A.I. Super-Toys Last All Summer

In several direct references to events that run parallel to the Pinnochio narrative, the 2001 film, A.I. Artificial Intelligence by Stephen Spielberg tells the story of a robot who wants to become a real boy and be loved by his mother. The events in the film stretch over a 2000 year span and highlights a state of emotion in robots that would otherwise - by today's standard of computer machinery - be considered irrational. Even with artificial 'intelligence' the robot-child is unable to understand his design purpose and the emotional 'need' - in fact part of the programming that has been unlocked by code - would be described as singularly obsessive. Ultimately there are clear limits to this version of artificial intelligence if the robot cannot self-realise. See this for a further commentary on the film.

The film is based on the Brian Aldiss short story entitled Super-Toys Last All Summer Long. Both the film and the short story take an interesting look at the subject, and highlight the ethical aspect around how desirable it is to try to build complex 'emotional' responses into machinery, and whether this is always likely to be fraught with shortcomings. Click here to read the story.

Robots of War

I begin with an extract: 

Imagine the face of warfare with autonomous robotics: Instead of our soldiers returning home in flag-draped caskets to heartbroken families, autonomous robots—mobile machines that can make decisions, such as to fire upon a target, without human intervention—can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions: from tunneling through dark caves in search of terrorists, to securing urban streets rife with sniper fire, to patrolling the skies and waterways where there is little cover from attacks, to clearing roads and seas of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to surveying damage from biochemical weapons, to guarding borders and buildings, to controlling potentially-hostile crowds, and even as the infantry frontlines.

These robots would be ‘smart’ enough to make decisions that only humans now can; and as conflicts increase in tempo and require much quicker information processing and responses, robots have a distinct advantage over the limited and fallible cognitive capabilities that we Homo sapiens have. Not only would robots expand the battlespace over difficult, larger areas of terrain, but they also represent a significant force-multiplier—each effectively doing the work of many human soldiers, while immune to sleep deprivation, fatigue, low morale, perceptual and communication challenges in the ‘fog of war’, and other performance-hindering conditions.

The extract above is taken from this report and it demonstrates that militarily, at least, there is a push to engage with new technologies. Given that Artificial Intelligence like many emerging technologies almost certainly has military patronage, is it feasible to ask if robots programmed to identify and 'fire' on the enemy combatants are one day developed to 'think' intelligently?

Whilst some of this sounds a little like Skynet from Terminator, I do have a serious question. Can we predict the future directions of 'intelligent' technologies? Are people always in 'control'  or could there be a type of artificial intelligence that eventually develops its own reasoning and consciousness and in the process choose break free of control?

Artifical Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is a topic that captures my interest and over the next few postings I hope to explore some of the ethical thoughts and issues around this. 

In particular what inspires these postings are Sebastian Thrun's keynote speech at TED last year in which he spoke about Google's driverless car. Thrun's conjecture is that driverless cars can be programmed to scan the entire environment around them and react accordingly, thus making them safer than human-driven cars.

Master/Machine

I like the idea of developing technologies to make the world safer, though in the next posting we will explore a little more about what it means to be 'safe', bearing in mind that 'pilotless' drones do not inspire ideas of safety for those living in the Pak-Afghan border regions. Admittedly, some of these drones are operated remotely and thus there is still a human-control element to them, but there is a pattern of military needs shaping advances in technology. For now, Sebastian Thrun makes a plausible case for going driverless:

Find out more on Sebastian Thrun's speech at TED last year.

Beloved Allah

Beloved Lord, Almighty Allah
Aside from Whom there is nothing else
Please help us
To love Thee more.
Teach us to realize
That the sole purpose of Love is Beauty.
Bring us to know Thee as Thou art

And to find Thee in the one place
That is big enough to contain Thee
The hearth of Perfect Man.


Ameen.

Rumi

Payam-e-Mashreq: Message from the East

For a while now, I have been dipping into Allama Iqbal's poetry. A graduate of Cambridge University, Sir Muhammed Iqbal (1837 - 1938, British India), was popularly known as Allama Iqbal (the learned Iqbal) and remains a famed poet, philosopher, lawyer and political activist whose works in Urdu and Farsi have left a profound influence in the subcontinent and beyond.

In Pakistan he is considered a Muslim revivalist and in Afghanistan and Iran, he carries the honorific title or Eghbal-e-Lahori - Iqbal of Lahore. 

Amongst his famed works is the Payam-e-Mashreq (Message from the East) from which this quatrain, is taken.

دل من روشن از سوز درون است

جهان بین چشم من از اشک خون است

از رمز زندگی بیگانه تر باد

کسی کو عشق را گوید جنون است

Dil man roshan az soz darun ast

Jahan bin chasham man as ashk khoon ast

Az ramz zindagee beegana tar bad

Kisee ko ashiq ra goweed janoon ast

My heart is alight with the burning within

I see the world though blood-stained tears

The search for life mysteries alienates us further from breath
For some love is said to be madness

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall ...

Made using Tagxedo

Tweet and Rule

Twitter: I'm not a regular tweeter and nor do I avidly follow the tweets of the rich and supposedly famous-and-interesting. I sometimes tweet stories of interest and I occasionally get a notice that someone would like to follow my tweets. This usually prompts me to go back and see who might be interested, and though I can claim to be on Twitter so as not to sound disconnected, this is about as active as I am :). Perhaps at some point I may join up more of my various on-line activities though my current logic is that I don't want my entire life lived on-line. There have to be some elements to life that can be lived non-digitally. 

... And so perhaps there are moments like now when people like Diane Abbot may wish that too. I guess an MP's life is lived pretty much in the public domain and their choices and their words occupy a public space that makes what they say common property. The furore over Ms Abbot's tweet today, may be over blown and way out of proportion given the more important story of Stephen Lawrence but somehow it is now a big enough news story to have led to a formal apology. So what exactly did Diane Abbot tweet and what has led to this row? Well, apparently, the words ''White people love playing 'divide & rule'" have not gone down well by some media watchers and her fellow Labour politicians. Ms Abbot's party leader, the rather nondescript gentleman Ed Miliband, is reportedly outraged and has issued her a warning.

Perhaps in PC Britain, it is difficult to make a statement like she did and get away with it, but if she is speaking from a from a European colonial historical perspective, is she wrong to say this? And is she being vilified for the guilt that others feel? When it is clear that for too long the police response and the subsequent investigation into Stephen Lawrence's death has been mired with accusations of institutional racism, symptoms of confusion and embarrassment are likely to hang heavily in the public mood. Did Diane Abbot overlook the sensitivities of this or is there a ring of historical truth to her words? Did the timing of her tweet and the guilt and incompetence around the Stephen Lawrence case come together to hit a genuinely public raw nerve? 

Read more about Stephen Lawrence.

I Want To See The World United ...

The song comes from the UN's 7 Billion Actions series, and gives us a chance to look forwards with a simple message of unity.  It is a good way to start the New Year.

Hope and wishes.

New Year Dawning

The sun rather feebly struggled to shine,
Causing fractions of sky to light up.
Flowers pushed heavy heads out of the soil,
Drunk with sweet water from nature's own cup.

The grass sparkled and glimmered - a carpet of emeralds,
Drops of water reclined on silk petals of rose.
Trickling down to the ground as a gentle, cool breeze,
Spread the heady perfume throughout orchard groves.

Birds shook sodden wings and  soft feathered heads,
Rejoicing in the golden, warm sunshine.
Their sweet tunes travelled throughout the air,
As they wove their love nests with dried twigs and twine.

The sun transformed to a ball of orange flame,
Was merciless soon in its sphere of fierce heat.
Shining in all its supreme glory down,
On the freshly-washed world now ready to greet.

V. Mahfood

Picture taken from CSMonitor showing a scene from China.