Will we at some point in the future elect an artificial intelligence (AI) to higher office?
Would you ever vote for an algorithm to represent you in Congress, to manage your city, to be your President?
Could we ever vote for an Abraham Lincoln 2.0 - an artificial intelligence built to replicate the decision making style of one of our most accomplished Presidents?
It sounds ridiculous doesn't it?
American futurist Jim Dator is famous for stating that "any useful statement about the futures should appear to be ridiculous."
Electing a software reincarnation of the man consistently rated as the greatest American President certainly sounds ridiculous. And that's exactly why the idea is worth exploring.
Artificial intelligence is racing ahead. IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess phenom Garry Kasparov in May, 1997. IBM's Watson defeated Jeopardy! trivia stars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in February, 2011. In 2014 "Eugene Goostman," a chatbot created by PrincetonAI, fooled one third of the judges into thinking it was human and controversially passed the annual turing test held by the University of Reading. In 2014 Deep Knowledge Ventures, a Hong Kong venture capital firm, named an algorithm called VITAL to its board in order to augment the group's decision making.
What will AI be capable of in 20 years? In 30 years? Here we have two illuminating clues. First, famous inventor and technologist Ray Kurzweil is working to build a powerful new artificial intelligence at Google. Kurzweil, the author of How to Create a Mind, is now hard at work attempting to replicate a human mind in digital form. Our second clue comes from the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and its June, 2015 report titled "Visualizing the Tactical Ground Battlefield in the Year 2050." Section 2.2.6 is titled "Cognitive Modeling of the Opponent." The report assumes that "a vastly improved capability to understand an opponent and predict their actions will enable a new and potentially disruptive capability in this time frame." In other words, the US military will replicate an adversary's personality and thinking with AI and test strategies against that AI opponent. This is not a new idea. It should be familiar to fans of the strategy game Civilization, in which human players compete against a predetermined number of AI opponents built to replicate the leadership styles of well-known national leaders. It's clear that someone, somewhere will create AI that comes close to replicating a human's decision-making process. While it seems obvious that the likeliest creators will come from Silicon Valley tech or the military, my money is on marketers and the consumer packaged goods sector, as they have the most to gain.
Technology is disrupting almost every industry. And politics is certainly an industry. Almost every part of politics itself is being disrupted by technology, from advertising to communications to voter targeting. The candidate appears to be the lone exception. Replacing the candidate with artificial intelligence may sound insane today, but our species has been brilliantly ceding power to technology for a very long time.
As a starting point, let's consider three technologies that you use today, the elevator (or "lift" in the UK), the passenger jet and the automobile.
If you live in an urban area, you use an autonomous, robotic elevator every day. You push two buttons and trust that an unmanned, robot elevator will hoist you hundreds of feet into the air and deliver you to the correct floor without killing you. There was a time when elevators were operated by humans, but that job was automated decades ago. There are no protests on the streets against drone elevators. You have relinquished human control in this area because you have faith in the technology. People may be stuck in drone elevators now and then, but they rarely die in a drone elevator.
Now let's take flying. We don't need a pilot in the aircraft to fly the plane, but you still want a pilot on your plane. The pilot is in the cockpit, but you know that "autopilot" flies the plane most of the time you are in the air. We have relinquished most of the human control over flying and could relinquish all of it, if we weren't so afraid of our new found flying ability.
E.B. White famously noted that "everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." When he coined this phrase, people used maps, asked for directions and steered the car. We've already ceded the first two to technology and are working on the third. When was the last time you double checked the GPS by looking at a map? When was the last time you asked a human for directions?
Auto companies and technologists are now banking on the fact that you will outsource your car driving to AI. Doing this will almost certainly reduce your insurance rates, reduce
Would you ever vote for an algorithm to represent you in Congress, to manage your city, to be your President?
Could we ever vote for an Abraham Lincoln 2.0 - an artificial intelligence built to replicate the decision making style of one of our most accomplished Presidents?
It sounds ridiculous doesn't it?
American futurist Jim Dator is famous for stating that "any useful statement about the futures should appear to be ridiculous."
Electing a software reincarnation of the man consistently rated as the greatest American President certainly sounds ridiculous. And that's exactly why the idea is worth exploring.
Artificial intelligence is racing ahead. IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess phenom Garry Kasparov in May, 1997. IBM's Watson defeated Jeopardy! trivia stars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in February, 2011. In 2014 "Eugene Goostman," a chatbot created by PrincetonAI, fooled one third of the judges into thinking it was human and controversially passed the annual turing test held by the University of Reading. In 2014 Deep Knowledge Ventures, a Hong Kong venture capital firm, named an algorithm called VITAL to its board in order to augment the group's decision making.
What will AI be capable of in 20 years? In 30 years? Here we have two illuminating clues. First, famous inventor and technologist Ray Kurzweil is working to build a powerful new artificial intelligence at Google. Kurzweil, the author of How to Create a Mind, is now hard at work attempting to replicate a human mind in digital form. Our second clue comes from the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and its June, 2015 report titled "Visualizing the Tactical Ground Battlefield in the Year 2050." Section 2.2.6 is titled "Cognitive Modeling of the Opponent." The report assumes that "a vastly improved capability to understand an opponent and predict their actions will enable a new and potentially disruptive capability in this time frame." In other words, the US military will replicate an adversary's personality and thinking with AI and test strategies against that AI opponent. This is not a new idea. It should be familiar to fans of the strategy game Civilization, in which human players compete against a predetermined number of AI opponents built to replicate the leadership styles of well-known national leaders. It's clear that someone, somewhere will create AI that comes close to replicating a human's decision-making process. While it seems obvious that the likeliest creators will come from Silicon Valley tech or the military, my money is on marketers and the consumer packaged goods sector, as they have the most to gain.
Technology is disrupting almost every industry. And politics is certainly an industry. Almost every part of politics itself is being disrupted by technology, from advertising to communications to voter targeting. The candidate appears to be the lone exception. Replacing the candidate with artificial intelligence may sound insane today, but our species has been brilliantly ceding power to technology for a very long time.
As a starting point, let's consider three technologies that you use today, the elevator (or "lift" in the UK), the passenger jet and the automobile.
If you live in an urban area, you use an autonomous, robotic elevator every day. You push two buttons and trust that an unmanned, robot elevator will hoist you hundreds of feet into the air and deliver you to the correct floor without killing you. There was a time when elevators were operated by humans, but that job was automated decades ago. There are no protests on the streets against drone elevators. You have relinquished human control in this area because you have faith in the technology. People may be stuck in drone elevators now and then, but they rarely die in a drone elevator.
Now let's take flying. We don't need a pilot in the aircraft to fly the plane, but you still want a pilot on your plane. The pilot is in the cockpit, but you know that "autopilot" flies the plane most of the time you are in the air. We have relinquished most of the human control over flying and could relinquish all of it, if we weren't so afraid of our new found flying ability.
E.B. White famously noted that "everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." When he coined this phrase, people used maps, asked for directions and steered the car. We've already ceded the first two to technology and are working on the third. When was the last time you double checked the GPS by looking at a map? When was the last time you asked a human for directions?
Auto companies and technologists are now banking on the fact that you will outsource your car driving to AI. Doing this will almost certainly reduce your insurance rates, reduce