Artificial Intelligence: A Perspective

Artificial Intelligence: A Perspective       Guest Article 

Pramode Verma^*
*Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Oklahoma, pverma@ou.edu 
[see Author Capsule Bio below]

“Pre-publication article copy", to appear in the December 2023 edition of the Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy.

 In some ways, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already started the next technological revolution. Compared to the past technological revolutions like the printing press (1436), the steam engine (1759), automobile (1672), or the information technology (1960s), the AI revolution appears to be different.

Critical analyses of the potential of AI are showing up everywhere at an increasingly rapid rate. Scientists and technologists are working hard to continuously enhance the potential of AI to match, possibly exceed, the capabilities normally attributed to humans. Social scientists, on the other hand, are struggling to develop adequate safety mechanisms that will limit the damage AI can inflict on unsuspecting individuals or organizations. The euphoria to push the bounds of AI to higher levels in the servitude of mankind appears to have suddenly given way to the fear of a dark outcome looming on the horizon.

Human intelligence aided by machines when put into practice has consistently benefited mankind. Is AI a tipping point where machine intellect might be too good for humanity? This letter attempts to address ways in which AI can inflict damages and proposes how the damages can be contained, if not eliminated.

Artificial Intelligence is by no means a new endeavor. Dating back to the 1950s, AI researchers have tried to create machines that could mimic or surpass the capabilities of humans. Until most recently, AI was viewed as offering a human-machine continuum with a flexible boundary. The flexibility depended on needs of the task and the human element responsible for the task.

The generative properties of AI have challenged this notion. Generative AI can draw pictures, write a book, compose a poem, or generate text with little guidance. Generative AI is based on patterns and similarities in the underlying data and the relationship to its label or descriptor. Machine learning continuously enhances the depth and scope of such relationships by mining the massive amounts of data that Generative AI has access to along with the contextual application of relationships.

AI algorithms are driven by techniques used by neural networks. The algorithms use autocorrelation techniques choosing the most likely word, phrase, or icon based on the statistical analysis of hundreds of gigabytes of Internet text. The repertoire of information is growing at an exponential rate thus enhancing the capabilities of AI. In many instances, the outcomes delivered by Generative AI, have surprised the developers, and surpassed their expectations.

Can AI replace human beings in their entirety? This remains an open question because humans also display consciousness, feelings, emotions, and sensations. Some of these attributes arise because of the intricate relationship between mind and body. Furthermore, the sensory mechanisms of the human body are complex and distributed and include such attributes as touch, taste, and smell. While it’s possible to build mechanisms to mimic these features in a robot, possibly in a limited way, the potential benefits of such an undertaking are questionable from a commercial perspective. Artificial Intelligence applications in the day-to-day businesses are the major drivers of the science and technology of AI currently.

How should one regulate AI? Given the fact that AI is driven by algorithms and processing capabilities along with access to massive amounts of data, the innate growth of AI is unstoppable. We posit that regulation of AI should be looked upon from the perspective of those who it has the potential to inflict damage on. In other words, rights of the recipients who AI can hurt should drive the AI regulation.

The ability of AI to create misinformation is potentially its most damaging outcome. Unfortunately, no one can control the ability to generate misinformation any more than one can control the thought process associated with human beings. Once generated, misinformation can be delivered through the Internet on a person-to-person basis or through a broadcast medium. Another compelling example is misinformation generated by a database, such as a medical database, which is delivered to an inquiring customer over the Internet. The availability of instantaneous transport of misinformation worldwide adds to the gravity of the situation.

Let’s first consider misinformation delivered over the Internet. The most important part is to positively identify the sender at the behest of the receiving entity. This can be accomplished through a variety of means. One possibility is the use of public and private keys. However, the computational overhead consumed in such a scheme will likely make it unattractive to most consumers.

An alternative is to require every ISP to positively identify its customer. The receiving entity in such a network should have the choice to require the network to forward information from only those entities whose vetted credentials are forwarded along with the message. This contrivance should not violate the freedom of speech or expression; it merely empowers the receiving entity to limit access to it by an unknown or an unapproved entity. And it’s no more limiting than locking the door of your home to strangers.

The positive identification of a client by the entity to which the client has a relationship is prevalent among many institutions. In financial institutions, it’s known as the Know Your Customer (KYC) requirement.  The implementation of forwarding the sender’s identity to a discerning receiver should not be difficult. Any digital device connected to the Internet can be uniquely identified by the network through its Layer 2 address. This can be supplemented by the Layer 3 address (such as a password) that can uniquely identify an individual, a process, or an institution. Indeed, this positive identification is already implemented by financial institutions. This identification can be forwarded to a discerning end point.

Let us now take up the case of broadcast media. Such media are, in most countries, regulated. The regulation can easily require that that any content the medium broadcasts has been vetted for the authenticity of the content originating entity. This can be displayed as part of the broadcast.

The third element that requires regulation is access to publicly available databases using Artificial Intelligence. One leading example is a health-related database that is publicly available. Such databases should be vetted by the concerned regulatory bodies or public institutions at large. A database, for example, answering queries related to health should be measured and rated for the level of accuracy it delivers in its response by the medical establishment of the country.

In some ways, human intelligence has grown too fast for the good of humanity. Every time technology has enhanced our capabilities to produce goods at a level unimaginable with human labor alone, there have been collateral damages.

Like any new technology that comes into practice, AI will cause collateral damage. There will be job losses especially for the most vulnerable members of the society, e.g., those who cannot easily adapt to changed modes of operation such as the elderly or those disadvantaged in other ways. Since AI is so heavily dependent on digital literacy, countries that are less literate in technology will be left further behind. And increased resource gaps between and among nations is not a good option for humanity as a whole.

Undoubtedly, AI will be growing closer and closer to the human brain, even possibly surpassing it. Arguably, it already has. As to whether it reaches the human mind which shows consciousness, instincts, and feelings, we do not know currently.

Author Capsule Bio

Pramode Verma is Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Gallogly College of Engineering of the University of Oklahoma. Prior to that he was Professor, Williams Chair in Telecommunications Networking, and Director of the Telecommunications Engineering Program. He joined the University of Oklahoma in 1999 as the founder-director of a graduate program in Telecommunications Engineering. He is the author/co-author of over 150 journal articles and conference papers, and several books in telecommunications engineering. His academic credentials include a doctorate in electrical engineering from Concordia University in Montreal, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Verma has been a keynote speaker at several international conferences. He received the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa President’s Leadership Award for Excellence in Research and Development in 2009. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Senior Fellow of The Information and Telecommunication Education and Research Association. Prior to joining the University of Oklahoma, over a period of twenty-five years, he held a variety of professional, managerial and leadership positions in the telecommunications industry, most notably at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies. He is the co-inventor of twelve patents.

Learning from the Rat-hole miners of India

 

India heaved a sigh of relief when rescue workers brought out 41 trapped men on the 28^{th of} November 23. We owe a big thank-you to all agencies involved, led by the National and State Disaster Management agencies. The last two days of the 17-day rescue saga had some important lessons.

The rescuers called in the army along with six rat-hole miners, who specialize in working in confined and dangerous spaces. They succeeded where heavy, modern machinery had failed. These were high performance auger machines that work like giant corkscrews with a drilling head and a corkscrew mechanism to send the debris back.  They failed in Uttarkashi where the tunnel under construction had collapsed. The machinery was to bore a hole 80 to 90 cm in diameter. The plan was to insert steel pipes in the drilled hole and bring out the trapped workers through them. The problem was that the collapsed rubble had steel items like ladders and pipes buried in it. These obstructions damaged the corkscrew like blades of the auger and made it stop.

However, six rat-hole miners could drill through 10 meters of the rubble in 24 hours, using only hand tools. The newspapers screamed that this was a case of men succeeding where machines failed. I would argue that there is some other lesson here for us.

Big augers and cranes usually lack feedback. Imagine a man in a hurry trying to break down a latched door using bare hands. He could fracture his hand. The rat-hole miners could see and sense resistance from buried metal. They could call in teams handling plasma metal cutters to cut the metal items into pieces that could be removed. I believe that engineers should now incorporate computer vision devices, strain gauges and even sound recognition capabilities into heavy machinery like boring machines.

One possibility is to add a video-camera to the system so that the machine operator at the back could see the area being drilled and make intelligent decisions on how to proceed. A sound-processing subsystem could recognise sounds indicating problems and alert the operator. 

Srinivasan Ramani

29-11-2023

A link between Covid-19 vaccination and Vitiligo?

  The photo above has been used only for illlustration. It is unrelated to the Covid-19 question 

It would have been controversial to raise questions about the Vaccination-Vitiligo link while the Pandemic was raging. Now that the Pandemic is under some control, we must seek the truth.

There are plenty of articles I could locate with Google Scholar reporting incidents that suggest there is a link. For instance,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9538607/

Vitiligo is recognized as an auto-immune phenomenon. Vaccinations, in general, have been associated with auto-immune reactions.

There have been two new cases of vitiligo among my acquaintances in the last two years. In both cases, the person involved had taken Covid-19 vaccinations.

A major epidemiological study is called for. The study should also cover possible associations with gender, age, ethnicity, socio-economic factors, and nutritional factors so that we will understand conditions under which a causative phenomenon is identified.

Srinivasan Ramani

Colonizing the Moon

 

This is a project that will surely be implemented in one form or another during the 21^st Century. The political stakes are too high for any superpower not to attempt it. It is also a necessary step towards the real challenge – Colonizing Mars.

It will be a while before you can buy business class tickets to the moon and back! All you can do now is what millions of immigrants have done in the past; go to a faraway land with no guarantee of return. A project that plans only a one-way trip is far simpler than one that aims for a safe return trip soon.

A one-way trip will find many volunteers above the age of 50 if they believe that life expectancy of astronauts in this project would be at least 20 years from the beginning of the lunar trip.

This means that the project design should aim to keep risks low enough to give a good chance for its crew to live 20 years or more on the moon. This may not be that difficult, given that a NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has spent 355 days on the International Space Station (ISS), beating the previous record by 15 days.

The project may take various forms, but I will outline one possible form below, to throw light on the feasibility of the idea.

Constructing infrastructure before human’s land

The project could begin with the design and fabrication of several electrically operated mini-earth movers, say with a one-meter blade to dig trenches on the moon. They should be computer driven and be capable of carrying out a few tasks autonomously, with some remote supervision such as

1)      digging a trench 4 meters wide and 4 meters deep, to build underground living quarters for the pioneers.

2)      depositing cement/concrete type of lining on the walls and floor of the trench.

3)      move prefabricated slabs to build a roof for the trench.

4)      level a patch of the lunar surface, say in the shape of a hexagon or octagon, within a circumscribing circle 12 meters in diameter.  

A few earth movers and construction material would first be sent using an unmanned lander. The earthmovers under remote control from the earth would build a landing area for the manned landing, and an underground trench which would ultimately become underground quarters. The trench can be finished later, after the project team arrives. The lander should ideally be designed to serve as the initial residence and be available later as an alternative residence to meet contingencies.

The layout of the lunar base should be highly modular. It should grow over a period to include multiple landing zones connected by trenches. Some trenches would be residential, and some would house equipment like batteries. Yet others would have transparent roofs to raise crops like lettuce, tomatos, spinach, mushrooms. The crops would be kept alive during the lunar nights by ultra-violet lighting. This effort to grow food would be considered experimental and would not be depended upon to ensure crew survival.

Replenishments

It would take a long time to harvest any oxygen or water that is available on the moon. The project should ensure that unmanned supply spaceships are sent every quarter. We know from the experience with the ISS that water, such as urine, and carbon dioxide in the air arising from human breathing can be recycled, reducing the need for oxygen and water to be replenished from the earth. Taking all this into account, it might be sufficient for the project to send a few tons of replenishments every quarter, including oxygen, water, food and other needs.

The lunar base should have adequate storage facilities to store six months of oxygen, water, and food, to face any contingencies.

Power

ISS generates approximately 100 KW of power. The lunar base should ideally generate 300 KW of power and have adequate battery capacity to last out a whole lunar night.

Project Staff and what they will need to do

Planning, selecting, and training a team for this project would be the most critical requirement. The team will need to have a variety of requisite skills and adequate redundancy so that more than one or two personnel are available to handle any situation. One of them must be a doctor, who can handle minor surgery if need arises. He will require a store of medical supplies and equipment, including an X-Ray machine and an ECG instrument. Engineers to handle all systems and communicators who can anchor videos for TV broadcasting on earth would be necessary.

Role assignments should ensure adequate rotation, and time to do exploratory work in their specialist areas: searching for lunar resources, developing farming techniques, operating specialized equipment such as a moon-based telescope to send data to observers on earth, etc. Everyone should have the opportunity to do creative work and publish their findings, as this would be their major reward. Of course, they should be paid a salary.

Growing the colony

While we may not be able to plan a return to earth as of now, we might be able to add to the project staff by sending one or more small teams over a period as the infrastructure is extended.

Recycling is a fundamental requirement for maintaining any lunar base. For instance, consider the small landers that would arrive every quarter. They need to be reusable. One option is to make them vehicles for lunar exploration. With no significant air drag, and with a gravity one-fifth of what we experience on earth, such vehicles would be practical to hop a few dozen miles at a time. Choice of suitable landing sites, and stability after touch-down would be basic requirements they should meet. Extendable legs could increase stability. A longer-term solution would be for prefab slabs that could be carried during initial trips to build small landing pads at different places. Each landing pad would be say, 3 meters by 3 meters in size.

Infrastructure Building

A Lunar Positioning System (LPS), like the GPS we all use, can easily be created for the moon. A few satellites in an analog of the Geostationary Equatorial Orbit would be needed to cover most of the surface of the moon. A few polar satellites in lunar orbits would be necessary to serve the polar regions. Ideally, all these should be created by international cooperation and be available to teams from all nations.

In fact, the whole project would benefit from multinational cooperation and investment.

Srinivasan Ramani

 

 

Freedom of Speech and Generative AI

Photo Credit: Mirko Tobias Schaefer, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bios_robotlab_writing_robot.jpg"><img width="512" alt="Bios robotlab writing robot" 

Freedom of Speech and Generative AI

I will not tangle with court opinions on what constitutes free speech for human beings. However, I have a few opinions of what anonymity should be offered to Generative AI. Suppose the law says that generative AI systems should watermark all the output they create digitally in such a manner that everyone's browser can in principle mark such material as "Produced by Generative AI". One result would be that students cannot submit such material to their teachers and claim credit as if it was their own writing. Ideally, the watermarking should identify uniquely the system that authored the material concerned. This provision should cover all output of Generative AI systems including images.

Secondly, watermarking would inform every user of the Internet as to the origin of text they rely upon – was it created by a human or a machine. 

We have enough of fake news already, and we do not need to have it produced in industrial quantity! For instance, if this safeguard was in operation now, no confusion would have been caused by a synthetic image showing a massive smoke column near the Pentagon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mWXhGfTyso

In conclusion, I am not ready to confer citizenship on Generative AI systems.

Srinivasan Ramani