Our real intelligence

We often describe ‘intelligence’ as the ability to perform a task or solve a problem with the greatest efficiency. This understanding is now changing our world — it is powering the development of Artificial

Intelligence

(AI) and ushering in the

Fourth Industrial Revolution

.

Just like steam and electricity preceding it, AI’s impact on societies is transformative, galvanising finance, communications, medical research,

space exploration

and climate science. However, there are also serious concerns around AI.



Worries have grown over job losses occurring as this

technology

is applied across fields. But where employment solutions like retraining and reskilling are possible, there is graver anxiety about the intractable hold AI could gain over our minds. As social media already shows, algorithms can be trained to understand the simplicities and complexities of human beings — and manipulate these, causing extreme views and polarisation. There are also concerns over AI-based surveillance and autonomous weaponry which cannot hear the voices of ethics or empathy.



How can humanity handle this technology, whose ability to do good is as vast as its potential to wreak havoc? The answer could be simpler than imagined. As Times Evoke’s global experts emphasise, it is essential to develop AI with values. Instead of aiming at superhuman intelligence, we need ‘humble’ machines that are uncertain about our desires and modest enough to ask.



Similarly, creating algorithms that can recognise their own biases — entering via the human hands that write these — will ensure no social group is marginalised via technology. And investing in equitable AI, which tells humanity what it really needs to know, such as climate science and epidemic control, is key. Importantly, AI is now inspired by nature, where collective well-being is more important than individual interest.

This principle underpins nature’s most stable and efficient communities and hence, scientists are now studying tiny ants and schools of fish to develop new AI. In this extraordinary scientific journey, humanity might be reminded of its own spirit of cooperation, which once enabled enormous achievements, and forsaking which has caused unsustainable realities. Join Times Evoke on an exploration of a technology which could inspire our real intelligence.