Autonomous State

Book review The Quest For Artificial Intelligence by Nils J Nilsson published by Cambridge University Press Reading time: 2 mins The name Nils J Nilsson is almost synonymous with the quest to develop machine intelligence at one of the most productive research hubs in the US,  Stanford University . Nilsson quickly established his reputation in the 1960s as a member of the team responsible for ‘Shakey’, the ground-breaking robot which captured data from sensors, then planned and executed its own routes around the laboratory.  Nilsson’s career never looked back. Author: Nils J Nilsson Fortunately for those of us who are relatively new to AI and data science Professor Nilsson has written a hugely informative research history.    First published in 2009,  The Quest for Artificial Intelligence  has become perhaps the most highly respected of the many AI histories on the market. Nilsson captures the grand sweep of ideas, from Ari...

Book review What To Do When Machines Do Everything by Frank, Roehrig and Pring published by Cambridge University Press Reading time: 4 mins Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring are senior consultants with US technology strategists, Cognizant .  Their 2017 title, What To Do When Machines Do Everything, presents an upbeat case for a future economy in which artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely adopted. This assessment foresees a medium term net increase of 1% in the total number of full-time jobs, in contrast with the gloomier forecasts of many contemporary thinkers, including Martin Ford, whose 2015 best-seller, Rise of the Robots , predicted the onset of mass unemployment. What To Do… has won many plaudits, including book prize nominations, so it’s worth examining the authors’ contribution to the AI debate.  At just 200 pages, it is brief but also compelling. Authors: Ben Pring, Paul Roehrig and Malcolm Frank Technological revolut...

Book review Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford published by Oneworld Reading time: 3 mins Martin Ford is a technologist and futurist writer with a background in west coast software engineering.  In 2015 his second book, Rise of the Robots , won the prestigious FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, prompting a global debate about its conclusions. Rise of the Robots became a must-read for anyone concerned with the impact of artificial intelligence on society.  In a wide-ranging and well-researched survey of the relationship between technological progress and economic history, Ford extrapolates his logic to paint a disturbing future. Ford argues that, unlike all previous technological revolutions, AI will fail to generate an increase in shared national wealth.  In fact, there will be very high levels of unemployment.   The AI revolution is different, he claims, because of the way it is expected to transform the workplace, undermining the skills...

Book review AI: Its nature and future by Margaret A Boden published by Oxford University Press Reading time: 2 mins   Professor Margaret A Boden is one of the longest-serving researchers in the field of artificial intelligence.  Since the 1960s she has been applying her early academic expertise in philosophy and psychology to the discipline of computer science, becoming inextricably linked with the latter’s quest for machine intelligence. AI: Its nature and future is her attempt to condense not only decades of personal involvement in the field, but the entire research history of AI, from its speculative origins in the 19 th Century through to contemporary debates about the so-called Singularity.  At less than 170 pages this makes for a somewhat  breezy sail across AI's deep and choppy seas.  If you like short reads, this one ticks the box. Boden captures this history with the insights we would expect from someone who was right there in the ...

Reading time: 2 mins The lifecycle of any AI or machine learning product starts with its conception, followed by requirements analysis and then design.  This may sound conventional.  However, many of the thought processes which accompany these phases are relatively new.  So let’s consider some of these new ways of thinking. This article will focus on products based solely on machine learning, because this technology is visibly transforming many of our goods, services and business sectors.   It does not attempt to generalise for the whole AI product landscape.  More research would be needed for that.  Most professional people in the digital sphere, both developers and clients, have built their careers around the implementation and operation of 'traditional' algorithmic software solutions.  Machine learning is different, of course, because it uses unfamiliar architectures offering novel capabilities.  It is this unfamiliarity and no...

This article is taken from a 2009 blog which explored topics in science and technology.  It remains pertinent today due to the high media profile of robotics and autonomous machines. Reading time: 3 mins ‘Social insect’ species, such as ants, bees and termites have recently become the focus of attention from systems analysts and operational researchers. Their interest stems from the fact that insect societies are subject to no centralised or hierarchical decision making, and yet they're synonymous with the construction of sophisticated nests (such as termite mounds), efficient food gathering, and other impressive organisational feats. Termite mounds are built without  project  managers or Gantt charts  (or should that be ant charts?) French physicist, Eric Bonabeau, explained in the Harvard Business Review (2001) that social insect species are successful because of their flexibility (adapting to changing environments), robustness (ability to perform...

This article is taken from a 2009 blog which explored topics in science and technology.  These days we hear little about RFID in mainstream media.  The technology has been absorbed by the much broader debate around the 'internet of things' (IOT).  Nine years on, supermarket checkouts, for example, continue to rely heavily upon barcodes.  Is this another example of an over-optimistic timeline for the adoption of a new technology? Reading time: 2 mins Around five or six years ago, radio frequency identification chips (or 'RFID tags') were technology's hottest topic. RFID signalled the end of the barcode and its replacement with microchipped antennae, enabling radio communications via fixed or hand-held reading devices. RFID tags are not yet ubiquitous In June 2003 Wal-Mart issued an ultimatum to its major suppliers. All products would need to be tagged by January 2005. The US Department of Defense made similar demands in October 2004. These announce...

Reading time: 2 mins Writing in the MIT Technology Review in 2017 ( Is AI Riding a One-Trick Pony? ), James Somers argued that the recent surge in AI developments may have reached a plateau. If so, this would be one of many technological plateaux experienced since the dawn of AI.   These periods of stasis have often preceded the so-called “winters” or “dark ages” in AI’s history.   During an AI winter, research funding begins to dry up and the media, temporarily mobilised by the expectation of daily revelations, take down their tents and withdraw their reporting teams. Are we facing another AI winter? The most recent surge, according to Somers, was the result of breakthroughs in machine learning during the late 1980s, most notably the refinement of backpropagation methods leading to dramatic improvements in real-world applications, such as image recognition. Of course, high performance neural networks trained on terabytes of data are, without doubt, incre...

This article is taken from my 2009 blog which explored topics in science and technology.  It remains pertinent today given the importance of ethical considerations in the implementation of advanced technologies. Reading time: 2 mins The destruction of the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986 is a well-documented chapter in the history of engineering failures.  Maybe  that's unfair. We should probably describe it as an organisational failure within the engineering sphere. Months later it emerged that one engineer in particular, Roger Boisjoly*, had attempted to stop Challenger’s launch in the hours preceding its destruction, due to his concerns for the compromised ‘O’-ring seals. In seeking to override a management team determined to push ahead with the launch, Boisjoly was jeopardising both his professional reputation and the progress of US space exploration in circumstances which seem entirely rational now, but only with the benefit of hindsight.   (* Su...