AI re-emergence : Study to Examine Effects of Artificial Intelligence

Able New York Times technology writer John Markoff (he has been far away the star of my RJ-11 blog) had two of three (count em, three) AI articles in the Dec 16 Times. One discusses Paul Allen's AI2 institute work; the other discusses a study being launched at Stanford with the goal to look at how technology reshapes roles of humans. Dr. Eric Horvitz of MS Research will lead a committee with Russ Altman, a Stanford professor of bioengineering and computer science. The committee will include Barbara J. Grosz, a Harvard University computer scientist; Yoav Shoham, a professor of computer science at Stanford; Tom Mitchell, the chairman of the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University; Alan Mackworth, a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia; Deirdre K. Mulligan, a lawyer and a professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. The last, Mulligan, is the only one who immediately with some cursory Googling appears to be ready to accept that there are some potential downsides to AI re-emergence. It looks like Horvitz has an initial thesis formed ahead of the committee work. That is that, based on a TED presentation ("Making friends with AI") , while he understand some people's issues with AI, that the methods of AI will come to support people's decisions in a nurturing way. The theme would be borne out further if we look at the conclusion of an earlier Horvitz'z organized study on AI's ramifications (that advances were largely positive and progress relatively graceful). Let's hope the filters the grop implement tone down the rose-colored learning machine that enforces academics' best hopes. – Jack Vaughan