Editor's pick: Artificial intelligence may need to be socialised
You review Trevor Paglen’s exhibition that seeks to highlight how prejudice is tainting AI (12 October, p 30), and Ramon Lopez de Mantaras predicts that bad algorithms will lead to injustice (Letters, 12 October, p 30). We want AIs to be superhumanly smart: to do things that we might never be able to do without them, such as model protein folding or be the best Go player, not caring about how they do it. It doesn’t matter that such an AI can’t explain its reasoning. There are no socially unacceptable Go moves.
We also want them to think like humans, just much faster. For businesses and governments, this means doing what people do, more cheaply. In this case, it is important that they justify, explain and even perhaps teach their reasoning to humans, and that they understand when it is racist, for example, or that the conclusion is socially abhorrent.
We shouldn’t be surprised when AIs are inept at doing things that relate to human society. They are essentially self-taught in a social vacuum, with a target of being no more than statistically accurate at their given task.
Perhaps we will only get AIs that we can trust to be integrated in our lives when they have to learn social rules and behaviour. How about a community of thousands of AIs having to balance their accuracy targets with social rules that they also learn? The evolution of an AI society would be interesting, and might teach us about our own social evolution, past and future.
On how to embrace Extinction Rebellion (1)
Adam Vaughan says that climate activists should be “embraced, rather than condemned” (19 October, p 23). I agree that Earth’s resources need to be managed with regard to climate change. But Extinction Rebellion activists cannot achieve their aims because these are just not realistic, though they do move the centre of gravity of thinking in their direction by highlighting some real issues.
As anyone who has tried to implement major changes in any group of people knows, it takes time for the initiatives to become acceptable and more time to implement them in a sensible and fair way. Why does the group think a fast change in lifestyles and social norms is achievable?
Humanity will only survive when it works out how to balance available resources against population numbers and a way of living it can support long-term. Realistically, this will take decades, and more probably a couple of centuries 鈥� a blink of an eye in the time scale of Earth and its climate.
On how to embrace Extinction Rebellion (2)
I have campaigned for greater awareness of the social and political implications of climate change for at least three decades. I recall reading environmental writer Rachel Carson as a very young man. I greatly welcome the activities of Extinction Rebellion, and was pleased to read Vaughan’s viewpoint.
Throughout those decades, there has never been a year in which a real awareness of the imminence of big problems has been greater, due principally to the activities of this group and people such as Greta Thunberg. With a few exceptions, public reception has been overwhelmingly positive.
As long as these activists can keep the public onside, I predict that their activities will result in the necessary general acceptance of the need to act now.
Vanishing glaciers will be deadly for people in Asia
Your report on vanishing glaciers in the European Alps is alarming, but there is worse news (21 September, p 8). Glaciers in the Hindu Kush and Himalayas are melting at a similar rate to those of the Alps. Most large rivers in Asia – the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow – are fed by glaciers in the dry season and flood during the monsoon. Before too long, they will be diminished or empty in the dry season, with enormous implications for the millions of people dependent on their waters.
BP has, sadly, not taken its own message to heart (1)
Which satirist chose to run Graham Lawton’s column on the non-condition of “eco-anxiety” opposite a BP “advertorial” claiming that it is “making a rapid transition to a lower carbon future” (12 October, p 23)? Could this be the same BP that forecasts will spend developing new oil and gas fields 鈥� none of which would be required if we were to limit global warming to 1.5掳C?
The same BP whose policies Or the same BP that, according to InfluenceMap, to try to policies to tackle climate change? You should stop taking money from the oil companies that are driving the current crisis.
BP has, sadly, not taken its own message to heart (2)
BP makes a clear call for decisive and immediate action. Its group chief executive says: “The world needs to take urgent action… it is critical that everyone plays their part.” Apart from the assertion that our growing world really needs ever more energy, the rest of the statement would, taken at face value, be worthy of applause. But it is a sad indictment that BP hasn’t taken its own message to heart. Its dedication to being “part of the solution” extends as far as promising to of its profit before tax in low-carbon activities.
Far from “changing what it means to be an energy company”, it seems to be demonstrating exactly what being an energy company has been thus far: marketing, spin and maximising exploitation of the oil-based business that is largely responsible for our current and future climate problems. We can only hope that BP starts putting its money and considerable talents where its mouth is, or that its investors take its advice and choose to invest more wisely for the future, for the sake of all our children.
It's a dog's life in odour identification research
Camille Ferdenzi has discovered that each person’s scent is unique (12 October, p 42). My dog tells me that her dog could have told her that, if she had asked.
A whole new set of meanings for big hair
Alice Klein reports on a baseball cap intended to boost hair growth by using a wireless patch that administers an electric current (28 September, p 15). This reminded me of Natalie Salmanowitz describing the Thync device (16 April 2016, p 24). Its small electric current is supposed to boost brain function, among other things. In the future, will we spot people with improved brains by the extravagant proportions of their coiffures?
Galactic brain says resist rocket-powered hyperbole
For Elon Musk to give the name Starship to a rocket intended to go to Mars might be considered something of an exaggeration (5 October, p 5). It is, though, nothing compared with the hype of suborbital hops promised by Virgin Galactic.
For the record 鈥� 2 November 2019
鈥� Couldn’t see the trillions for the billions: the estimated number of trees in boreal conifer forests is 0.74 trillion (5 October, p 34).
鈥� Check, mate: a game of chess is won when one player’s king is in check and they have no way to remove the threat (Feedback, 7 September).
鈥� The equinox is the exact moment when the sun crosses the plane of Earth’s equator. What varies with your latitude is when your day and night are of equal length (21 September, p 51).
鈥� The Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment is a partnership between Northumbria and Newcastle universities (19 October, p 24).