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Will Knight writes:
No one really knows how the most advanced algorithms do what they do. That could be a problem.
Last year, a strange self-driving car was released onto the quiet roads of Monmouth County, New Jersey. The experimental vehicle, developed by researchers at the chip maker Nvidia, didn't look different from other autonomous cars, but it was unlike anything demonstrated by Google, Tesla, or General Motors, and it showed the rising power of artificial intelligence. The car didn't follow a single instruction provided by an engineer or programmer. Instead, it relied entirely on an algorithm that had taught itself to drive by watching a human do it.
Getting a car to drive this way was an impressive feat. But it's also a bit unsettling, since it isn't completely clear how the car makes its decisions. Information from the vehicle's sensors goes straight into a huge network of artificial neurons that process the data and then deliver the commands required to operate the steering wheel, the brakes, and other systems. The result seems to match the responses you'd expect from a human driver. But what if one day it did something unexpected—crashed into a tree, or sat at a green light? As things stand now, it might be difficult to find out why. The system is so complicated that even the engineers who designed it may struggle to isolate the reason for any single action. And you can't ask it: there is no obvious way to design such a system so that it could always explain why it did what it did.
The mysterious mind of this vehicle points to a looming issue with artificial intelligence. The car's underlying AI technology, known as deep learning, has proved very powerful at solving problems in recent years, and it has been widely deployed for tasks like image captioning, voice recognition, and language translation. There is now hope that the same techniques will be able to diagnose deadly diseases, make million-dollar trading decisions, and do countless other things to transform whole industries.
[...] The U.S. military is pouring billions into projects that will use machine learning to pilot vehicles and aircraft, identify targets, and help analysts sift through huge piles of intelligence data. Here more than anywhere else, even more than in medicine, there is little room for algorithmic mystery, and the Department of Defense has identified explainability as a key stumbling block.
[...] At some stage we may have to simply trust AI's judgement or do without using it. Likewise, that judgement will have to incorporate social intelligence. Just as society is built upon a contract of expected behaviour, we will need to design AI systems to respect and fit with our social norms. If we are to create robot tanks and other killing machines, it is important that their decision-making be consistent with our ethical judgements.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604087/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-ai/
What do you think, would you trust such AI even if you couldn't parse its methods? Is deep learning AI technology inherently un-knowable?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:16AM (6 children)
In some places, human drivers are expected to pass a written test
Where's that?
I'm 68, and I took my first driver's test on a machine, multiple choice.
Not certain passing the test assured any driving skill.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:18AM (4 children)
> Where's that?
Malaysia, for one.
http://www.expatgo.com/my/2012/05/25/driving-test-in-malaysia/ [expatgo.com]
> I'm 68, and I took my first driver's test on a machine, multiple choice.
I suppose you answered via a touch screen or a mark sense card, and you're asserting that that wasn't really writing? All right, but you were still communicating.
> Not certain passing the test assured any driving skill.
Indeed, the page I linked advises:
Some of the questions and answers can be strangely worded, so it’s best to just memorise all of the questions and answers rather than relying on common sense.
(Score: 5, Funny) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:28AM
Some of the questions and answers can be strangely worded, so it’s best to just memorise all of the questions and answers rather than relying on common sense.
Pittsburgh driver's test
2: A traffic light at an intersection changes from yellow to red, you should
a) stop immediately.
b) proceed slowly through the intersection.
c) blow the horn.
d) floor it.
The correct answer is d.
If you said c, you were almost right, so give yourself a half point.
3: When stopped at an intersection you should
a) watch the traffic light for your lane.
b) watch for pedestrians crossing the street.
c) blow the horn.
d) watch the traffic light for the intersecting street.
The correct answer is d.
You need to start as soon as the traffic light for the intersecting
street turns yellow.
Answer c is worth a half point.
5: Your car's horn is a vital piece of safety equipment.
How often should you test it?
a) once a year.
b) once a month.
c) once a day.
d) once an hour.
The correct answer is d.
You should test your car's horn at least once every hour,
and more often at night or in residential neighborhoods.
7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light
but a steady left tail light. This means
(a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn
to call the problem to the driver's attention.
(b) the driver is signaling a right turn.
(c) the driver is signaling a left turn.
(d) the driver is from out of town.
The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign
countries to signal turns.
(8) Pedestrians are
(a) irrelevant.
(b) communists.
(c) a nuisance.
(d) difficult to clean off the front grille.
The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are
totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:41AM (2 children)
If you think a 68 year old took his first driving test on a touch screen I think you're a bit out of touch.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:21AM
I did say "or a mark sense card." And touch screens--then called "touch displays"--were invented 52 years ago.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1049%2Fel%3A19650200 [doi.org]
https://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F00140136708930868 [doi.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:43PM
Well technically he didn't say *when* he took that first driver's test...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:30AM
Of course not. The test proves that you know the rules.
Driving skill: You know how to keep the car on the road at a certain speed.
Rule knowledge: You know to keep your speed below a certain limit even if the conditions would allow for more.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.