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alexiemyles-blog · 8 years ago

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Multimedia Applications and Tools Assignment: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

This assignment required I research two credible sources on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, of which I found two very extensive literary journals.

The first article, “Moral Decision making Frameworks for Artificial intelligence”, was an introduction to the basic progress and development of AI research from a moral and ethical decision making standpoint; addressing the need for a general framework for AI agents to use when making decisions on moral dilemmas. The article states that in order for successful AI development, moral theories must provide operational, quantitative criteria which specifically dictates the difference between right and wrong (morally); by using an agent language that represents the structure of the actions being judged and the morally relevant features of action with rules about how these features interact and affect moral judgement. The formalism of “game-theory” is used commonly amongst researchers to represent multi-agent decision scenarios, but lack guidance of moral behavior for solution concepts and basic representation schemes, leading to another method known as “machine learning”. Machine learning includes use of moral philosophy and psychology literatures to identify features of moral dilemmas relevant to moral status of possible actions in the dilemma by using human subjects to make judgements and obtain a labeled data set, this is used to teach agents based on data sets and identified features. In the end the article explains how game theory uses pure output as basis for decision making, while machine learning helps see which key moral aspects are missing from game theoretics; all the while creating a complementary paradigm of the two can identify general principles of decision making that humans weren’t aware of previously.

The second article, “Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?”, dove deeply into the question of how big data and artificial intelligence is currently impacting our democratic society and how it is shaping the future of society. The article began with explaining the sheer power and capacity of data information in our current world, but honed in on how algorithms of search engines and recommendation platforms are basing our results on personal and meta-data being collected through every search, purchase, mobile behavior, and social interaction an individual has. Persuasive computing algorithms are used to steer people through courses of action, also known as “nudging” where individuals are being pushed towards certain behaviors by government who is not only watching what we do, but attempting to push us to do what “they” want. Nudging and persuasive computing is being exacerbated by the fact that many countries have a single search engine/social media platform with a predominant market share, thus leading to filter bubbles and social polarization an example being the 2016 American elections. The current widespread collecting and processing of personal data not only restricts one’s freedom of choice, but undermines the American constitution, society, and state; it is invading privacy while taking advantage of psychological weaknesses and reducing individual critical thinking. A solution to this issue could be the use of collective intelligence, which includes citizen science, crowdsourcing, and online discussion as approaches to making more knowledge, ideas, and resources available to increase socio-diversity. So ask yourself, “What can we do now?”... Well, goals are:

-For technological leaders make aims to create new social contracts to see citizens not as obstacles or resources to be exploited it can be ensure technology is designed and used for the benefit of democracy, including an individual’s right to a copy of personal data being collected on oneself with unauthorized use of data being punishable by law.

-Providing education on responsible and critical use of technology based on critical thinking, creativity, inventiveness, and entrepreneurship can lay a foundation for new jobs in the future of digital society.

-Creating participatory platforms making it easier for people to become self-employed, create projects, collaborate, market products and services, manage resources, and pay tax/Social Security contributions.

-Making an open data strategy to increase data availability for science and public use, to create suitable conditions for an efficient information and innovation ecosystem.

-Building a “digital nervous system” run by citizens, providing real time data measurements available to all; including measuring positive/negative side effects of interactions, using feedback loops to influence systems by self-organization, and various incentive/exchange systems available to all economic, political, and social innovators.

-Creating a “Wikipedia of Cultures”/ “Cultural Genome Project” to raise awareness on the value of socio-diversity. Writing provisions of online deliberation platforms to create frameworks of collated knowledge and ideas of multidisciplinary teams, while upgrading digital democracy to give more opportunities to people.

I trusted these sources because of their credibility as educational, peer-reviewed research journals found through the Google Scholar search engine and I read through their lists of references.

Sources:

Conitzer, V., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Borg, J. S., Deng, Y., & Kramer, M. (2017). Moral Decision Making Frameworks for Artificial Intelligence. Thirty First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1-5. Retrieved September 21, 2017, from https://users.cs.duke.edu/~conitzer/moralAAAI17.pdf.

Dirk Helbing, Bruno S. Frey, Gerd Gigerenzer, Ernst Hafen, Michael Hagner, Yvonne Hofstetter, Jeroen van den Hoven, Roberto V. Zicari, Andrej Zwitter. (2017, February 25). Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-democracy-survive-big-data-and-artificial-intelligence/

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alexiemyles-blog · 8 years ago

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Multimedia Applications and Tools Assignment #2: Describe 3 topics covered in the class so far

From the first day of class we began learning the works of technology; how the internet works, social media, proper search methods, and proper forms of credit sourcing.

The first topic I would like to discuss is the way the Internet works, which was covered on the first day of class as a partner activity. My partner and I used these three resources for research:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/internet.htm

https://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3tbgk7

From this we found that the Internet itself is a global computer network used to provide many varieties of information and forms of communication, it consists of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. In order to use the Internet one must use a web browser, which is a software application designated to locating, retrieving, and displaying web-based content; when on the Internet an individual uses the World Wide Web system in order to connect documents with other documents using hypertext links and enabling users to search for information. The two main components of the Internet are hardware (consisting of routers, servers, towers, and cables) and protocols, as mentioned earlier, which are a set of rules the machines follow in order to communicate and complete tasks. Meanwhile there are two specific types of computers, web clients and web servers; web clients are computers set up to make requests, whereas web servers are computers set up to respond to clients’ requests. For data to move from the web server to a web client the information is broken down into millions of “packets”, sent through cables, and then rebuilt on the screen of the receiver, all happening instantaneously. The final and very significant piece of our findings was that the Internet is a giant web of webs with no single owner, source, or control center, BUT each and every individual device that uses the Internet has a unique IP address (Internet Protocol Address) used for sending/receiving information as well as tracking throughout the world; a very interesting concept in my opinion.

The second topic I found intriguing was from the assigned readings through medium.com on how technology can create children who are better learners. At first I thought to myself, “No way, technology is ruining the way kids are learning by making everything way too easy to do,” but then found the arguments in the article to make a valid point. Learning is an active process for people to construct their own new understandings of the world through active exploration, experimentation, discussion, and reflection; and in this day and age computers have the ability to act as a tool and construction material for people. Mitch Resnick, who wrote the article, is a Professor of Learning Research at MIT and created the “Lifelong Kindergarten” research group, as well as the Scratch programming language for kids in order to develop technology for children to help them grow up as creative thinkers. Mitch explains his theory of a “kindergarten approach” for developing tech equipment as a way to foster creativity, design, and experimentation regardless of the goal product; using the image below as a model for the theory.

Image courtesy: “All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten” by Mitchel Resnick (CC-BY)

My final topic discussion involves proper credit sourcing and the differences between fair-use, open licensing, copyright laws, and public domain information while using the Internet. Fair use of information is when an individual quotes, excerpts, or uses part of another’s work for purposes of criticism, analysis, news reporting, teaching, and research without paying or asking for permission from the copy-right holder of that information. Questions to ask may be: “Is this a small part of the original?” “Is it part of review or criticism?” “Is it art or satire of the original?” “Is it being reported on as news or being used to teach?” “Is this part of a research project?”. Open licensing is when creators openly share their work on platforms such as Creative Commons to create mix and match licenses giving other people permission to use, change, and even sell their work; there are four different specific licenses:

1. CC-BY: one can use the work if you give credit to the original creator

2. CC-BY-SA: one can use the work if you give credit to the original creator and share your work in the same manner

3. CC-BY-NC: once can use the work if you give credit to the original creator and do not make money from your work, (i.e.) “Non-Commercial”

4. CC-BY-ND: one can use the work if you give credit to the original creator and share the work without making and changes, (i.e.) “Non-Derivative”

Questions to ask about open licensing may be: “Is there a Creative Commons license or other open license?” “Does it have a ‘remix’ or ‘give credit’ title?” “Does it ask for a donation instead of actual payment?”. Moving on to Copyright principles where the creator owns the work and has claim on all copies. Other people may only use part of the work under fair use principles and in order to do more they must reach an agreement with the copyright holder, which may include paying money. Questions to ask about copyright may be: “Does it come from a company?” “Is it mass media or mass market?” “Did I pay for this?” “Does it say copyright or all rights reserved?”. Finally we reach Public Domain use of information, which must be marked specifically, enabling work to not restricted by copyright laws making them easily discoverable and available to others. These differences between rights to use information are crucial when using the internet for various reasons such as doing research, writing journals/homework assignments, creating media or enjoying media (such as music or photos), and also being critical when viewing different sources of information on the web.

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