AI Will Teach Us to Be Human

Judgment Day Is Only the Beginning

In 2017, PwC published a paper that documented its prediction of the future of human jobs in the US and UK; specifically, it looked at job automation as a result of developments in robotics and AI. The paper puts PwC’s prediction side-by-side against other predictions from Frey and Osbourne (FO) and Arntz, Gregory and Zierahn (AGZ).

Predictions of current jobs automated by 2030 (Source: PwC)

Despite what PwC, FO or AGZ may predict, the magnitude of AI’s effect on the world may not be truly realized until it happens. Think about what happened with the newspaper industry. In 2006, the Guardian published an opinion piece, Blogging Is Not Journalism. Three years later, Business Insider published an article called The Year the Newspaper Died. We saw the Internet coming even before 2006, but at the time, few could have realized the revolutionary impact it would make, not just on the newspaper industry, but the world as a whole.

AI has the potential for an even greater impact. It isn’t just through AI itself, though; simultaneously developing technologies like blockchain, 5G, and robotics will integrate with AI to enable the largest impact. In 2030, if PwC’s prediction becomes reality, more than a third of existing jobs in the US today will be handled by robots and/or AI. Take that timeline a bit farther, and one day we may see a complete displacement of human workers, which spans all ends of the employment spectrum.

What Makes Us Human

We have a tendency, maybe desperation, to draw a line between ourselves and everything else. The question of what makes us human existed far before the idea of artificial intelligence was conceived. That’s why the answer has changed throughout human history. Before civilization, the answer archaeologists pointed to was our opposable thumbs and increasing neural count. During modern human development, it was our complex social structures and cognitive ability to develop language and quantification, which led to society.

When robots and AI were little more than the imagination of authors or film-makers, our answer changed yet again, but this time it was a little different. Previous answers were created to explain why we were at the top of the food chain, but this new answer was created to explain why we should remain there. Unfortunately, we could no longer depend on our bread-winning characteristics: language and quantification. After all, computer data is transferred and processed much faster than human data. So we started saying that only humans were capable of love and art. But we were wrong.

The complicated thing about art and love is that both are not well-defined. Art is subjective, depending on the tastes of the audience. Love is also subjective — it’s a mysterious emotion that we have a hard time describing. Its complexity arises from the fact that it is a mixture of natural processes and human culture; i.e., it’s both natural and unnatural.

What is natural is our desire to reproduce. What is unnatural is the institution of marriage — I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m only saying that it’s not genetically coded in us, but rather, taught to us. Before 2350 B.C., we have no recorded evidence of marriage and anthropologists believe that families were small groups of people that consisted “of as many as 30 people, with several male leaders, multiple women shared by them, and children.”

The best available evidence suggests that [marriage is] about 4,350 years old. For thousands of years before that, most anthropologists believe, families consisted of loosely organized groups of as many as 30 people, with several male leaders, multiple women shared by them, and children. - The Week

Although we initially fell back on the softer, unmeasurable aspects of humanity, those features (art and love) may not be unique to humans for much longer.

Sugar, Spice, and 3v3ryth1ng Nice

Mario Klingemann’s Memories of Passersby I (Source: The Verge)

In Spring 2019, AI art went up for auction at Sotheby’s. It was generated by a general adversarial network (GAN) — which is fancy-speak for a methodology of creating AI algorithms by using two computer participants. The first participant takes a bunch of data, tries to make sense of it (in this case, images of art), and then produce its version of it. The second participant is trained to spot AI-generated materials vs. human generated materials. If it can tell the difference, then the first participant did not generate a good-enough piece of art and tries again (note: the participants are not humans, just computers). Now that AI has started generating art, and it’s selling at Sotheby’s, our argument of human artistic skill is questioned.

Furthermore, love and affection are becoming more common with our robotics counterparts as the interaction between humans and robots shifts from the hand (i.e., typing) to voice and face. The anthropomorphism of computers is shifting their role from tool to companion. Devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home are becoming integrated into our lives, learning about what we like and the rhythm of our daily routines. Over 110 million of those sorts of devices were shipped in 2018. As person who’s lost an Amazon Echo, I can attest to the human emotions I felt — akin to losing a friend.

AIBO, Sony’s AI-enabled Robot Dog (Source: AIBO Official Website)

Even the AIBO, a very basic AI-enabled robotic version of a dog, is seen differently from a tool like an iPhone. A 2008 study observing the behavior of children interacting with AIBO, a robotic dog built by Sony, vs. a real dog showed that 60% of those children affirmed that AIBO could have mental states (emotions), sociality, and moral standing — just like a human dog. But children weren’t the only ones giving and finding love and affection in AIBO — even adult owners have strong emotional attachments to their robotic best friends.

The AlphaGo documentary is a must-watch for anyone interested in AI. You can view it on NetFlix (Source: IMDB)

The once mightily human aspects of our existence are slowly eroding. AI is starting to create art, and it is also able to receive and provide love and affection. While the ability of it to do both may be limited, over time it will become more skilled at these abilities, potentially achieving a mastery that surpasses humans. We already know that this is possible.

When it comes to recognizing faces, AI is already better at it than humans — SenseTime offers the world’s most accurate facial recognition algorithms, which can be used to power smart cities with millions in population. When it comes to playing games, OpenAI has beaten the human world champions of DOTA. In the world of board games, AlphaGo has crushed the greatest Go player on the planet.

The Day of Reckoning

Fueled by technological innovation and our paradoxical desire to rebuild ourselves, the Terminator’s Judgment Day may be more inevitable than we imagine. In our data-driven world, where intelligence is measured by IQ, prosperity is measured by dollars, and social credibility is measured by followers, the human ability to quantify, store data, and act on that data accurately and efficiently falls significantly short compared to a computerized counterpart. We dub this shortcoming human error — it may be the only thing that eventually sets us apart from AI.

Goodbye, Old World

We hold on to our jobs, compare our titles, and count our money like it’s what defines life, but this very structure prevents many of us from actually living. Many live to work. Exhausting work-hours have become a naive humblebrag. And yet, when AI has come as a solution to transform the existing fabric of our society, we complain about how it will free us from the very chains we built ourselves, like a case of Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe our existing social structure wasn’t built to scale.

The population of New York City is over 8 million people. The population of the entire United States during the Revolutionary War in 1776 was 2.5 million, of which 0.5 million were estimated to be slaves. The Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution with a population of 2 million people in mind. They were managing the rights of a population 1/4 the size of New York City. Today, the Constitution is de facto law of the land in the United States, home to over 320 million people. This is also a land where a melting pot of cultures and values exist, some of which enjoy their right to bear arms while others see it as a growing problem to violence.

I’m not arguing whether or not the Constitution is appropriate for the United States in today’s world. One can certainly list the benefits of having such a law as foundational as the Constitution, I’m sure. And I think it plays a vital role in governing the country in the current state of affairs. Rather, I’m implying that the Founding Fathers probably didn’t think about the other 318 million people and cultures that would exist years later when they wrote it.

Western Nightmares and Eastern Dreams

When next-generation AI comes knocking at the door, though, it may reasonably bring with it a new societal structure. What that new structure looks like, though, varies based on who you talk to — more specifically, where you’re talking to. The most commonly juxtaposed perceptions of AI’s role in the future are between the United States and Japan. Robot vs. Human allusions are rampant in US culture with movies like Terminator and the Matrix, and thought leaders like Elon Musk and Steven Hawking. Meanwhile, Japan and many other Asian cultures grew up on robotic heroes like Astro Boy and Gundam Wing.

Joi Ito explains the difference in a 2018 article entitled Why Westerners Fear Robots and Japanese Do Not. He attributes it to the Shinto religion. In the words of Mr. Ito, “Followers of Shinto, unlike Judeo-Christian monotheists and the Greeks before them, do not believe that humans are particularly ‘special.’”

Japanese don’t make a distinction between man, the superior creature, and the world about him. Everything is fused together, and we accept robots easily along with the wide world about us, the insects, the rocks — it’s all one. We have none of the doubting attitude toward robots, as pseudohumans, that you find in the West. So here you find no resistance, simply quiet acceptance. Quote by Osamu Tezuka, Interpreted by Joi Ito

On the other hand, Christianity, the most commonly practiced religion in the West, states that humans are not only different from other animals but better, only second to God himself/herself/itself. Regardless of your religion, this artifact of Christianity, much like the idea of marriage, has dug its roots into the culture. My generation grew up with Barney songs that include lyrics like:

You are special, you’re the only one You’re the only one like you. There isn’t another in the whole wide world Who can do the things you do. - Barney in Concert

Maybe the Barney song is a biased example because I grew up with no cable television and a single VHS tape, which I used to record the Barney in Concert episode. Then I watched it over, and over, and over again because it was the only thing I could watch for the next few years of my life (well, that and Doctor Dolittle, which could also fit on the VHS). Maybe I’m the only person who got the message drilled into my brain by Barney the purple dinosaur. Regardless, Barney is not the only preacher of the human-centric view of the universe.

In the western view, nothing should eclipse man. Unfortunately, AI may someday. From this perspective, people view the doomsday scenario as a Zero-Sum Game. But it’s important to understand that it’s not a fact that drives to that conclusion; rather, it’s a culture. The proof is on the other side of the world, where people embrace the idea of coexistence with artificial intelligence. Apart from Japan, China is also prioritizing the development of AI. While in America, AI might be a well-funded idea, in China it has full support (financially and legislatively) from the government.

This isn’t to say that there is no fear from the east nor any embrace from the west. There isn’t a line drawn between the two — culture, especially in globalized nations, is becoming a blend of influences from within and outside political borders. That’s why there’s no clear determination on AI’s influence on humanity.

The Dawn of AI Is the Rebirth of Humans

AI will not, in the foreseeable future, be more human than humans because we don’t know what it means to be human; therefore, we cannot measure it and compare it. What it can do is push us to rethink the way society currently runs. With job displacement creeping in, eventually, we will hit an inflection point where we must evaluate the role that jobs play in human life.

If money is paid through work, but most of the human population cannot work, then the provision of money will have to be reconsidered. In this event, ideas like Universal Basic Income (UBI) emerge and take center stage. Money may no longer be exchanged for work because work may no longer be a requirement as a contributor to society.

But this change won’t happen overnight, and the transition period will not be pretty. Jobs will be lost, and before humanity can react appropriately, many lives will be ruined. These growing pangs, unfortunately, may become an unavoidable effect that many may mistake for the end itself, but it is a means to an end. In this transition time, it is very important for us to consider how we can mitigate the negative impacts that will occur, which is where UBI may play a critical role.

That’s about as far as I can think before I start treading into the deeper end of the orders of ignorance. Humans may no longer need to work and universal basic income may play the fundamental economic role of human existence, or the idea of monetary exchange may be replaced altogether. While I can’t contribute any meaningful discussion to the purpose of life, I can agree that the purpose is unlikely to be employed and save up a 401K.

Since the emergence of agriculture, though, human life has slowly become an expendable resource — the gasoline that makes the business, the government, or the economy run faster. The dawn of AI challenges this paradigm, but not necessarily for the worse. The efficiencies it brings provides an opportunity to live more fulfilling lives. Without the worry of jobs and paychecks and with the introduction of a more fulfillment-focused way of life, the AI day of reckoning may serve to bring us closer to answering what it means to be human.