Book Review: Artificial Intelligence Perspectives

COMMENTARY & BOOK REVIEW:

The Promise of Artificial Intelligence -- Reckoning and Judgement

by Brian Cantwell Smith

MIT Press 157pages 

2019

I bought the book at the brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble, in Fresno California. [The bookstore appeared well-stocked but the store was far emptier than  expected.]

Introduction-- My Understanding of Artificial Intelligence

When someone hears terms "artificial intelligence" in local parlance, it is often in a derogatory manner. Artificial intelligence (AI) owes its bad reputation to poorly executed tv and movie scripts where talking computers of a prior era could think for themselves. They could do everything but perform mathematical addition, correctly. These so-called, self-aware computers violated a major axiom of artificial intelligence: the computers acted like people and less like machines. Machines can not be self-aware and will not be human-like. 

However, the exceptions to poorly executed mainstream human-like machines are notable. One of my favorites comes from the movie, Interstellar. An AI, known by the acronym TARS, saves the lives of the protagonists more than once -- but I won't say much else. One other notable exception is HAL, the evil AI from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 - A Space Odyssey. While the Kubrick movie is based on Arthur C. Clarke's book, one is hard pressed to find accurate, mainstream media depictions of AI. Thus, give my regards to science fiction depictions of human-like computers. [I am sorry Star Trek fans.]

While in the real world, a notable AI computational technique occurred in the UNIX/Linux computers. It was a faux-psychiatrist. [It was a favorite among many computer geeks. It is found in the terminal emulation program, EMACS]. While not familiar to all new computer hobbyists, the faux-psychiatrist is an interesting application of AI. The faux-psychiatrist utilized the responses given to it from posed questions. It is fascinating, but it is fairly crude to anyone who has experienced a therapist's couch. However a cigar, by any other name, is just tobacco.

The Book At Hand

Firstly, I would find Cantwell's book to be a welcome addition to college level libraries. Moreover, Cantwell's book is a short but rich survey of Artificial Intelligence. What many of us learn - Artificial Intelligence, as it is presently conceived, can not replace humanity. However, it will and can augment humanity's efforts to improve their efforts to make life better for all. 

The book is readable but can be technical. For anyone not familiar with formal mathematics, it is a stretch that all High Schoolers could pick up the book and consume it, at will. 

What is apparent, real AI will usher a new age for humanity. We are at the advent of a great change-- and a good change, at that. Humanity is not advanced enough to create life as AI, but it can make machines that could save lives on a routine basis. I anticipate we will use AI as our master of intricate functions-- an advanced assistant, if you will. It will be so advanced that some will mistake it for human. The major difference comes as it will not possess a soul - a commodity for some and the essence of our lives for others. 

It will not be capable of Free Will. 

If you want to understand what machines may resemble and be capable of in the next seventy-five years, pick it up and read it. I thoroughly endorse it.



Location: Fresno, CA, USA

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