Embracing The AI Robot Revolution
The robot uprising has begun, just not in the way you might think. AI’s impact on the world has so far been subtle and piecemeal, and a far cry from the fantastical concepts popularised by science fiction.
But what our current version of machine intelligence does share with the works of writers like Philip K. Dick is its creeping ubiquity. You might not realise it, but AI is already all around you.
That’s according to Noel Sharkey, emeritus professor of AI and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, co-director of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics and a judge of the Loebner Prize – a real-world Turing test that assesses the ability of AI programmes to exhibit human-like intelligence. “AI is everywhere,” he says. “It’s invisible but it’s there. Consumers don’t even know it, but it’s already in their homes.”
Instead of Star Trek-esque 3D food printers or automaton chefs, we have fancy kettles and microwaves that don’t blow up.
“Your kitchen is full of little AI chips,” says Sharkey.
“They’ve been in microwaves since the ‘80s, automatically stopping things boiling over.” They’re in ovens and dishwashers and thermostats doing things you don’t notice. In other words, they’re behind the scenes taking care of things too boring for us to care about.
So we don’t have doomsday robots. We have devices of convenience. But whether these machines are truly AI is a case of semantics.
“The goalposts shift as to what’s classed as AI,” says Sharkey. “When something becomes used on a regular basis, it becomes a part of ‘software engineering’, and technically no longer AI.” It’s not simply a case of how smart it is.
Of course, different appliances require different levels of intelligence. To simply shut down when a certain temperature is reached is a singular function that requires relatively basic programming – this is known as an embedded system. Something like an automatic hoover is a little more complex.
“These are lovely little machines,” says Sharkey. “They work very well and could be classed as AI robotics: they use sensors to form pathways, have strategies for moving about, don’t repeat themselves very much – which shows that they keep on processing – and find the charge station to get themselves recharged.”
That’s years of complicated research (intelligent hoovers were the brainchild of roboticist Rodney Bookes of MIT – the man behind ‘reactive robotics’) applied to the most mundane of tasks: cleaning your floors. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call them true AI robots,” says Sharkey. They’re smart, sure. But t this isn’t Skynet....
Home AI does move up an intellectual weight class when it comes to the Internet of Things (IOT) – the catch-all category for everyday objects connected to the internet and with the ability to process data. Now everything from your water meter to your dining room light bulbs can talk to your smartphone or a home device such as Alexa or Google Home.
But Sharkey adds that these things are still geared up to take care of the humdrum and the inane. Alexa, turn down the heating. Google, switch on the bathroom lights. So far AI is taking away the need to get up from the sofa and flick a switch.
Convenient? Absolutely. Revolutionary? Not quite.
One area that does spark more interest is transport. There’s plenty of boring features here, it’s used in trains to detect light systems, in cars to tell you about petrol, but some exciting applications as well.
“AI in cars doesn’t just mean autonomous driving,” says Sharkey. “There are things like intelligent cruise control, cars that tell you when you’re too close to another car, even cars that can change lane without having to be self-driving.”
‘Here, Sharkey sees some real potential. “Cars communicating with each other could mean we’ll have a lot less accidents,” he says. “My favourite application is self-drive parking. A car whizzing perfectly into a parking space has obvious benefits. It makes people’s lives much easier.”
And that’s the ambition with today’s AI, taking the effort out of things we can’t be bothered to do. We’re not yet surrounded by walking, talking androids. We instead live amongst intelligent service programmes. Perhaps, the most-dull, and the one with which you’re likely most familiar, is customer care.
“The next time you’re in a chat with a customer service representative, type the question, ‘Are you a Chatbot?’” says Sharkey.
“Chances are you’re talking to a computer programme.”
So in many ways AI is taking over, but it’s currently more iRoomba than I, Robot. There are risks, to data security, mainly, but recently created ethics boards will go some way to ensuring these will always be kept in check. But for now, these intelligent machines will be hoovering and parking your car for a long time before they develop any designs on world domination.
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