Fictional Intelligence

At the Learning Technologies Conference last week, there was a lot of discussion both in conference sessions and in the general social chat, about AI, Artificial Intelligence, in HR, L&D and OD. It's a maturing 'science', with an increasingly well-understood potential and some well-demonstrated examples. However, this post is not about that.

Image: Patricia Hebert

This post is about how science fiction (SF) is ahead of this particular game, and has been for far longer than we've been angsting about it. 

And the good news is that, contrary to traditional expectations of various dystopian futures (well, not entirely), the premise is that humanity has a huge part still to play - not necessarily in its/our classical form perhaps, but in working with and, in some cases, as part of the collaborative whole. OK, in many cases, we may not have been altogether willing participants initially (and that's more about some humans' inhumanity to some other humans, than anything else), but it's our basic humanity which acts as the conscience and the ultimate arbiter of how 'the machines'/AI work/will work.

In his keynote talk on Day 2 of the conference, Daniel Susskind (@danielsusskind) shared John Searle's Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal from February 2011, after IBM's Watson computer beat two human competitors in the TV game show 'Jeopardy' - "Watson Doesn't Know It Won on 'Jeopardy!'" (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703407304576154313126987674). His premise is that Watson doesn't think, it computes. By extension therefore, we could say that Watson doesn't care that it won Jeopardy.

But we care. And because we care, we can moderate, influence and thereby work with 'the machines'. We just have to learn to appreciate the value and insight they can bring to our work, so that we can learn to humanise the outcomes and realise the benefits.

To finish, just to say our reading doesn't always have to be entirely business or professionally focused for us to be able to draw out some analogous insights. Sometimes, it can just be for our own entertainment. If you'd like to escape into some recent great SF I've read which kinda supports my earlier points, whilst also being rattling good reads (Warning: Some war/violence, some human/animal hybrids, some human/machine over-familiarity), I can recommend the following (all available on Amazon): 

"Autonomous" - Annalee Newitz

"Dogs of War" - Adrian Tchaikovsky

"Ghosts of Tomorrow" - Michael R. Fletcher

Any other Fictional Intelligence recommendations please?

A Slack Future

I'm participating in a week-long online workshop on the subject of Futures, hosted by James Allen (@thejamesallen) of Creative Huddle (@creative_huddle). In the snappily-titled channel, #futureworkshop, James introduced the topic thus:


"Let’s talk about the future. We’ll find out what futurologists think is in store for us, and we’ll learn how to make our own predictions."

James had first shared the upcoming workshop of LinkedIn, advising that it was a new venture for Creative Huddle, using the Slack application as the platform for sharing content and facilitating the conversations. As I am now working with another HR & Training Consultancy who use Slack as their internal channel, I was keen to understand it's potential as a learning support tool. And as a science fiction fan, the topic of futures and futurology, combined with the opportunity to experience slack, was irresistable. So I signed up.

There are 10 of us involved in the Workshop. We're on Day 3 now, and for today's 'Task', James asked us to "list different types of futures that could occur. As with the previous task, write your thoughts in a post, expanding on each of the following headings:

• The future is what I expect.
• The future is better than I expect.
• The future is worse than I expect.
• The future is weirder than I expect.

And let’s try and define ‘the future’ for this particular task: at least ten years from now."

So, here's what I contributed today, and I await the peer review from my co-participants accordingly. If you'd also like to comment here, please feel free. Thanks.

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Task 2: My Futures

I have always been a big fan of science fiction - both written and on film & broadcast media. I read Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke in my early teens and was transported into what I have always considered plausible future and/or alternate realities, the verisimiltude of which relied on solid and consistent underpinning - if completely new - 'science'. I am old enough to remember watching the first ever episode of Dr Who (scared me rigid) and following Star Trek from the beginning. I am not, however, and never have been, a fan of Fantasy/Magical fiction as a result. Give me a Dalek over Bilbo Baggins any day.

I continue to read sci-fi regularly. It's my go-to literature when I'm between other reading, be it fact or fiction. I tend to read for pleasure, less for learning, but that's just my preference. So, with a nod to my Sci_fi reading...

• The future is what I expect.
  
  • Global warming will raise sea levels faster than we have readied ourselves for and our weather patterns will continue to oscillate between extremes, whilst populations start to migrate inland and onto higher ground.
  • Our transport infrastructure will collapse under the weight of increased need and utilisation, both public and private. Grid-lock ensues. This will lead to...
  
  
• The future is better than I expect.
  
  • Telecommuting finally becomes the norm as we all become short-term contractors
  • The South of England will become the new Champagne Region.
  • There will be a radical reassessment and readjustment of Elderly and end-of-life care, with a recognition of the need for a holistic, as opposed to a medical, approach, resulting in a huge investment in and provision of hospice care.
  
  
• The future is worse than I expect.
  
  • Donald Trump gains the Republican nomination and wins the US Presidency.
  • Fear of - or actual - terrorist outrage/s will lead to an enforced surveillance and control structure to society, where guilt is assumed before innocence is proven. Society will accept this and live accordngly.
  • Sex will become a recreational and solo/virtual activity with tech surrogates representing the other partner/s (this may have already happened). Marriage will become the exception and be contractually time-limited & short-lived, probably only for procreation. The resulting progeny will be raised by robots.
  
  
• The future is weirder than I expect
  
  • SETI makes contact with intelligent extraterrestial life and life as we understand it changes for ever.
  • AND/OR...
  • Global climate change forces the human race underground or underwater and we abandon the surface
  • OR...
  • Our alien 'friends' provide us with the technology and/or means to migrate off-planet and into the Universe.

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Along the way, I am also learning a great deal about the features, benefits, limitations and potential of Slack. It's a win/win, as far as I'm concerned. I believe that James and the Creative Huddle team will be running further workshops like this, so I'd recommend getting in touch if you think it might be of interest to you or your colleagues.

We're only little - and our time is short!

This is one of those blogs where the title's been looking for the story.  I think I might just have cracked it...

I came up with the title as a tweet when I finished a book of apocalyptic, end-of-the-world short science fiction stories on my #kindle.  @dougshaw picked it up and tweeted favourably on my turn of phrase - and that got me thinking more deeply.  Why had I enjoyed this apparently depressing set of stories so much?  And what had triggered my apparently eloquent phraseology?

For someone who's always worked in and thrived on communication and people related activities, I've always held  fairly negative views about the human race and its long-term future.  We seem to have a built-in self-destruct driver, which historically has lead us into war, famine and ecological melt-down and I think our time is nearly up - maybe not immediately, but it's coming.  So reading that collection of short stories satisfied my sense of righteous schadenfreude - we're gonna get what we deserve!

'Cos, here's the thing; on a cosmological/interplanetary timescale, we ain't been around that long.  This big, old, world of ours has been orbiting our sun for billions of years, and the evolution of life hereon has taken millions and millions of those years (sorry, Creationists)!  We've emerged fairly quickly and, ecologically, we seem to be doing an excellent job of ensuring that we're not going to be around for much longer.  I guess the main message in these stories was, it's not the end of the world - it's the end of humanity!  The world will go on, in whatever state we leave it, and will change again and again and again...

So, you  see, we're not so big and we're not that clever.  We're only little - and our time is short!

Sorry about that.

PS: I actually think that there is much to love about us humans; that we can do remarkable things and show astonishing creativity, compassion, generosity, mindfulness and tenacity.  That's why I'm in Learning and Development. It's gotta be worth trying to delay the inevitable as long as possible.