Ethics (Artificial Intelligence) - Artificial 

Stupidity

Anil Kumar Kummari

Futurists worry about artificial intelligence becoming too intelligent for humanity’s good. Here and now, however, artificial intelligence can be dangerously dumb. When complacent humans become over-reliant on dumb AI, people can die. The lethal record of accomplishment goes from the Tesla Autopilot crash last year, to the Air France 447 disaster that killed 228 people in 2009, to the Patriot missiles that shot down friendly planes in 2003.

War Algorithm logo that is particular problematic for the military, which, more than any other potential user, would employ AI in situations that are literally life or death. It needs code that can calculate the path to victory amidst the chaos and confusion of the battlefield, the high-tech Holy Grail we have calling the War Algorithm. While the Pentagon has repeatedly promised it won’t build killer robots — AI that can pull the trigger without human intervention — people will still die if intelligence analysis software mistakes a hospital for a terrorist hide-out, a “cognitive electronic warfare” pod doesn’t jam an incoming missile, or if a robotic supply truck doesn’t deliver the right ammunition to soldiers running out of bullets.

“Before we work on artificial intelligence why don’t we do something about natural stupidity?” —Steve Polyak

Should we worry about how quickly artificial intelligence is advancing?

There are people who are grossly overestimating the progress that has been made. There are many, many years of small progress behind many of these things, including mundane things like more data and computer power. The hype is not about whether the stuff we are doing is useful or not—it is. However, people underestimate how much more science needs to be done. Moreover, it is difficult to separate the hype from the reality because we are seeing these great things and to the naked eye, they look magical.

 Artificial stupidity. How can we guard against mistakes?

Intelligence comes from learning, whether you are human or machine. Systems usually have a training phase in which they "learn" to detect the right patterns and act according to their input. Once a system is fully trained, it can then go into test phase, where it is hit with more examples and we see how it performs.

Obviously, the training phase cannot cover all possible examples that a system may deal with in the real world. These systems can be fooled in ways that humans would not be. For example, random dot patterns can lead a machine to “see” things that are not there. If we rely on AI to bring us into a new world of labour, security and efficiency, we need to ensure that the machine performs as planned, and that people can’t overpower it to use it for their own ends.

Artificial stupidity as a limitation of artificial intelligence. Artificial stupidity is not just delivering deliberate errors into the computer, but it could also be seen as a limitation of computer artificial intelligence.

Dr. Jay Liebowitz argues that "if intelligence and stupidity naturally exist, and if AI is said to exist, then is there something that might be called "artificial stupidity?"

Liebowitz pointed out that the limitations are:

Ability to possess and use common sense

Development of deep reasoning systems

Ability to vary an expert system's explanation capability

Ability to get expert systems to learn

Ability to have distributed expert systems

Ability to easily acquire and update knowledge

— Liebowitz, 1989, Page 109

Once a system is fully trained, it can then go into test phase, where it is hit with more examples and we see how it performs.  However, like google maps, it shows only shortest route. However, in reality, it do not know that road is closed due to temporary actions of govt.

 Artificial stupidity. How can we guard against mistakes?

What is important to keep in mind is that the training phase is not able to cover all possible scenarios that a system can come across, hence why systems can be fooled in ways that humans would not be. Importance of ensuring that the machines perform as planned and that people are not able to overpower it to use it for their own benefits. At the time of making, it must be follow three laws of Robotics. Which makes artificial stupidity followed by the machines and goes into the hands of terror groups.

Reference:-

1.  https://breakingdefense.com/2017/06/artificial-stupidity-when-artificial-intel-human-disaster/
2. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/546301/will-machines-eliminate-us/