Artificial Intelligence Technology
Artificial Intelligence vs Intelligence Amplification
by Jason Chester,
director of global channel programs, InfinityQS
feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” Depending on your viewpoint, that will either be a good or a bad thing.
By focusing on this binary future –
where technology will lead us down either one path or the other – we often miss the important reality that there is a middle ground, where advanced technology (including AI) augments human intelligence and enables us to do what we do with vastly more effective outcomes. While AI has dominated the headlines over recent years, the term Intelligence Amplification (IA) has largely remained unheard of. Yet the term was first coined as far back as the 1950’s (almost as far back as Artificial Intelligence) and is also referred to as cognitive augmentation, machine augmented intelligence or enhanced intelligence. In my opinion, this is where the real action is going to be and where most of the opportunities will come from over the coming decades.
Jason Chester D
epending on which side of the fence you sit, Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents either a dystopian
or utopian future. The dystopian view posits that AI will become a malevolent force in which computers, algorithms and robots will take over the industrial complex and make us, at best, obedient followers who do everything we’re told or, at worst, responsible for destroying our jobs and livelihoods. The utopian view, however, is that it will
turn industrial supply chains into perfectly orchestrated and automated ecosystems, delivering faultless products and services, while we kick back and enjoy life in the garden. To cite one of my favourite quotes by Warren Bennis – “The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to
40 December/January 2020 Components in Electronics
Another way to look at this is to use the autopilot and co-pilot analogy: With an autopilot, we rely on technology to perform specific tasks on our behalf, often with greater efficacy. Today when you fly on an aeroplane, the autopilot is likely flying the plane for almost the entire flight.
Not because some malevolent system has decided to wrestle control away from the pilot, but because they can do the job better than we can. They reduce pilot fatigue and boredom, increase flight safety, and greatly increase fuel efficiency, thus reducing carbon emissions. In the co-pilot scenario, another human being, or increasingly intelligent systems, augments the capabilities of the pilot by sharing the cognitive workload. The co-pilot takes over mundane tasks, provides enhanced awareness and issues critical information and analysis when and where it is needed. We are augmenting our cognitive intelligence and amplifying our abilities. Again, a welcome scenario providing greater levels of safety and efficiency.
Neither of those paints a dystopian or a utopian picture, but instead one where we are leveraging advanced technology to augment and enhance our human capabilities. It’s a logical evolution. Let’s face it, we have been doing it for millennia, from inventing stone age tools to inventing the motor car and the aeroplane. They were all used to extend and enhance our human capabilities. No doubt, some cavemen at the time must have gone on Twitter to decree the axe would be the end of civilisation.
I believe that over the coming decades, we will witness the same evolution take place across every industrial sector, where both AI and IA work in harmony to vastly improve everything from global supply chain orchestration to product quality and reliability. This coalition will be the critical component in solving other industrial related challenges such as sustainability, climate change and social responsibility - not by replacing us, but by helping us.
The last several decades has seen industry move from almost entirely manual processes, to automated processes. This has largely been around electro-mechanical automation. Tomorrow, automation will instead become synonymous with intelligence automation, where just like the autopilot analogy, we work alongside technology to take over many of the repetitive and mundane decision-making processes. It’s already happening in many other sectors, such as financial services, where Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses AI to automate many high volume and/or highly repetitive processes. But unlike industrial electro-mechanical automation of the past, these will be endowed with a high degree of built-in intelligence enabling them to make decisions and to solve problems without human intervention. This will of course displace much of the shop floor workforce as we see it today, and will also change the role of the human workforce. Technology will be used to enhance and augment our human capabilities, enabling us to do what we are good at, only better, such as problem solving, innovating and strategising. Therefore, the industrial setting will not end up as Bennis quips with just a man and a dog, but instead it will become an intelligence-centric activity where AI is used to amplify, rather than replace human intelligence. If we gave more airtime to the concept of Intelligence Amplification rather than AI, we may be able to get past our dystopian fears and accept it for what it is: an evolutionary tool to enhance and extend our capabilities.
infinityqs.com
www.cieonline.co.uk
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