Daily Times

Considering a particular science fiction franchise that originated from 1984 and continues to churn out sequels (with the fifth one released in 2015), it might be safe to presume that most readers are aware of the theme of the series, the notorious Skynet—artificial, or synthetic intelligence gone haywire, which is bent upon eliminating humans from the face of the earth—, and the terminator, who is the only one that can stop its evil designs. Albeit Wikipedia puts it quite succinctly: Skynet is positioned in the first film as a U.S. strategic “Global Digital Defense Network” computer system by Cyberdyne Systems, which becomes self-aware. Upon activation, it immediately perceives all humans as a “security threat”, and formulates a plan to systematically wipe out humanity itself.

I have always held the view that sequels are never as good as the first movie, but in this case, the first part did not entice me enough to watch any other parts. Apparently, however, there was sufficient following for Hollywood to have churned out five movies on this very theme. This is not to say that I do not enjoy science fiction; au contraire I am a great fan of the particular genre and hold the view that imagination is the precursor of the invention. After all, “Twenty thousand Leagues under the Sea” imagined the submarine and Start Trek’s communicator did precede the now ubiquitous smartphone. In fact, I anxiously await someone inventing the Start Trek transporter, thereby eliminating the hassle of travelling, especially the airports.

And while there are many inventions, and predictions, featured in cinema, which have come true, it was rather unimaginable that anyone would be stupid enough to commission the machine, which will proceed to annihilate mankind itself. Apparently, there are no limits to stupidity; which perhaps should not have come as a surprise since idiots are the fittest amongst the human race as proven by the exponential increase in their numbers. For the record, they can be easily recognised by their tendency to loudly project their stubborn views. Before proceeding further, let me assure you that this revelation about Skynet being around the corner is not coming from, well at least I think, from frivolous quarters even though you may never know how far the particular species discussed above has permeated.

The World Economic Forum recently issued its Global Risk Report 2017; and if these guys are not authentic, who is? According to the report, a global risk is an uncertain event or a condition that—if it occurs— can cause a significant negative impact on several countries or industries within the next 10 years. The report makes for an interesting, albeit difficult, reading and hopefully is being perused at the governmental levels to identify how global risks identified within the report might impact Pakistan. Perhaps more on that in a later article, but for the moment, let us stick to the exciting part. The following are a couple of extracts from the report.

“There are lessons here from non-military applications of AI (Artificial Intelligence). Consider the example of AlphaGo, the AI Go-player created by Google’s DeepMind division, which in March last year beat the world’s second-best human player. Some of AlphaGo’s moves puzzled observers because they did not fit usual human patterns of play. DeepMind CEO DemisHassabisexplained the reason for this difference as follows: “unlike humans, the AlphaGo program aims to maximise the probability of winning rather than optimising margins”. If this binary logic – in which the only thing that matters is winning while the margin of victory is irrelevant – were built into an autonomous weapons system, it would lead to the violation of the principle of proportionality, because the algorithm would see no difference between victories that required it to kill one adversary or 1,000”, elaborates Jean-Marc Rickli of Geneva Centre for Security Policy in Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Warfare.

Is this not eerily familiar with Skynet deciding that humans are the biggest threat to themselves and, therefore, all humans need to be terminated, victory at any cost? And remember how if the machine was not doing what it was supposed to do, the only solution was to turn off the switch?

“So far, the most general approach to creating generally intelligent machines is to provide them with our desired objectives and with algorithms for finding ways to achieve those objectives. Unfortunately, we may not specify our objectives in such a complete and well-calibrated fashion that a machine cannot find an undesirable way to achieve them. This is known as the “value alignment” problem, or the “King Midas” problem. Turing suggested “turning off the power at strategic moments” as a possible solution to discovering that a machine is misaligned with our true objectives, but a super intelligent machine is likely to have taken steps to prevent interruptions to its power supply”, says Stuart Russell of the University of California, Berkeley in Aligning the Values of Humans and AI Machines.

On a lighter note, we might soon see a terminator on CNN soon, except that we might remain sceptically pursuant to the comments of the US President about the particular media giant. On the flip, and more serious, side, the report also discusses the impact of disruptive technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), which lead to lower incomes for labour and higher unemployment. The report highlights the view of certain economists that 86 percent of job losses in the US between 1997 and 2007 were due to increased productivity brought about by technology advances. Worse, the report points out that according to a 2015 McKinsey report, 45 percent of the activities of workers today could easily be automated if companies choose to do so.

To venture a guess, in Pakistan’s case, a larger majority of workers can be removed by automation, which would be a real disaster for any government. Beyond driverless cars, the report asserts that machines are already trading stocks and determining financial decisions; machines reduce costs and perform at staggering speeds which have already compromised the advantage of cheap labour on which developing nations had thrived during globalisation. Perhaps, one of the reasons, in addition to high power costs, why Pakistan’s exports continue to shrink. The Economist in its recent issue published a series of articles on voice computing. Considering the advances in this particular field, most probably the call centre business will soon be a thing of the past.In the information age, disruption takes weeks, are we prepared for the next wave?

The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad and can be reached at syed.bakhtiyarkazmi@gmail.com