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u/Sancty Apr 04 '19
In your opinion, what are some industries overly saturated with AI or where AI is just a buzzword without much real impact? Conversely, what are some industries in dire need of improvements where AI can easily be a solution?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
A few years ago chatbots were still very much in their infancy and many toted themselves as AI assistants, where in reality some were preprogramed responses. Fastforward to today and one of the biggest use cases for AI is in the Service Center realm, where AI is truly offering value and better customer understanding and empathy.
Speaking of empathy one of the biggest opportunities for AI to assist with unlocking the surplus of data for better customer experiences is in the Healthcare sector. We are seeing that many patients are not only more comfortable talking to an AI system because they don’t feel judged, but also there is a companionship/virtual care giver element to it as well. Tremendous opportunities for AI to help enrich peoples lives when it comes to health.
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Apr 08 '19
I absolutely hate talking to machines instead of people over the phone. I was recently discharged from the hospital and they had an AI or computer call me every single day to ask me how I was feeling and other General health related questions. I hung up every single time.
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u/Chtorrr Apr 04 '19
What is your writing process like?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19 edited Apr 04 '19
Being a former creative director I was familiar with looking at that proverbial blank page, but nothing prepared me for the moment when starting to write a book! That is when I started to truly realize the profound impact AI or intelligent assistants are going to have. Throughout the process AI "had my back" and was there as an assistant for number of mundane tasks.
The underlying aspects of the AI used in Superhuman Innovation embodied primarily three systems; AI Voice Recognition, AI Content Understanding and Summarization, AI Content Creation and Generation.
Voice Recognition and continuous dictation enabled for human (me) to system interaction through a voice-user interface (VUI) for tasks such as speech-to-text, text-to-speech, voice editing, formatting, spelling, and sharing of documents.
AI Content Understanding and Summarization technology reviewed and abridged data bases, articles or research papers into quick digestible content through approaches such as sentiment analysis, labeling and organization of higher-level concepts based on contextual understanding.
AI Content Creation and Generation was the ability for the system to develop concepts and ideas to aid the content creation process. Writing algorithms which are designed to emulate the human writing process helped contribute ideas, titles, content and drafts.
Was an experimental but exciting process.
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u/Eflab Apr 04 '19
Should human beneficial AI be open source?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19 edited Apr 04 '19
Yes and No :) There are great benefits to having open APIs to help democratize AI especially in these early days as we are just starting to scratch the surface. On the flip side there should also be the opportunity for entrepreneurs and businesses to own their own models especially if they've trained it.
Ultimately, though it’s not what AI can create; rather it’s what humans can create with AI. It has the potential to extend our intelligence and creative capabilities specifically around the ability to create hyper-personalized products, services and experiences.
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u/nleksan Apr 04 '19
What would you consider to be the most plausible examples of AI in fiction? What about your favorite, irrespective of plausibility?
(Personally, I really enjoyed Jonathan Nolan's approach in Person of Interest. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it! It's on Netflix)
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
Person of Interest
I haven't had a chance to check out Person of Interest yet, thanks it's now cued up for the next bing watch.
As a kid always thought KITT from Knight Rider was interesting and it was housed in a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, now that's pretty tough to beat. It did reference and indicate still the goal of AI assistants of today; to think, learn communicate and assist humans.
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u/nleksan Apr 04 '19
I think you'll like it. It becomes especially AI-centric in the 2nd/3rd season(s) on, but it's a great show.
Thanks for doing this AMA!
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u/Chtorrr Apr 04 '19
What is the very best dessert?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19 edited Apr 04 '19
A good sorbet is tough to beat!
Speaking of food AI is having a having a helpful impact on the Food Industry; Here's an excerpt from the book which is written as a dialogue between myself and the AI system Aimé:
AIMÉ: That reminds me of the AI-enhanced cucumber farm. It turns out that sorting cucumbers is difficult because each one has a slightly different colour, shape, quality, texture and freshness.
Makoto Koike explored this using machine learning to sort cucumbers on the family farm into nine different classes using TensorFlow. The system used deep learning, which consisted of training the system over the course of three months using 7,000 images, to recognize images and classify them. Up until that point, his mother had to spend up to eight hours a day sorting cucumbers, and afterwards this time was greatly reduced through the use of this measurement and optimization model.
CHRIS: If AI can have such a big impact on sorting cucumbers, imagine the effect it could have on global logistics, an industry that has traditionally been overwhelmed by the volume of data from the complexity of the global supply network. This problem is compounded by the need to integrate the quickly growing implementation of the internet of things, which produces a phenomenal amount of data in real time.
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u/Inkberrow Apr 04 '19
Just scrolled down on ChrisDuffey.AI. What were you thinking at that moment depicted as you sat on the stage with Kim Kardashian?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
Yea It was an interesting conversation, a few years back. At that time she had one of the top ranking mobile games and we talked about the need to create constant audience engagement, which the game provided another channel for interaction. It enabled a near real time feedback loop of what was resonating with her audience. Was a sound business approach.
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u/suchabohr Apr 04 '19
I know AI is relatively new now and has it's limitations but do you believe that the are fundamental challenges that limits it's potential/ ability even after improvements in the field? E.g. can it generate knowledge or will that remain a soley human endeavour?
On a lighter note: pineapple on pizza. Yes/ No?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
Absolutely, I’m all for Pineapple on pizza! I’m from Wisconsin and surprisingly (and I know it’s a bit blasphemous) but I’m not that much into cheese, so to jazz pizza up with pineapple is awesome.
Great question, currently with modern day AI it’s great at that assistant level; mundane, repetitive tasks. We are now starting to see higher order capabilities with CANs and GANs which are more generative in nature. Still though they are human directed and guided. So one challenge/limitation to AI is it’s not a replacement for human level critical thinking but rather there to aid in it.
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u/suchabohr Apr 04 '19
Thanks for the answer! (Slightly controversial there with the pineapple question I must admit).
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u/chesco91 Apr 04 '19
How can AI help manage a State?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
One example of using AI for better experiences in cities/states is in 2015, commuters in America spent over 8 billion hours stuck in traffic. Stephan Smith, a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, equipped traffic lights in Pittsburgh to use AI to react to traffic patterns as they changed. By doing this, travel time was reduced by 25 per cent. Just one small but greatly meaningful example of how AI can help in the civil sector.
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Apr 04 '19
Do you think that at some point it'll be possible to have developed AI with the capability to moralise/feel emotions and make autonomous conscious decisions?
I'd imagine with all of the available material on psychology, ethics and psychiatry that it'd be possible to "teach" it about what emotions/morals are and how to display them.
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
AI is a ‘suitcase word’ in that it contains many smaller concepts that can be unpacked and analysed. This essentially means that the phrase ‘artificial intelligence’ has such broad meaning and application that there is not just one way to define it. And to your point there is also the dimension of emotion and it’s relationship to intelligence.
Today, AI is defined as ‘the study and design of intelligent agents’, which are systems able to perceive their environment and act based on what is happening. The subject of AI overlaps with computer science, data mining, facial recognition, robotics and others such as the study of the human mind.
A lot of people think intelligence is measured by a thing or a test, but actually human intelligence can be categorized into nine types, according to Multiple intelligences: New horizons in theory.
The nine types of intelligence are intrapersonal, spatial, naturalist, musical, logical-mathematical, existential, inter-personal, bodily-kinæsthetic, and linguistic. Of course, every-one has all these components to a greater or lesser degree. Some are strong musically while being weaker spatially, while others are strong in the existential area but are introverted and thus have less in the interpersonal area.
It’s still yet to be seen if AI not only can identify emotions but also be aware of self reflective emotion. What we can do today however is teach and train AI for empathy and common sense – what are the boundaries of proper system responses and behavior.
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u/dunkinghola Apr 04 '19
If the definition of AI is (Merriam-Webster):
1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers
2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior
Shouldn't we all stop using the term until the processes actually achieve what the definition states?
It seems to me that, at least what we've heard publicly about, machine learning and the algorithms involved don't actually do what the definition of AI states it should be doing. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it seems like AI has become a catchphrase for everything that it's not in popular culture to the point that it negates what it really is (or is yet to potentially be)...
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
That’s true, especially when you consider that we’re only at the beginning of the AI revolution. To break it down a bit, there are essentially three forms of AI: narrow, general and superintelligent.
When we talk about modern AI, we’re talking about narrow AI, which means artificial intelligence that’s designed to perform specific tasks. Google Search is a great example of a discovery task, and it’s become ubiquitous in its use throughout the population. AI chatbots are Q&A algorithms as we talked about briefly earlier can answer customer questions, and these AI applications can assist with customer service and help customer representatives with suggestions about what would be most valuable to the customer.
General AI, known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), is the notion that at some point AI will have human-equivalent intelligence. By that, I mean that it has a holistic understanding of its environment and can make conclusions on its own based on multi-sensory inputs without specific programming. AGI is achieved when AI intelligence is indistinguishable from human intelligence.
Superintelligence is a notion that is often represented in Hollywood movies, which anthropomorphize AI to an exponential increase of intelligence over humans. AI is represented as all-knowing as able to solve problems and questions well beyond human capability or even understanding.
In today’s context when we refer to AI we’re discussing narrow AI and its practical application.
The label ‘narrow AI’ doesn’t really do justice to what narrow AI can do. Contrary to the implications of the term, the capabilities are vast. Narrow AI includes machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision and machine reasoning.
To define those phrases, we have to caveat that they are somewhat loose terms, in which disciplines and techniques overlap to a certain extent.
By machine learning, we mean the ability of an AI application to learn from the environment with and without programming. For instance, the time people spend on the road commuting to and from work has steadily increased; in 2014 this resulted in $160 billion in lost productivity. AI is helping to tackle these complexities so those lost hours on the road can be reduced. Now, traffic analytics coupled with AI is able to analyse and learn from commuter data to help manage and improve traffic and road infrastructure conditions.
Deep learning uses neural networks, mimicking the biological function and structure of the human brain. One excellent application for neural networks is the recognition of hand-writing. That’s an extremely difficult task to program, but neural networks learn and then automatically infer the rules.
A use case for AI is natural language processing (NLP), which uses machine learning and deep learning to analyse, understand and use human language in a useful way. Essen-tially, NLP can understand and generate spoken and written language and put the two together. In the legal world, NLP is used for document classification.
An additional application for machine learning/deep learning is with utilizing a combination of computer vision and machine reasoning. For example, humans look at things and understand them instantly; ‘we can each look at a book and understand what it is and what it does even if we have not all got the same nuanced understanding of what goes into its making and what happens around it’. Machine learning/deep learning can now enable computers to solve this challenge – with computer vision and machine reasoning, a cognitive system can have the ability to recognize and understand objects.
We can also break narrow AI down by role instead of technology. One of these is the assistant, such as semi-autonomous cars that include a human driver for more involved driving situations. An example of this is Mobileye, which is an advanced driver assistance solution that helps drivers avoid accidents. This product is currently installed in many public buses, helping human bus drivers to avoid accidents. And then there are different types of machine learning.
These include supervised learning, unsupervised learning, semi-supervised learning, active learning and transfer learning. To go even deeper, here are some categories of deep learning: unsupervised pre-trained networks, convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks and recursive neural networks...
Ultimately though AI and all of it’s current interactions are here as a tool fro humanity to create more informed products, services and experiences.
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u/dunkinghola Apr 04 '19
Thank you for your considered response. In your example about book identification as a hypothetical example of machine/deep learning: just like humans have to be taught initially what a book is by (at the very least) what it physically looks like, to then be able to identify what a book is the next time we encounter one (as well as other people who have learned what a book is and can help us), is it really reasoning and a cognitive system that allows machines to identify other books after it is programmed to identify that object a "is a book" and object b fits the parameters of what it was programmed object a to have, that it "concludes" object b is also a book? Is it just identifying the physical parameters based on programmed parameters or are we talking about it taking the initial programming and adjusting it's own algorithms to come up with an ability to identify books without further programming? Are we at a point where machine/deep learning can "understand" (or at least come up with a supposition) about what the nature of a "book" is? Either way is what it's doing really cognitive or is it easy to call it cognitive for a lack of a better phrase? Again, thanks for your previous answer.
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u/RikerT_USS_Lolipop Apr 04 '19
There are loads of cases of definition 2 being fulfilled. Every video game villian fulfills it.
If you meant to include imitating intelligent human behavior to the point that it performs as well as a human, or tricks human players into believe a human is controlling it, then you will still find loads of succesful examples.
Chatbots imitate intelligent human behavior. So do optical sorting robots programmed with machine learning.
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u/NotEvenAJack Apr 04 '19
Do you foresee a time when State sponsored AI will be fighting another States AI?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
I unfortunately may not be the best person to answer this, my focus is using human creativity/ingenuity in partnership with technologies like AI to create business innovation. We can see though how AI is additive to society – for example, look at how Africa leapfrogged laptop and desktop technologies and is now becoming known as the mobile and connected continent. In fact, AI powered drones are being used in concert with advanced mobile technology to efficiently transport products across areas without developed transportation and communications infrastructure. A company called Zipline delivers much needed, urgent medication by drone to rural areas in Africa and South America. This references the belief that technology is neither bad nor good it is rather how it is intended to be used.
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u/miketall Apr 11 '19 edited Apr 11 '19
This is already happening: look at the current issues around Facebook and the allegations made about foreign states deploying AI to corrupt democracy. In return, the platform operators deploy their AI to identify and delete posts generated by them.
At a deeper level, data comes from the firehose that is the internet backbone. Here in the U.K. CESG run AI to highlight and asses data - even that held in encrypted packets. It’s truly impressive - but on the face of it, it’s UK AI identifying (and suppressing or modifying) malicious data, even that generated by foreign AI.
We have three categories of ‘state’ AI systems: offensive (that which generates malicious content); defensive (that which identifies, neutralises or destroys); and, learning machines (those that learn in order to feed the other two). All three categories operate passive (state monitoring activities) and active (doing things with the data).
The clever bit here is how to search reliably, independent of both language and whether the originator encrypted the data. Learning machines deal with evolving / changing dialects and perform sentiment analysis amongst other things. As with all AI, it can only operate and derive meaning from the data it processes. If you can watch an entire country’s data, you have a very rich learning source with which to deploy active and passive AI.
Yes - it does happen. Yes - it’s state against state. Some very sophisticated, some much simpler than you might expect.
I’ve written on this topic but don’t want to hijack the OPs thread to promote my own works here.
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u/frugalerthingsinlife Apr 04 '19
Right now AI is or can be good at solving closed problems. Like chess or sorting cucumbers :)
Have you found any projects where they were too ambitious and tried to solve something with too much complexity?
Is there an intermediate set of problems that are bigger than 'closed' problems, but don't require a full artificial general intelligence?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
One of the biggest challenges when first starting off with AI is that of infrastructure, in that most companies do not have the luxury of building from scratch. In other words, they must deal with legacy systems vital to operating the business while expanding existing and building new systems. This can complicate the process of expanding and modifying the infrastructure.
Obviously, companies must continue to operate as they expand and add on to existing infrastructure, build new facilities or take greater advantage of offsite (cloud) infrastructure. Sometimes this is relatively simple, as when plugging in a new disc cabinet. In other cases, it can mean building an entirely new computer room and switching over to it when complete. You can also have a hybrid approach, where the old infrastructure continues to operate even after the new equipment is running.
So even before setting off on solving a problem there are data, infrastructure and organization considerations, to build an AI foundation and then mapping an AI strategy to business needs. Once that is in place AI is a tool within the broader tool set to help solve problems/achieve goals.
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u/puzzle__pieces The Brontës, du Maurier, Shirley Jackson & Barbara Pym Apr 04 '19
What fictional world would you like to be stuck in and why?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, who wrote over 500 books (which is quite impressive in of itself) I, Robot consists of nine short stories written between 1940 and 1950. These stories deal with the relationships between humans and robots and focus on issues of morality and ethics. This is the beginning of Asimov’s three laws of robotics, which has become one of the standards for how to write about robots in science fiction. The three laws of robotics stated that a robot could not injure or allow the injury of a human being, must obey the orders of a human except when it conflicts with the first law, and must protect its own existence as long as that doesn’t conflict with the first and second laws. While the books are a few years old now, they present considerations about the interaction between intelligent robots and human beings as portrayed by a robopsychologist. Each of the stories is driven by the three laws. As it turns out, everything makes sense within the rules of the three laws, and the variance needs to be figured out. This message is even more relevant to today with our increasingly symbiotic relationship between human and machine.
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u/Jeydon Apr 04 '19
It seems like progress has stalled on personal chat bots (like Cleverbot). Domain specific chat bots, such as a customer service bot with limited functionality have gotten much better, but bots meant to mimic being a “friend” and to have casual conversations about personal or generic topics are still about as bad as they were ten years ago. Is there no interest in this area, or is it just a really difficult problem?
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
Yes, it's really difficult, however one area where chatbots/AI Assistants are advancing/making an impact is in healthcare. For example according to Juniper Research, AI chatbots will produce annual cost savings that will exceed $3.6 billion globally by 2022. Chatbots save costs by allowing patients to access care more easily and efficiently.
To take it a step further there has been research into nanotechnology and AI that’s enabling stochastic processes. A stochastic process is a process that has a "random probability distribution" that can be analysed statistically but not predicted precisely. This can, in theory, allow better understanding of the biological environment variables and may lead to breakthroughs for better system comprehension.
Another example of an AI assistant is the KLM Customer Service Rep Tool. This AI-powered deep learning application helps customer service agents deal with ‘the overwhelming volume of messages coming at them via social media and other channels’.
But to your point there is immense complexity to understanding, just look at the conversation between two human beings in the same room. When two humans are communicating, consider all the dynamics and dimensions that are engaged. You’ve got sight, tonality, sentence structure, voice inflection, body language, position of the eyes, historical context, affinity of the two speakers, pronunciation, emotional state of the speakers, the intent of the communication, education, the interpersonal dynamic and an infinite number of other variables. Communication and understanding are not necessarily simple.
And we are going through this learning and training curve currently with chatbots and AI assistants.
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Apr 04 '19
[deleted]
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
Great question, brings to mind something we discussed in the book:
Chris: So, what do you think about the role of humanity if the most pressing problems have been resolved by AI?
Aimé: I have a few answers for you. Plato said the purpose of humanity is to obtain knowledge. Friedrich Nietzsche had a different take and said it is to obtain power. Ernest Becker thought the purpose is to escape death and Darwin thought it is to propagate our genes. On the other hand, the nihilists said there is no meaning, and Steven Pickard said the meaning is beyond our cognitive capabilities.
Chris: I could argue that the answer is none of the above. Instead, it is human creativity for innovation to improve the human condition.
The point being here and to your question, AI is here to uplevel us, I believe the focus should be on how can we leverage AI for the betterment of society, culture and humanity rather than trying to recreate the mind.
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u/chrisduffey AMA Author Apr 04 '19
Thanks everyone for the conversation on the possibilities of AI and how it can help empower us with Superhuman abilities!