MACHINES LOVING GRACE

The complex issues of robotics are presented from many points of view. Readers may be encouraged or disheartened, but the trend seems unstoppable. The issue will be social: how to avoid creating an even greater income gap. The early ideals were that we all would benefit and have more time to keep on learning, relax and enjoy more family and travel. Instead there are is (1) a central group of experts that work extremely hard to keep up with demands to be innovative, (2) a very small group profits from those efforts and shelter their wealth offshore and (3) a growing population segment providing services that are not yet automated, receiving minimal income and inadequate education as those funds are being diminished, and finally (4) an underclass that just cannot keep up and is mired in poverty.Those issues are being hinted in the book, but no cogent plan exists any where that leads to any rebalance

Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots discusses evolution of robotic technology through observed advances in artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation. The author brings into light and contrasts the varying views and opinions of multiple individuals in the computer science realm who have contributed to these advancements.John Markoff is a technology and science reporter for the New York Times, and also a former recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps due to his work in journalism, he focuses mainly on the industry and machines as workers and assisting utilities for workers. Markoff expresses support in the increasing use of robotics in the job industry, though he does acknowledge the negative short-term consequences at the expense of longer-term gains. He emphasizes the implementation of human-centered technologies, in which new machineries are designed in such a way as to aide and work with human users, as opposed to entirely replacing them. The book was published in 2015 and is quite current. Though the author discusses many views and examples from the mid-late 1900s, he also does a thorough job of relating these sometimes-outdated opinions to the current state of the computer science realm. In fact, each chapter itself seemed to flow in a chronological fashion, showing the evolving human-machine relationship over the past 70 years or so. In addition, Markoff also shares and interprets the visions of the future given by many in the field.Much of the book is devoted to discussing or offering examples of the differing opinions and stances of those in the field of artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation, and the collaboration between the two. Briefly, artificial intelligence looks to mimic and replicate human features and functions in such a way that a robot could sufficiently replace a human, while intelligence augmentation looks to design robots in such a way as to optimally enhance human functions in a collaborative way. Though I find the design and creation of artificial intelligences to be truly fascinating, I strongly support the goals of intelligence augmentation. I agree with many of Sherry Turkle’s points, both stated in this book and in her own novel, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, addressing the loss of features of interactions, relationships and developments that make us uniquely human as technology use increases. I am wary, not of machines of artificial intelligence turning on humans, but of the negative impacts that further increases in human reliance on and trust in technology and machines will cause for the future of humankind. The author did not discuss this consequence nearly as much as I would have liked, but instead focused more on the emergence of robotics in industries, and the effects that would be observed for companies, employed workers, consumers, and the economy.Markoff does an excellent job of presenting the work of numerous machine intelligence contributers and voices in the computer science realm, including those of Sherry Turkle and Ray Kurzweil. Additionally, he ties multiple aspects of technology impacts, including discussing the topics of social media, the “job apocalypse” and the movie Transcendence. To anyone interested in the exponential growth of advancing technologies, especially in the work realm, I would highly recommend this book for its insightfulness, its substantial offering of varying views and interpretations, and the authors well-explained means for the future and what may lie ahead of us.

Unlike most books about AI, this one is about more than automation.  In addition to robots, answer-bots, and robocars, Markoff delves deeper, asking, "How will we *use* these smarter computers?"  This leads to discussion of software assistants and better computer interfaces which don't simply replace humans but extend our capabilities and change the way we live with technology of all kinds.Not a book of philosophy, Markoff instead illustrates the changing face of AI-based tech by tracing the evolving professional trajectories of both major AI luminaries and their offspring, many of whom have shifted their focus toward using computers and mobile devices better rather than merely as a future job killer.  A second primary thread throughout the book is IA, or intelligence augmentation, where the innovation focuses more on the *way* a user interacts with machines.  Beginning with Licklider and Engelbart, Markoff traces the rise of innovative computing interfaces (e.g. the mouse and GUIs, Xerox Star, Macintosh, iPhone, iPod, Siri, IBM Watson, and virtual reality), tying IA together with AI into a fusion of novelty which will inextricably interact in years to come.I came at this book after over 20 years working in or at the margins of AI.  I'd hoped it would help me better understand the current state of the field and better anticipate near term job prospects.  It has. Thoroughly researched. Highly recommended.

Great book if you are curious about how we got to today. Covers several historical grounds and elevates individual contributors (including tax payers, thank you DARPA). I wish there was a map listing all the individuals highlighted. It was often difficult to look back and understand where the person of focus dame from or who they were inspired by.

John Markoff knows the scene around AI well. He has been observing and interviewing the important scientists and built up a huge knowledge about AI during the last 40 years. He has been a New York Times reporter since 1988 and set focus on IT technology topics.His book is a well written summary of the history of AI and the key questions which decide our future.The following is my summary -some key messages I have taken from the reading.The main projects are financed and carried out by DARPA, Pentagon, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The outcome is modest. In 2015 the idea of autonomous vehicles without human beings failed.Generally one can divide the world of AI in two parts. First is the strong AI systems where in regards of robotic: robots could move around freely and make their own decisions. The other part is the weak AI. Here, robots are just tools or assisting systems. The system control remains in the hands of humans.Today we have the drones in this debate. should drones be enabled to kill people by their own decision? An ethical and political debated question, still open.This Grande Challenges of autonomous cars developed by German car manufactures like BMW, Audi and Mercedes are gone a first step towards autonomous driving. There are still technological limits and law caveats.In complex traffic situation where several traffic lights are signaling and concurrently policemen with indicating traffic rule orders by hands, the autonomous car has not shown the best behavior. Once AI caused accident the legal trouble occurs. The achievement are assistance systems that servers the human driver for example at parking, secure driving and distance holding in traffic jams.Slow moving is reachable. Google cars driving around on the company area achieve 25 miles per hour. This is reasonable and beneficial in cities where on average the cars are not achieve more than 20 – 30 miles per hours due traffic jams.The competing point is the interface between humans and computers. Today, it is not a single computer, it can be seen as the knowledge in cloud accessing by computer interface.in 2013 BRAIN project by Obama targeted the research on coupling neurons in human brain to an AI machine or AI cloud-based system. We are far away of success, but we can imagine what implication such endeavors can have for the mankind. We must consider ethical frames which we should not leave on the grounds of utilitarian thinking.Marvin Minsky deeply dived into human being thinking. It is highly complex and not just logical but as well full of emotions and embedded in social contexts.Today, machines can displace intellectual labor. In 1990 to 2010 the work force in US increase 21 percent. So, what will be coming in the next two decades? It is certain that we will have a shift from blue collar to white collar regarding the implication of AI or IA assisting systems. Digitalization with AI elements will be more affecting clerks then production workers. We have to assess the chances and the risks related to the nee kind of digitalization.In Keynesian view technology eliminates Jobs, not work. This means we have other work for the humans that production work or administrative work. We need people in health care, elderly care and other service-oriented areas. Often, these jobs are not considered yet, as payable jobs.Nevertheless, there will be a skill mismatch over a certain time. Temporal divergence is always critical for individuals. Re-skilling take time. Who cares for people who get displaced and need training, motivation and integration into new professional tasks?We observed the displacement of jobs during Web 2.0 Digitalization where many clerical Jobs were obsolete due the usage of ATM instead of bank teller or clerks at airports which are redundant with the introduction of online check-in features by airlines.We key question by Wiener in 1964 was: what can be done by machine, what can be left by or to human beings?Some examples describe the AI versus IA Position. In law the law decision must be done by human beings. The preparational work for suits and litigation can be done with AI features – or IA – Intelligent Augmentation features, like e-discovery, scanning documents and searching keywords, analyzing, qualifying documents. This work is better to assign the IA systems then to assign it to one or often many 400 US$ per hour paid lawyers.Limits for AI systems are discovered in Toyota kaizen quality assurance processes. Here, craft and creativity are needed. Robotics are not able to kaizen, only humans. They have the capability to design thinking, context thinking, adapting experience of the past under new changed conditions, out bounding the present horizons.The controversy AI vs. IA is also mirrored by McCarthy versus Minsky.Minsky: Intelligence roots are human experiences not mathematical-logical ways to model the human mind.McCarthy: computers can sometimes reach the level of human capability. In the Dartmouth summer project in 1956, McCarthy coins the term “artificial intelligence” and distancing machine from human behavior with this definition.Marvin Minsky perceives technology for augmenting humans. Human should partner with intelligent machine.The controversy is perceived in this central question:AI machines replace humans or humans use machines to augment the human mind.The dual use technology like we know it from nuclear power which can be used for electricity in a peaceful way or can be used as atomic weapon in a dead bringing way can not be applied for autonomous AI systems. Here we have the threat that the autonomous system removes the human decision entirely. We remain behind as slaves of an artificial master system we have crafted intentionally or unintentionally. So, we should carefully think about the future of AI systems: The future of human mind is on edge. Do we want to support intelligence-based systems which augment our creativity, or do we want systems which take over the human decision making and control our future? Dr. Norbert Wiener warned us for the intellectual laziness. We need to think about changes and risks. What should be done by machines and what must be left to human beings.Limits for AI systems are discovered in Toyota kaizen quality assurance processes. Here, craft and creativity are needed. Robotics are not able to kaizen, only humans. They have the capability to design thinking, context thinking, adapting experience of the past under new changed conditions, out bounding the present horizons.The controversy AI vs. IA is also mirrored by McCarthy versus Minsky.Minsky: Intelligence roots are human experiences not mathematical-logical ways to model the human mind. Marvin Minsky deeply dived into human being thinking. It is high-complex and not just logical but as well full of emotions and embedded in social contexts.McCarthy: computers can sometimes reach the level of human capability. In the Dartmouth summer project in 1956, McCarthy coins the term “artificial intelligence” and distancing machine from human behavior with this definition.Marvin Minsky perceives technology for augmenting humans. Human should partner with intelligent machine.The controversy is perceived in this central question:AI machines replace humans or humans use machines to augment the human mind.The dual use technology like we know it from nuclear power which can be used for electricity in a peaceful way or can be used as atomic weapon in a dead bringing way can not be applied for autonomous AI systems. Here we have the threat that the autonomous system removes the human decision entirely. We remain behind as slaves of an artificial master system we have crafted intentionally or unintentionally. So, we should carefully think about the future of AI systems: The future of human mind is on edge. Do we want to support intelligence-based systems which augment our creativity, or do we want systems which take over the human decision making and control our future? Dr. Norbert Wiener warned us for the intellectual laziness. We need to think about changes and risks. What should be done by machines and what must be left to human beings.

This book opens as a considered history of several individuals in the field of robots/machine learning, though it spends a bit too long justifying why the book is asking a fresh question (don't ask me what the question is, just be sure that while people have asked it before, this book is asking it in a slightly different way)...Then, in the middle of chapter 3, suddenly the book veers off on a tirade against the apparently religious, misguided "Singularitarians". These reviled individuals believe that AI capabilities will run away from humans as it reaches and then exceeds our intelligence through self-improvement (an event known as a technological singularity). According to Markoff, this goes hand-in-hand with an associated religious belief that robotics will have some effect on human employment (depending upon the paragraph, seems they believe it will be good, or they believe it will be bad). But aha! Then Robert J Gordon is introduced, who stands against the Singularitarians and is clearly the good guy of the chapter, in Markoff's opinion. He shows that technology may be bad for employment! Take that, Singulariatarians! Err, ok, so how does that disagree with the Singularitarians? I thought that some of them also considered that technology could make humans redundant? The whole thing smacks of setting up straw men.Is the book being sarcastic? I have no idea. There is too much of a waffle of confused arguments for me even follow who the sides are, and what they believe. I've flicked back and forth trying to piece together what Markoff is getting at.All in all, as an interested person who is not in the field but has a good academic background, I rather expected to get more from this book. I appreciate the detail, which is a more common criticism of the book. That's not the problem. For me the problem is that these details are disjointed and sporadic. Sorry, but this book could really do with another edit.

A great wealth of information on the major and minor movers and sjakers in the computing industry since WW2.Gives brief outlines of the people and their developments from which you can research more if you want to.Does not mention the late Stafford Beer who was the modern father of cybernetics, building on the work of Norbert Wiener