The Debate Over Artificial Intelligence

I've been reading quite a bit about artificial intelligence (AI) lately, and I'm fascinated by the polarisation surrounding the topic. Today's breed of smart computers and robots can beat humans in chess and outperform financial traders in investing stocks. They can also auto-drive cars, detect tumours, and, in the case of drones, drop bombs without any human intervention required. Like all technology, the potential uses are endless and AI can be used for "good" or "bad" purposes.

I see the advantages that artificial intelligence can offer. Smart computers can carry out rote work that we all loathe, and process mass amounts of information, enabling humans to synthesise, analyse, and creatively design solutions. Robots can also provide an opportunity to support humans in becoming more efficient and effective. This is critical in the fields of development, rural medicine, and disaster relief, where coordination is difficult and resources are stretched.

But there are several key debates that we must iron out as we move to more AI. (I will not discuss the concern that, as computing power increases, evil robots will take over the world. This is a great leitmotif for science fiction movies but not exactly relevant for today's AI.) The two biggest concerns around AI today are morality and humanity. Robot ethics is an emerging field. If cars can drive themselves and machines can prescribe medicine, how do we ensure that these robots behave in a moral way? This isn't as straightforward as it seems. Imagine a drunk cyclist swerving in front of a self-driving car. To the left of the car is a sidewalk with a child walking; to the right is another car. What does the self-driving car do in that situation?

Another fear of AI is that it will make us less human. Many technologists describe a near future where humans implant chips into their bodies- enabling them to check their emails and search Wikipedia without the need for a device. Google Glass is seen as a gateway to this new way of accessing information. The debate here centres around our sense of humanity. What does it mean to be human if we suddenly integrate machines into our bodies? Will this evolution turn us into something else? Or is this just a seamless extension of our smartphones?

I love Shyam Sankar's view of cooperation between man and machine, as opposed to man vs. machine. With the aid of smart computers, human can make better decisions and achieve exceptional outcomes. My favourite example from his TED talk is a human + machine chess tournament. Humans entered the tournament with the assistance of machines. The winner of the tournaments was not a chess master with a super computer, but rather a team of two amateurs working with three regular laptops. When man and machine work together effectively, exceptional outcomes are possible.

I hope that a man with machine paradigm is the future of AI. But as we programme robots to take humans out of the equation, we need to find ways to ensure moral outcomes (both by programming moral robots and by understanding the consequences of virtual warfare using drones.) And we need to carefully consider the possibilities of infusing robot-like technologies into our bodies. I am optimistic about the future of man and machine, and I believe that healthy debate will be key to guaranteeing positive outcomes with AI.

Image courtesy of Interestingtopics.net

Finding Home

One of my best friends shared this TED talk with me the other day. In a world where so many of us have lived in several countries, hold multiple passports, and speak at least two or three languages. where is home? Do we feel at home in a community of travellers? Do we feel at home when we spend time with the people we love? Do we feel at home when we find time to stop and reflect?

It is wonderful to feel like the world is small, that we can choose and change countries with relative ease. As Pico Iyer mentions "movement is a fantastic privilege and it allows us to do so much that our grandparents could never have dreamed of doing." Technology has made it easier to keep up with friends, family, news, and even pop culture in other countries. I FaceTime with my boyfriend in London, Skype with my parents in New Jersey, message my cousins in Tel Aviv on WhatsApp, and keep up with my Chilean family through Facebook. When my parents moved to the US in 1989, we would call my grandparents once a week. My mother found a store that sold Israeli newspapers and bought a copy each Friday. We sent pictures by post and waited for letters to arrive. It was a different world and the cost of living abroad (both fiscal and emotional) was much greater.

Even today, there is a cost. We can make our lives easier with virtual communication, but we cannot live virtual lives. There are countless ways to show that we care- a goodnight kiss, a hug after a bad day, a toast to good news. They do not have a digital equivalent. With four places to call home, it is the absence of these small touch-points with loved ones that I miss the most. I try to make it back for special occasions, but life is so much more than that. Our lives are made up of many small, unexpected moments (both good and bad.) How much support can we really show from far away?

I love my life. But it has become so scattered that it's hard to focus on the people and things that matter most. So I am moving once again- this time, back to London. In his TED talk, Iyer talks about his realisation that "movement was only as good as the sense of stillness that you could bring to it to put it into perspective."I have been travelling so much that I find it hard to be present. It's time to put down roots, simplify my life to a single city, and invest in my relationship, because ultimately, that's where I want my home to be.

Adapting to Climate Change

I have been spending this week on a Global Leadership Fellows training at Columbia University, working with the Earth Institute and the Mailman School of Public Health to understand the impact of climate change on urban areas. In particular, we have been looking at New York City's climate change adaptation plan in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

The Economist estimates that 64% and 86% of the developing and developed world (respectively) will live in cities by 2050. As urban populations increase and weather patterns change due to global warming, how can cities best prepare themselves for natural disasters, heat waves, and decreased access to water and other key resources? The challenges are immense and complex.

During Hurricane Sandy, flood waters surpassed previous flood records and reached 16 feet in a city where infrastructure was built to withstand 12 feet. Neighbourhoods were destroyed, a power plant substation exploded (leaving parts of the city without electricity for days), supply chains were disrupted, and waste water overflowed.Vulnerable populations were particularly at risk; hospitals were evacuated. A number of elderly and disabled individuals died during the storm.  This is just one example of the havoc that a single natural disaster can cause. As natural disasters become more common and resources become increasingly scarce, cities need to focus on resilience. Updating infrastructure is just one piece of the puzzle.

What is the role of technology in climate change adaptation? Renewable energy plays a key role, both in reducing the dependence on fossil fuels (which become scarce as supply chains are disrupted) and, more importantly, provide clean energy that reduce greenhouse gases. Social media and text message updates can disseminate information to the public. Smart grids and feedback on energy usage can be used to reduce demand. We can use big data to create a comprehensive registry of vulnerable populations. Technology can also improve communications among stakeholders (local governments, community organisations, civil society, and corporations) who need to work together to provide a more effective and coordinated response.

Climate change is our new norm. How can we think creatively, strategically, and pragmatically to adapt? And how can we prevent it from getting worse?

My Response to Can Silicon Valley Save the World?

The Foreign Policy magazine article "Can Silicon Valley Save the World?" has created a debate about the role of technology and entrepreneurial thinking in the development sector. The article had some valid points about the unrealistic view that technology is a stand-alone panacea for solving the world's problems. It also mentioned the issue of distributing products and services to a market (the poor in the developing world) that do not have a say in the products and services it is receiving, which is a serious problem across the field of development.

I took issues with several of the key ideas in the article. There was a clear fear of risk taking- seemingly because of the expense that failure creates. A culture of caution stifles creativity and the willingness to think big. Poverty is a massive challenge and we have not solved it with the models we've tried so far. We need bold ideas to hit the Millennial Development Goals and make meaningful progress. We have spent millions in aid knowing that a large portion of those funds will be grafted by corrupt officials. So why are we so uncomfortable with failure when the potential benefits are huge? Also, most of these solutions work to provide direct access to the people that need it most, bypassing corrupt systems.

I was also disappointed to see the focus on "innovations" that cost more and provide fewer benefits than the tools that they were meant to replace. What kind of innovation is that?

Technology is not a panacea- some of the most effective development interventions are as simple as providing iodised salt. And no one is discounting the great work that has been done to eliminate disease, improve maternal health and reduce infant mortality. But why deny the opportunities inherent in technology and shun the brightest minds from Silicon Valley from bringing their out of the box thinking to the challenges that need it most? We need more innovation in the development sector.

New models (like USAID's venture capital arm) have the potential to involve entrepreneurs and the private sector in a meaningful way. I hope we decide to embrace these types of opportunities and not get territorial about "their" role and "our" role. Can Silicon Valley save the world on its own? Probably not. But if we embrace the Valley and this type of thinking across the big international organisations, we will create meaningful change. The Millennial Development Goals need to get back on track. Silicon Valley's input on those and other development initiatives will be beneficial for everyone.

Why I love the Sharing Economy

Wikipedia defines the sharing economy as the “economic and social systems that enable shared access to goods, services, data and talent. These systems take a variety of forms but all leverage information technology to empower individuals, corporations, non-profits and government with information that enables distribution, sharing and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services. A common premise is that when information about goods is shared, the value of those goods increases, for the business, for individuals, and for the community. ”

Most of us have heard of AirBnB and other hotel alternatives, enabling users to rent a room or an entire apartment. The sharing economy extends to vehicles (options range from finding available spots on car rides to borrowing cars from neighbours. In the retail sector, websites like WishWantWear, Rent the Runway, and Bag, Borrow or Steal rent out designer clothes and accessories for special occasions. Sites like Frents go beyond a particular sector and let users lend and borrow items from DVDs to board games. A great directory for the sharing economy is Plopp.us. (Full disclosure: This is a Global Shapers Community project from the Amsterdam Hub.)

What interests me most about this paradigm is the way it changes our behaviour: it maintains the experience of having the things we like to use (from a Missoni cocktail dress to the occasional game of Scrabble) without the cost, physical space, or materials to own these items and only use them once in a while. There is a social element as well: If I’m borrowing items from people nearby, I have a new way to get to know my neighbours. We develop a shared sense of responsibility and identity. It’s a digital way to create a community feeling in neighbourhoods, particularly in big cities where these kinds of opportunities have been lacking.

Changing our behaviour changes the way we think, and ultimately, our values. The use of social media spread the idea that everyone has a voice and enabled young people to demand democratic ideals from their governments. If the sharing economy becomes mainstream, then what will it do for sustainability, community, and the future of consumption? I hope to see the shared economy help us adapt a more sustainable and collaborative lifestyle.

Privacy is the New Currency

Amazing things happen when we share information online:  Wikipedia is as accurate as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Facebook lets us connect with friends and family around the world. Google Maps guide us in new cities. Twitter lets us share news that is censored by the media, as we see now in the case of Turkey. And these platforms are available to anyone, regardless of socio-economic status, because they are free.

We are paying for these platforms with a new kind of currency: our privacy. Big data lets companies (and governments) mine information for correlations, connections, and patterns, which compares individual behaviour with similar individuals and similar patterns. The results could be as innocuous as Amazon’s Kindle recommendations engine or Facebook’s suggestions for friends. They could be used to predict and prevent public health outbreaks, as seen with Google’s flu trends predictor.

The US government claims that big data is preventing terrorist attacks. This information is used to place individuals on “no fly” lists, banning certain people from travelling without telling them why or providing them the means to contest the decision. Credit card companies use big data to predict the probabability that customers will pay their cards on time. It’s been said that they know you’re getting divorced before you do. Target discovered a teenager was pregnant before her father did. With all the information we put out there, it’s easy to piece together our preferences, daily routines, and the most personal aspects of our lives.

I love the benefits of our hyperconnected world. Facebook and Whatsapp are the easiest ways for me to keep up with my friends and family, who are scattered all around the world. I often find out about news through social media first and then check news sites to get more details. And I wish that my Kindle recommendation engine could be even more accurate and useful.

I do not want the government to put people on no-fly lists without any due process. And I’m not sure if I want my Facebook likes impacting my credit rating. How do we create boundaries that are sensible and acceptable? Or is privacy already dead? Am I being naïve in saying that I don’t want the government to track my day-to-day movements? They’ve probably been doing it for quite some time, even before the Internet existed. (London has enough CC TV cameras to get a sense of anyone’s daily routine. The US has been surveilling phone calls for decades.)

Are we making it easier or are we making it harder? With the new tools available, we’re certainly putting more information out there for the government to track. And we’re also making it easier to fight back: I can post this blog, we can have a global debate, and if social media could top dictatorial governments, then we could certainly use our voices to create sensible policies around privacy.

Silicon Summer: How Social Media is Revolutionising the Private Sector

Social media have revolutionised the way we communicate. They have changed the amount of content creation, sharing, and information exchange that takes place every day. Anyone with an Internet connection can create or access content in ways that were unimaginable only a few decades ago. This has shifted the potential to mass communicate from large media corporations to individuals. In the era of social media, anyone can become a publisher with the potential to reach a mass audience. When looking at this phenomenon through the lens of network theory, this enabled society to move from a centralised model of communication to a distributed one, where individual nodes (people) can share information freely to other nodes without having to go through an intermediary (traditional mass media.)

These interactions are not only changing our personal lives but also redefining civic engagement. Much research has been conducted on Barak Obama’s campaigns, which generated a grassroots movement with social media as the primary tool of engagement. With the Arab Spring, the sweep of protests across the region proved that young, leaderless activists using primarily online and mobile tools could topple dictatorial regimes. 

There is a quieter but equally powerful revolution is taking place in the private sector. The dynamics witnessed in the Arab Spring between citizens and their governments can also be witnessed amongst consumers and corporations. “Citizen consumers” are using social media to redefine corporate norms and create a new set of expectations regarding corporate transparency and social responsibility.  Today’s consumers, particulary the younger generation, expect corporations to go beyond shareholder value and create value for society as well. The triple bottom line is a mainstream concept for Gen Y and social media is a key tool for this generation to push corporates in that direction.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, which protested against the financial services sector’s perceived corruption and undue influence on the government, used social media to organise protests, recruit supporters, and raise awareness. Thousands of users expressed outrage on Nestle’s Facebook page over the company’s unsustainable sourcing of palm oil for its Kit Kat bars. The telecoms provider Sprint improved its policies to better protect victims of domestic violence after a Change.org petition obtained 175,000 signatures.
“Greenwashing” is a common complaint of citizen consumers, meaning companies market themselves as committed to corporate social responsibility but without any actual CSR activities or policies. Through the “wisdom of the crowds” and instantaneous access to information, citizen consumers are well informed and frequently expose companies that attempt to ride the CSR trend through marketing alone. 
But there is an opportunity here as well. Social media can work through positive reinforcement and an Edelman survey revealed that 53% of millenials would promote a socially responsible brand on Facebook. Corporations who integrate sound CSR policies and implement them effectively will find themselves rewarded. 

It is clear that a shift is taking place. Social media provides individuals with the unprecedented opportunity to speak for themselves. By combining their voice (through social media) and their purchasing power, citizen consumers are changing the expectations placed on the private sector.