than intelligent. Now I think in such a situation, it is the demand of hours to have an emotional intelligent humanoid.

Also, we have started taking Darwin's concept of survival more seriously these days, we have started believing and acting as per this statement i.e. "survival of the fittest". We want to prove ourselves superior to everybody else and to do this we take advantage of others. And at the end, this satiate our thirst to boost up our egos. This is well known that most successful people often lie to gain an advantage ahead, and deceive to hide their sins. We are focused towards winning at all cost even if our action cause lots of emotional damage to self or others.

The irony is that while we are struggling to understand each other, the scientists have developed emotionally intelligent AI bots which can decipher almost any emotion better than us (including the scientists :P). Fortunately, they have not put much effort in the scientific study of emotionally intelligent AI bots, that's why are still alive(just a joke). Currently, these advancements are mostly driven by commercial interest and to compensate for human laziness and greed. Hopefully, if the process is continued, one day this world will be ruled by AI bots (humanoids) and we will become an emotional fool, a puppet controlled by machines and bounded by the set of mathematical equations. In fact, to some extent, we have already become like this. Think of the way your emotions and feeling changes as you scroll your Facebook page, does that application makes your emotion to flow like the sine wave? Are you getting fooled by AI sitting behind Facebook? Is it so?

Besides, I feel that in this race of bringing machines to behave at par to that of human beings, we have forgotten that we are also provided with a complex and well developed machine i.e. Human brain. And in this process of training external machine we completely miss the concept of understanding our brains. We are blindfolded by our luxurious life. It may happen that after some 10-15 years we don't need humans in the offices to perform different activities as machines or bots can fulfill all these needs in better ways. Then are we going to lose our jobs? How will we survive? No jobs mean no money, no money implies no roti kapda makan, and if basic necessities are not fulfilled then what? Extinction of human beings? Is that so?

Personally, I believe that there is a huge difference between natural intelligence that we as a human being are born gifted and the artificial intelligence which is the copy of natural one being created by us. Even in future, this artificial intelligence cannot hijack our natural intelligence but for that, we need to be aware of this powerful tool else we will become living robots guided by machinery robots.

Lastly, I believe that definitely scientist can train and design AI to behave or react like a human brain but certainly not the exact human brain. Because the human brain is extremely complex and unpredictable machine which cannot be mapped even with millions and zillions of variables put in a mathematical formulation. Especially the part of the brain with which we create emotion and feeling within us is different for each one of us. So it seems next to impossible to replicate all such forms in machines. Moreover, there is no real evidence of the statement that human cognition is a set of an algorithm.

Also, nobody has yet got any evidence to support the assumption that our emotions can be modeled using algorithms which can be reverse engineered to produce and reproduce results. In fact, we have yet to understand the term consciousness, before putting it into mathematical models. Without knowledge of human consciousness, it seems absurd to reverse engineer it and to train the machines to have a conscious mind. Our EQ is largely based on our ability to empathize. We feel what others feel. But we have no clue how to reproduce that because we have no clue what it means. We know what it’s like, to feel. We don’t know what it means. We don’t know what causes that. We don’t know what is cognition. We don’t know what makes a subjective experience. We have the experience but we have not been very successful in understanding it. So we have no reason to believe that an algorithm can reproduce that. At least not until we have some kind of understanding what this conscious really is.

Though nowadays people have started behaving more like a set of machines and they have forgotten the EQ power still this is a basic human nature which can't be removed from a human. If we want to stop the replication of our behavior in machines then we need to recall our basic human nature. And for that, we need to become more conscious so as to save ourselves from the scary dream of this world being run by AI bots. Among all living beings we humans only have this power and in coming years this will help us to survive and enjoy our journey on this earth. This is the mystical gift of the creator to us which differentiate us from the assembly of mathematical models and machines called AI bots.

From today onward, I promise myself to be conscious of life and things around me. Do you also want to improve your EQ so that we can avoid the slavery of machines? Isn't it cool?

Keyword Def :Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is defined as the ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions, and to recognize, monitor, and influence the emotions of others.