Should we let computers drive our cars? Manage stocks? Fight wars?
They can already fly planes, notes artificial intelligence expert Jonathan Schaeffer, and the technology exists today. The real question is whether people are ready for cars that can drive themselves.
That's one question that some of the province's top minds might address next week at a public forum on machine intelligence. Organized by the Alberta Council of Technologies, the forum will look at the growing role computers have in running human society.
"We're looking at the problems and promise of artificial intelligence," says Perry Kinkaide, the council's president and St. Albert resident. "It was one thing to replace muscle with machines. Now we're replacing the brain with machines."
We now use machine intelligence to play games, trade stocks and fight wars, Kinkaide says, but few people realize it. A.I.s could revolutionize health care and logistics, but also raise huge ethical questions. "I don't think the government is even close to being on top of this."
The council has gathered an expert panel for a public forum on machine learning next Tuesday in Edmonton. The forum is meant to help people understand this emerging technology.
"Artificial intelligence is not just about wild robots and Terminators," Kinkaide says. "It's increasingly invisible, as the computer is invisible, and is affecting our lives."
The invisible computer
A.I. is all about getting a computer to do something equally or better than a human, says Schaeffer, a computer science professor at the University of Alberta and the keynote speaker at the forum. He himself has created programs that will never lose at checkers and match wits with the world's best poker players.
Machine intellects are everywhere, Schaeffer says, flying planes and tracking credit fraud. "If you have a spam filter on your e-mail, that's using A.I. technology."
We don't have HAL 9000 or Data yet, he continues, but we do have cars that can drive cross-continent by themselves.
"A.I. is relatively unknown because none of what it does is visible," Schaeffer says — robot vacuum cleaners like the Roomba are some of the few tangible examples of the technology around. Yet behind a spell-checker or Google's search engine lie powerful algorithms that sort piles of data to recognize patterns and make decisions.
A.I.s could be a boon to many industries, says Stuart Lomas, co-organizer of the forum. Oil workers now have to monitor thousands of systems by hand — work that could be done better by a computer. The U.K. now has cameras that can automatically match faces against databases to spot criminals before they get on planes at airports.
Digital dilemmas
That's great for security, Lomas notes, but what about privacy? "If I just happen to walk down the street and that leaves a [computer] record … does that come up later because the creditor is looking for me?"
Likewise, Schaeffer notes, we could easily link computers to traffic lights and have cars drive themselves. Studies suggest you could move five times more traffic through an intersection safely using such a system, saving huge amounts of time and money. "It's not a matter of the level of technology. It's a matter of, is there the will?"
And what happens when we make a machine that's as smart as a person? "Does it have rights?" asks Schaeffer. Some experts are already thinking ahead and creating rules for the ethical treatment of robots.
The forum runs from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on June 1 at Edmonton's Telus Professional Development Centre. Tickets are $50, and students get in free. For details, call Kinkaide at 780-990-5874.
