This year’s Fall Symposium Series (November 9-11) provided updates and insights on advances in research and technology, including resources for discussion of AI policy issues. The symposia addressed topics in human-robot interaction, cognitive assistance in government and public sectors, military applications, human-robot collaboration, and a standard model of the mind. An important theme for public policy was the advances and questions on human-AI collaboration.
The cognitive assistance sessions this year focused on government and public sector applications, particularly autonomous systems, healthcare, and education. Human-technology collaboration advances involved discussions of issues relevant to public policy, including privacy and algorithmic transparency. The increasing mix of AI with humans in ubiquitous public and private systems was the subject of discussions about new technological developments and the need for understanding and anticipating challenges for communication and collaboration. Particular issues were on jobs and de-skilling of the workforce, credit and blame when AI applications work or fail, and the role of humans with autonomous systems.
IBM’s Jim Spohrer made an outstanding presentation “A Look Toward the Future”, incorporating his rich experience and current work on anticipated impacts of new technology. His slides are well worth studying, especially for the role of hardware in game-changing technologies with likely milestones every ten years through 2045. Radical developments in technology would challenge public policy in ways that are difficult to imagine, but current policymakers and the AI community need to try.
Particular takeaways, and anticipated subjects for future blogs, are about the importance of likely far-reaching research and applications on public policy. The degree and nature of cognitive collaboration with machines, the future of jobs, new demands on educational systems as cognitive assistance becomes deep and pervasive, and the anticipated radical changes in AI capabilities put the challenges to public policy in a new perspective. AI researchers and developers need to partner with social scientists to anticipate communication and societal issues as human-machine collaboration accelerates, both in system development teams and in the new workforce.
Some recommended topics for thinking about AI technology and policy are the following:
Jim Spohrer’s slideshare
Noriko Arai’s TED talk on Todai Robot
Humans, Robotics, and the Future of Manufacturing
New education systems and the future of work
Computing education: Coding vs. learning to use systems
Smart phone app “Seeing AI”
AAAI for information related to science policy issues.