Social and Legal

Implications of Informatics
(OMIS 602)
The Coming Singularity:
The AI Revolution
(Ethical and Social Issues)
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150122-the-secret-to-immortality
 Artificial Intelligence

 Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a set of computer

science techniques that enable systems to perform
tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as
visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making
and language translation.
 Machine learning and deep learning are branches of AI
which, based on algorithms and powerful data analysis,
enable computers to learn and adapt independently.
Finding love in this?
 Artificial intelligence in everyday life
 Face ID
 Social Media
 Sending email or messages
 Google search
 Digital voice assistants
 Commuting to work
 Banking
 Amazon and Netflix recommendations
 Types of Artificial Intelligence
There are four types of artificial intelligence: reactive machines, limited memory,
theory of mind and self-awareness.
• Reactive machines: They lack memory and are reactive. They have no concept of
the past or what happened. Used for simple classification and pattern
recognition.
• Limited memory: This AI contains capabilities to look into the past. For instance,
Self-driving cars do some of this by observing other cars’ speed and direction.
• Theory of mind: This is a more advance AI that not only form representations
about the world, but also about other agents or entities in the world. In
psychology, this is called “theory of mind” – the understanding that people,
creatures and objects in the world can have thoughts and emotions that affect
their own behavior.
• Self-awareness: The final step is to build systems that can form representations
about themselves. That is to build machines that have their own consciousness.
 Early history of AI
• 50s/60s: Early successes! AI can draw logical conclusions, prove
some theorems, create simple plans… Some initial work on neural
networks…
• Led to overhyping: researchers promised funding agencies
spectacular progress, but started running into difficulties:
• Ambiguity: highly funded translation programs (Russian to
English) were good at syntactic manipulation but bad at
disambiguation
• “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” becomes “The
vodka is good but the meat is rotten”
• Scalability/complexity: early examples were very small,
programs could not scale to bigger instances
• Limitations of representations used
 History of AI…
• 70s, 80s: Creation of expert systems
(systems specialized for one particular
task based on experts’ knowledge), wide
industry adoption
• Again, overpromising…
• … led to AI winter(s)
• Funding cutbacks, bad reputation
 Modern AI
• More rigorous, scientific, formal/mathematical
• Fewer grandiose promises
• Divided into many subareas interested in particular aspects
• More directly connected to “neighboring” disciplines
• Theoretical computer science, statistics, economics, operations
research, biology, psychology/neuroscience, …
• Often leads to question “Is this really AI”?
• Some senior AI researchers are calling for re-integration of all
these topics, return to more grandiose goals of AI
• Somewhat risky proposition for graduate students and junior faculty…
What is technological singularity?
 “a moment when machines reach a level of intelligence
that exceeds that of humans”
 The Coming Technological Singularity would signal the end
of the human era.
 As computers increase in power (computational speed,
memory, storage), it has become possible for people to
build machines that are more intelligent than humanity.
 IMPACT OF AI ON SOCIETY
(POSITIVE)
• Jobs
• Automation
• Better Healthcare
• Education
• Better Information
• Better use of resources

Bughin, J., Seong, J., Manyika, J., Chui, M., & Joshi, R. (2018).
Notes from the AI frontier: Modeling the impact of AI on the
world economy. McKinsey Global Institute.
Makridakis, S. (2017). The forthcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI)
revolution: Its impact on society and firms. Futures, 90, 46-60.
IMPACT OF AI ON SOCIETY
(NEGATIVE)
• AI Bias
• Jobs losses
• AI terrorism/Autonomous Weapons
• Filter Bubbles
• Environmental Impact
• Loss of affinity for creation
 Data volumes driving AI
Only AI has the power to
analyze this data to solve
grand challenges and problems 26 billion
guiding our future. 2015/16 IoT
entire
devices
human
44 ZB history 2020
2020,
50x 2010
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
affordable, reliable, everywhere, safe,
inclusive, fair, equal, resilient, sustainable, all ages

ITU WSIS
11 Action
Lines

UN 17
AI SDGs
2015-2030
UN 8
MDGs
2000-
2015
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
affordable, reliable, everywhere, safe, inclusive,
fair, equal, resilient, sustainable, all ages

AI
AI and SDGs
Obstacles to AI SDGs Implementation
• Lack of access to valuable information
• The lack of AI-skilled talents to develop, improve,
and implement algorithms and machines.
• AI will bring a lot of risks.
• AI raises ethical issues.
 AI Impact

Economic, cultural, social, Labour - McKinsey 58%

… endless disruption
of jobs automated

Martin Ford,
Rise of the Robots

Elon Musk, artificial intelligence...

existential threat
Finding love in this?
 Genetically enhanced 'superhumans'
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/health/crispr-gene-editing-human-embryos-kathy-niakan-britain.html?_r=0
Discussion: How ethical is “back-up brain
projects
• Do human beings ever want to be forgotten?
• We paint and write on walls
• We pass on traditions and memory
• Facebook death policy (Memorialized accounts)

• Back-up brain (Downloading human brain)

 AoE: AI of Everything

Is AI creating a digital quake where >

80 percent of companies and jobs will need to change or fail?

What are the implications to society, economic

development, and path to prosperity?

AI technical standards achieve SDGs?

 AI Driven Unprecedented Era
AI of Everything (AoE)-the global AI mesh
spawning a Digital Quake driving the
Knowledge Synthesis of Everything (KSE),
an inflection point
for humankind and the SDGs.
 AI Big Questions?
The Reality:
• Unlimited computational resources and connections
• Pervasive computational thinking
• Whatever the future, it will depend on computing
• Everything is recorded, nothing is forgotten
• Organizational, geographical boundaries disappearing
• Moving towards a master algorithm—universal learner

Digital quake – 2030 80% companies and jobs change?

What are the economic implications?
What is the social impact?
What will the world look like?
What are the intended and unintended consequences?
Is there a need for ICT accountability, ethical conduct, credentialing
which EQUALS professionalism?
Inspired / adapted from assertions from Grady Booch keynote, NSF PACE Workshop August 21, 2014, Washington DC
Topics of Interest

 Societal impact of AI and Analytics

 AI and the future of work

 The role of AI and Analytics in fraud detection and other illegal activities

 Implications of collaborative analytics in a digitized society

 The role of AI and Analytics in social and educational inclusion/exclusion

 Methods, approaches and frameworks to assess the ethical use of AI and Analytics

 Ethical issues related to AI and Analytics

• Strategies (e.g. best practices, policies, and governance mechanisms) for addressing
the unintended consequences of AI and Analytics

https://amcis2021.aisconferences.org/track-descriptions/#toggle-id-4
 Research gaps on the role of AI in sustainable development

• AI safety research needed to keep these systems robust and

beneficial, so as to prevent them from malfunctioning, or from getting
hacked.
• Resilience of society towards AI-enabled changes
Responsible AI
• AI systems act autonomously in our world
• Eventually, AI systems will make better decisions than humans
• AI is designed, is an artefact
• We need to sure that the purpose put into the machine is the
purpose which we really want
Responsible AI
• AI can potentially do a lot. Should it?
• Who should decide?
• Which values should be considered? Whose
values?
• How do we deal with dilemmas?
• How should values be prioritized?
 AI AND ETHICS - SOME CASES
• Self-driving cars
o Who is responsible for the accident by self-driving car?
o (How) Can a car decide in face of a moral dilemma?
• Automated manufacturing
o How can technical advances combined with education programs
(human resource development) help workers practice new
sophisticated skills so as not to lose their jobs?
• Chatbots
o Mistaken identity (is it a person or a bot?)
o Manipulation of emotions / nudging / behaviour change support
 WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT AI
• Autonomy
• Decision-making
• Algorithms
• Robots
• Data
• Learning
• End of the world!?
• A better world for all?
 TAKING RESPONSIBILITY
• In Design
o Ensuring that development processes take into account ethical and societal implications of AI as it
integrates and replaces traditional systems and social structures

• by Design
o Integration of ethical reasoning abilities as part of the behaviour of artificial autonomous systems

• for Design(ers)
o Research integrity of researchers and manufacturers, and certification mechanisms
 ETHICS IN DESIGN
• Doing the right thing
• Doing it right
• Design for values
• Design for all
 ETHICS FOR DESIGN(ERS)
• Regulation
• Certification
• Standards
• Conduct
 Benefits of Responsible AI
• Minimize unintended bias
• Build responsibility into your AI to ensure that the algorithms – and underlying
data – are as unbiased and representative as possible.
• Ensure AI transparency
• To build trust among employees and customers, develop explainable AI that is
transparent across processes and functions.
• Create opportunities for employees
• Empower individuals in your business to raise doubts or concerns with AI
systems and effectively govern technology, without stifling innovation.
• Protect the privacy and security of data
• Leverage a privacy and security-first approach to ensure personal and/or
sensitive data is never used unethically.
 Enabling trustworthy AI
• Principles and governance
• Define and articulate a Responsible AI mission and principles, while establishing
a transparent, governance structure across the organization that builds
confidence and trust in AI technologies.
• Technology and enablers
• Develop tools and techniques to support principles such as fairness,
explainability, robustness, traceability and privacy, and build them into the AI
systems and platforms that are used.
• Risk, policy and control
• Strengthen compliance with current laws and regulations while monitoring
future ones, develop policies to mitigate risk and operationalize those policies
through a risk management framework with regular reporting and monitoring.
• Protect the privacy and security of data
• Leverage a privacy and security-first approach to ensure personal and/or